What took place in Southeast Portland on Friday morning is the kind of case that sends chills down the backs of cops and frightens everyone else.
It started unfolding Thursday night when a 5-year-old boy was reported missing in deep Southeast Portland. That’s always unsettling, but during good weather a kid can wander off.
Not this time. By Friday morning, Portland police said they believed the boy had been kidnapped.
If not for an observant mother who believes God put her in the right place at the right time, the case could have had a tragic and shocking end.
Cheyenne Stallsworth, 27, found the boy.
Stallsworth, who lives in Southeast Portland, was up earlier than usual.
That gave her time to catch a local TV show that featured a story with police asking for the public’s help to find Tra’Veon Lewis, who was with an unknown woman. The story also showed up on her Facebook feed – again with photos of the boy and the woman.
Since getting the initial report Thursday night, authorities had been searching for the pair.
They were always one step behind.
At 5:30 p.m.: The woman and boy were spotted at a gas station near Southeast 148th Avenue and Stark Street.
At 7:25 p.m.: They were on a TriMet bus near Southeast 162nd Avenue and Stark Street.
At 7:53 p.m.: They were on a bus near Southeast 174th Avenue and Powell Boulevard.
At 8:19 p.m.: They were seen walking near Southeast 122nd Avenue and Division Street.
Local, state and federal law enforcement authorities spent the night looking for the pair, pulled photos from a TriMet camera and sent them out early Friday to get more eyes out on the street to break the case.
Where was he?
Stallsworth – herself a mother of a 3-year-old girl – knew.
She works as a cashier at a Troutdale Dollar Tree store and left home near Southeast 130th Avenue and Mill Street about 6:30 a.m., taking her mother’s offer to drive her to work.
Near Southeast 148th Avenue and Stark Street, Stallsworth happened to look out the passenger window and saw a strange sight — a woman pulling a red wagon. When the woman bent down to pick up something she dropped on the sidewalk Stallsworth saw the woman’s blond hair.
“I remembered it from the photo,” she said. “It was so distinctive.”
She then noticed a boy in the back of the wagon.
“His clothes were different from the pictures I’d seen,” Stallsworth said. “He was wearing a big black hoodie, something I could wear, and a big beanie. But that was the boy.”
She yelled. “That’s him.”
Stunned, her mother pulled the car to the curb to see what had her daughter so excited.
“That’s the boy,” said Stallsworth.
She called up the Facebook post on her cellphone. She showed the images to her mother.
“That’s her,” Stallsworth said. “And that’s the boy.”
Stallsworth called police. She couldn’t wait for cops to arrive because she’d be late for work.
During her shift, Stallsworth got a telephone call. A Portland police officer was on the line, telling Stallsworth the boy was safe.
“I broke down,” she said. “A lot could have happened to him.”
The what-ifs haunt Stallsworth.
“What if I was working my regular schedule?” she said. “What if I didn’t leave home just at that time? I wouldn’t have seen him. I believe the grace of God put me there.”
Officers took the boy into protective custody and questioned the woman. Police said other than the woman frequenting the area and occasionally seeing the boy outside his home, detectives have found no connection between the two.
The woman, identified as 31-year-old LeeAnne N. Osborne, was arrested on allegations of second-degree kidnapping and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center.
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