In 2019, four children rode their bikes and helped a dementia patient wander from Roseville, California’s care facility.
The children—Logan Hultman, 10, Hope Claiborne, 11, her brother Kashton Claiborne, and Makenna Rogers—jumped into action after hearing police officers in a helicopter announcing the 97-year-old woman’s disappearance.
According to the Roseville Police Department Glennetta Belford was last seen at 4:05 p.m. on that day. She is “mostly non-verbal” and tends to “hide or hunker down in a location.”
Logan claimed that they were playing outside when they heard police asking for help to locate the woman.
The group then took their bikes and began to search the area near Cooley Middle school. Logan fell from his bike and they had to return home. While they were eating dinner, Logan was helped by his brother.
That’s when Logan’s mom, Alyssa Hultman, learned about their mission.
“Even after Logan took a fall down a hill, the kids went back … out and were very determined. They told us that they are going to be the ones that find her,” she said.
When they returned to the road, they searched near their neighborhood, which Logan said is close to Belford’s facility. The children saw a woman walking about and checked a photo to confirm it was Belford.
“She was right here and she was walking and she was talking to herself. And then when we came, she said, “No, no, no. Go away, go away, go away,”‘ Kashton recalled.
Hope, the oldest of the group knew what to do next. She called 911 to report that they had found the woman missing.
Roseville police officers arrived quickly on the scene. The young sleuths saved the day!
“That’s when the police came and, well, they took care of everything else. We were very excited, very happy,” Logan said.
Authorities praised the local residents who came out to help look for the woman but gave a special shout-out to the children turned “junior detectives” who actually found her.
“This is a great example of our exceptional community coming together to lend a helping hand,” the police department wrote in a Facebook post. “This proves a great point, age is just a number and anyone can help out in a time of need.”
Reporters asked the children if they wanted to start their own detective agency.
After some discussion, Makenna answered for the group, saying, “there’s no price on helping.”
Hope and Kash’s father, Daniel, said he couldn’t believe it when he first heard the news.
“I doubted them [when they told me they were going to go find her],” he said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, go have fun, be safe on your bikes,’ and they were like, ‘No Dad, seriously, we are gonna find her, we’re gonna get our friends, we’re gonna find her.’”
Alyssa Hultman said she was “really proud” of all the kids for volunteering to help in the search.
“It shows a lot of their character and the type of people that they are,” she said. “They just made the choice as a group to go and help someone and I think that’s really cool.”
She was prouder when her son answered her question about why they were helping in the search.
“He looked at me like I was almost crazy and said, ‘Because somebody needed help, mom. You should always help people who are in need. That’s what we do.’”
These kids are amazing! The video below explains more about this story.
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