Okay, this is quite an unusual thing for me to post. Certainly this is just one of bazillions of missing children out there, and really the only reason this girl was brought to my attention was a forwarded e-mail asking for help in finding her. The wording of the e-mail sounded very hoaxish, but, not wanting to make the same mistake I made with Elizabeth Smart four years ago (when I automatically assumed a forwarded e-mail about her disappearance was a hoax and deleted it), I did a bit of research to find out the full story.

The basic summary that I learned is this: Reachelle Marie Smith was 3 years old and living in Minot, ND, under the custody of her aunt, when she disappeared on May 16, 2006. Her aunt's roommate, Leigh Cowen, became the prime suspect, since it was discovered that he lied about taking her to her mother in Kansas, but police found him dead in his van from an apparent carbon monoxide suicide, just outside Minot on May 23. Police investigators continued to search a wide area around the spot where Leigh Cowen was found, but after months of searching have wound up with no leads.

There's a pretty good description of the facts on the Snopes.com page (which contains a copy of the e-mail that was forwarded to me), and it contains links to some news articles:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/missing/reachelle.asp

Doing a broader web search mostly pointed to the same articles and a few other sites like TruthOrFiction.com that basically confirmed the same facts, plus a couple of more recent articles:

8/29/2006: Doghandler continues search for Minot child
8/31/2006: Hunters asked to become searchers

What I find interesting is that it seems like the investigators are completely focusing on looking for a dead body in the immediate area, and there's no mention of investigating the possibility that Leigh Cowen handed Reachelle off to somebody else just before he killed himself. But of course, that doesn't mean that there's no such investigation. After all, the police and FBI probably wouldn't want the kidnappers to suspect they're onto them!

So anyway, this is where I come in. Now that I've gathered as much information as I could in a short time from behind my internet connection, I'm passing this on, asking for your prayers and your help in finding this girl. If she's still alive, then she could be anywhere by now, not just North Dakota. Realistically, there's not much of a chance that this will do any good, but I figure I might as well post this, since I took the time to gather the info.