Banika Jones sat hunched over on her couch, wrapped in a blanket late Friday, watching the news with a dazed look on her face as the story of her 2-year-old daughter's disappearance played out before her.
"I still can't believe this is happening. I just want my little girl back. Can somebody tell me who has Bacon?" she asked, using Bianca's nickname.
[...]
"We're probably in this for the long haul," said Police Chief Ralph Godbee, who said police are using every investigative tool they have to locate the little girl.
Lane was still being questioned by police late Friday and was being cooperative, Godbee said.
When asked if Lane is a possible suspect, Godbee said, "Everybody is a person of interest."
Bianca Jones' great-aunt, Sally Dillahunt, 48, can't fight the nagging feeling that there's more to the story surrounding the little girl's disappearance.
"I'm thinking and I'm hoping and I'm wishing that there's no foul play but something doesn't sound right," Dillahunt said.
[...]
Banika Jones said she hasn't been in contact with Lane, who allegedly told police he was driving the car with the child in it when someone from another car told him the car's tail lights were broken, pulled out a gun and took the car with her in it, Stephens said.
Melissa Isaac, 30, was walking her children to the school bus stop on Glendale Street near 14th Street just before 8 a.m. when she saw Lane drive by, though she didn't pay attention as to whether any children were in the car. One of Lane's daughters is in her son's second-grade class at a school in Highland Park.
Erica Nevers,
one of Jones' aunts, said several things are troubling to her about the story.
"It don't make no sense that he would stop the car a few blocks away from (Jones') house," Nevers said. "And nothing was taken from the car and the car was only a few blocks from where it was taken?"
Nevers said her family took Lane in when he was a teenager. Eventually he and Jones became a couple and she got pregnant. Though the two are not together now, he was very involved in Bianca's life, Nevers said.
[...]
"The most important thing right now for us is to locate 2-year-old Bianca Jones," Godbee said. "A safe return is of the utmost importance to us."
Banika Jones, meanwhile, keeps thinking she's going to wake up "to see Bianca poking me with a straw and asking me for a fruit cup."
A $5,000 reward is being offered to anyone with information that leads to an arrest.
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