The search for a missing 8-year-old Prichard girl was suspended for the evening in mid-September 2014 and was set to resume the following morning, law enforcement authorities said.
Hiawayi Robinson, 8, had gone missing on a Tuesday afternoon from the St. Stephens Woods Apartments in Prichard, where she lived. According to her family, she was last seen around 4:30 p.m. walking toward a cousin’s apartment in the same complex. She never arrived.
A wide search effort
The response on Wednesday drew volunteers, search dogs and a helicopter from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation to the area surrounding the complex. As of that evening, no trace of the girl had been reported. According to accounts at the time, search dogs alerted to her scent but led investigators to a bus stop she was known to use regularly.
Prichard police, Mobile County sheriff’s deputies and trained volunteers with the nonprofit KlaasKids Foundation searched the heavily wooded area around the apartments. Cars entering the complex were stopped as authorities worked to secure the scene.
The Salvation Army of Coastal Alabama was also present, providing food and water to first responders, according to a release from the organization. The group said it would return at 7 a.m. Wednesday when search efforts resumed — part of the sustained, round-the-clock effort that had taken shape around the case.
Questions of foul play
Prichard’s interim Police Chief Michael Rowland said an AMBER Alert — the emergency broadcast used in cases of a suspected child abduction — had not been issued as of Wednesday evening. Rowland said police had not yet determined whether foul play was suspected in the girl’s disappearance.
“We can’t say it’s a crime yet,” he said in a televised interview.
A search alert with details about the case had been issued, and authorities said a press conference was scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday. The distinction between a missing-child case and a confirmed abduction mattered a great deal to investigators, because an AMBER Alert under Alabama Department of Public Safety guidelines required specific criteria pointing to an abduction.
A community waiting for word
As night fell over the St. Stephens Woods Apartments, the pause in the search reflected the difficult reality facing investigators: hours had passed since the little girl was last seen, and despite a coordinated effort involving local police, sheriff’s deputies, an aircraft, search dogs and national volunteer organizations, her whereabouts remained unknown. Families in the complex and across Prichard braced for the resumption of the search at daybreak, hoping the morning would bring answers.
The disappearance had quickly become one of the most closely watched stories in the Mobile area, mobilizing resources from multiple agencies and volunteer groups as the community rallied around the search for a child who had simply set out to visit a relative a short walk away.