Two Girls Charged In Prank Call Case
By SHELLEY HANSONSISTERSVILLE - Two teenagers are facing charges related to a prank phone call that made it sound like a little girl was in dire trouble.
The teenage girls, ages 15 and 16, are students at Tyler Consolidated High School. Sistersville police Cpl. Joey Richardson said Wednesday the 16-year-old is being charged with making a harassing phone call and filing a false police report, while the 15-year-old is being charged with conspiracy to make a harassing call and conspiracy to file a false report because "she told the other girl what to say."
Richardson said although punishment for the crimes is up to the juvenile judge, he hopes they are forced to pay for his 46 hours of overtime and other officers' overtime incurred during the investigation. He estimated the total overtime at 60 hours.
"The older girl's parents acted like it was just a prank blown out of proportion. After listening to the message, they changed their minds about that," Richardson said.
In the fake message left on a woman's answering machine, the voice asks for her grandmother, says her mother dropped her off and shrieks about a man who is "going to get me." The woman came to Sistersville police headquarters on Sept. 28 to play the recording for police. The woman's answering machine captured the call before she could get to the phone.
Sistersville police tried to work with the woman's phone company, Suddenlink, to have the call traced. Company officials said it was impossible to trace the call.
Officers spent many sleepless nights and long days of working their regular shifts in addition to investigating the call. About a week later, Tyler County police dispatch received an anonymous call from a girl who said the phone message left on the woman's answering machine Sept. 28 actually was a prank. The caller's number was traced automatically by dispatch, which led officers to a cellular phone owned by a Tyler Consolidated High School student.
Richardson said during his conversation with the teenagers "they sounded more concerned about getting in trouble." A court date has not been set, he said.
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JohnGalt
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10-23-08 10:15 PM
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As soon as the police started a search and it hit the media, the girls should have come forward and confessed - and admitted it was a prank. When I was a teenager and "pranked", what I did never had the police involved. If it had, my conscience would have screamed to tell my parents. But then again, that was back in the day when the parents' punishment was WORSE than what you got at school.
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SphinxRising58
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10-23-08 5:24 PM
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acousticportal: There was far more at stake than some dollars being lost, as while everyone was out chasing down a fictious person, they could have been needed doing something else in the way of crimminal justice. But of course, you only see the monetary value in this topic, so let's pursue that, as what about the time all them people put into chasing down that call, or looking for a phantom, or do you just expect them to work for free ? If someone said that to you concerning your job ( assuming you even have a job ), they would hear you wailing over in Europe how you was being cheated of earned income & you know it. Fact is, yeah, kids have always pulled pranks, but what them girls did was no prank, it was thoughtless & costly, and that places it outside of a mere prank.
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PowTownLittleOne
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10-23-08 2:28 PM
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If we would stop taking away skate parks, youth centers, and other innocent things for the under-eighteen-crowd to do then we would not have near as much trouble. This is minimal compared to what a lot of the Tyler county youth is doing for FUN!@
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HettysMom
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10-23-08 1:02 PM
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Amen acousticportal. Calls have gone beyond Prince Albert in a can, but there is something to be said about making calls to tie up emergency resources. I also agree with MoundtownEer- they need to learn a lesson but I bet they know by now what they have done.
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acousticportal
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10-23-08 10:57 AM
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This isn't an indication of "kids today". Kids play pranks and have throughout time. Our society has changed...now there's a dollar sign on everything and every service, and certainly someone will be held liable for loss of the almighty dollar.
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kaiserhund
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10-23-08 9:56 AM
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What's the matter with the youths of today. Looks like they have too much time on their hands.
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MoundtownEer
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10-23-08 9:54 AM
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The judge should give them comunity service and scare the heck out of them, but they did not make the call directly to the police so anything more than a slap would be harsh IMHO.
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SphinxRising58
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10-23-08 7:52 AM
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Looks like these two girls are about to get a crash course in reality, which is a good thing as Martha Stewart would say. If someone calls in a prank call & ties up emergency resources, that could mean the difference between life and death for someone else, or property loss at the very least.
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