Showing posts with label Louis Ross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louis Ross. Show all posts

September 3, 2009

Hasanni Campbell's Foster Dad Released from Jail

I've watched too many episodes of Law & Order and CSI. It is my understanding that the police and the district attorney work together. I thought that the police didn't arrest folks in high-profile cases without prior approval of the district attorney's office.

Not the case with the Oakland police and the Alameda County District Attorney's office. The DA's office released both foster parents of Hasanni Campbell, a missing 5-year-old boy, saying there is not enough evidence to charge them.

The foster father, Louis Ross, will be released this week. His fiancée, Jennifer Campbell, was freed on Tuesday. Oakland police had arrested the couple last Friday, apparently in the hopes that they would incriminate themselves. But, Campbell refused to talk to investigators. It's not clear whether Ross was cooperative.




In the meantime ... the Lakeesha Alert remains open for little Hasanni. Please pray for him ... and pass along the word that we want him found!

August 28, 2009

Police Arrest Hasanni Campbell's Foster Parents for Murder


Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell, foster parents of missing 5-year-old Hasanni Campbell were arrested today in connection with his disappearance.

Police had been mystified as to how Hasanni Campbell could have vanished from a "crowded business district with no witnesses," according to a police search warrant affidavit.

Louis Ross claims that his foster son vanished from the parking lot of the Shuz of Rockridge shoe store in Oakland on August 10. However, police bloodhounds were unable to detect the scent of the boy outside the upscale shoe store where Hasanni's aunt and foster mother work. Besides scouring the area around the shoe store, police have searched Ross' home, the surrounding neighborhoods and parks as well as a scrap yard in nearby Hayward, Calif., that Ross had visited hours before Hasanni's disappearance.

Hasanni has cerebral palsy and wears braces on his legs.

10 days before the boy vanished, Ross sent an expletive-filled text message to Hasanni's foster mother, threatening to leave the boy alone on a train station platform. Ross said he would look after Hasanni's 1-year-old sister, but not the boy.

"I will watch her but he will be out on the (station) and its your responsibility," said the July 31 text message.
Police say Hasanni's disappearance is still a missing person investigation, but says a homicide investigator is in charge of the case.

VILLAGER's VOICE: It appears that the police feel that they have enough evidence to arrest the foster parents for murder. I haven't felt good about this missing 5-year old since the case first broke on August 10. I suspect it is only a matter of time before one of the two suspects breaks down and tells police where they buried the body. Hasanni was only five years old. Villagers, hug your children tonight...

August 20, 2009

Troubling Text Messages from Hasanni Campbell's Foster Dad

Soulclap to San Francisco Chronicle for updating us on angry text messages from Louis Ross -- the foster father of missing 5-year old Hasanni Campbell.

The foster father of a missing 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy sent an angry text message threatening to leave the child alone at a BART platform just 10 days before Hasanni Campbell vanished, according to court documents released today.

In addition, Louis Ross "voiced some misgivings" about caring for a disabled child when he talked to officers investigating the child's Aug. 10 disappearance, according to a statement that Oakland police submitted to justify obtaining a search warrant of Ross' Fremont home.

According to the police account, Ross sent an expletive-laden text message July 31 to Jennifer Campbell, his fiancee and the aunt and foster mother of Hasanni.

"This is f- over, I will watch her but he will be out on the BART and its your responsibility to hey (sic) him so f - you," Ross texted at 9:50 a.m., police said. The references appear to be to Hasanni and his 1-year-old sister.

Ross reported Aug. 10 that the boy had vanished from outside a shoe store on College Avenue in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood where Campbell was working. Ross said he had briefly left the boy outside when he went around to the front of the store.

Police have searched the neighborhood, Ross' home, a Hayward scrap yard that he visited earlier in the day and local parks, but have not found the boy.

A neighbor in Fremont told police that Hasanni had not been seen for about two weeks before Ross reported him missing.

Oakland police Officer Ross Tisdell wrote in the court papers that the relationship between Ross, 38, and Campbell, 33, "appeared to have some instances of domestic violence."

Police said they had heard reports of a "sword being brandished by Ross at Campbell," but did not elaborate.

A "sword or cutting instrument" were among the items that police sought in a search of his 2002 BMW and the home on Roxie Terrace in Fremont where Ross lives with Campbell and the two children.

Nothing was seized from the home, but Ross voluntarily gave his cell phone to police, court records show.

In addition to the text message, police described an instance in which Ross apparently left the two children alone in the home "while he went to the bank to conduct a transaction."

"He had also voiced some misgivings about caring for a developmentally disabled child during the interview," Tisdell wrote.

Ross, reached by phone today, downplayed any domestic disputes with Campbell.

He said he had sent the text message in frustration at a time when he planned to break up with Campbell.

"It was me venting about a situation in our past that had come back up," he said. "I was ending the relationship at that point."

He said he had not left Hasanni alone at BART. He said he had wanted Campbell to pick up the children, but that she had been unable to do so. The dispute quickly cooled, Ross said.

As for the sword, Ross said he had told police about it and that officers had later returned and picked it up. He said he kept it under a mattress.

"It wasn't a big deal," he said.

Ross has said he is cooperating with officials "100 percent" and that he told the truth when he took a polygraph examination last week.

John Burris, an attorney who has consulted with the couple, emphasized today that Ross has always cooperated with the investigation.

"He's very responsive," Burris said.

The case has been puzzling to authorities in part because bloodhounds could not detect Hasanni's scent outside the Rockridge shoe store where Ross says he left the boy.

In the search warrant affidavit, police said it was a mystery that Hasanni could disappear from "a crowded business district with no witnesses."

There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to the boy's whereabouts. Officer Jeff Thomason, an Oakland police spokesman, said the department still considers the case a missing person investigation. However, a homicide investigator has been put in charge of the case.

Is anyone else beginning to get a bad feeling in their gut about the eventual outcome of this case?