'Good day in Springfield' as police find missing 8-year-old girl

A tense eight-hour search for a missing Springfield girl ended with good news Tuesday morning when police say the 8-year-old was found safe.

Lt. Tony Vienhage said everything started about 1:45 a.m. when police were called out to the Bolivar Road apartments in northwest Springfield for a disturbance.

Responding officers then learned that 8-year-old Rosalee Clark was missing.

Rosalee had been staying with a neighbor while her mother took someone to the hospital, Vienhage said, but the girl never made the 75-foot walk home early Tuesday morning.

After police descended on the area, officers initially believed surveillance video might have shown Rosalee leaving on the back of an adult man. That video is now believed to have been unrelated.

Vienhage said the Missouri State Highway Patrol did not feel like there was enough suspect information to issue an Amber Alert, but Springfield police put information out to the public and searched throughout the night around the apartment complex, which is just east of the intersection of Kansas Expressway and Bolivar Road.

Just before 10 a.m., dozens of detectives from the Springfield Police Department and Greene County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the apartment complex and began knocking on all the doors.

Vienhage said this was not the first time police had knocked on doors, but this time, they found what they were looking for.

Vienhage said Rosalee was located with a neighbor, actually two doors down from the neighbors who had been watching her.

"Rosalee had been at that apartment, it appears, for most of the evening," Vienhage said.

Vienhage said the girl appeared to be unharmed and she was reunited with her mother.

"It's a good day in Springfield," Vienhage said.

As for why Rosalee was at that apartment, Vienhage said those circumstances are under investigation.

Minutes after the girl was found, Vienhage said he could not yet rule out whether anything criminal had occurred.

"It will be a thorough investigation," Vienhage said. "Nothing that I know of at this point in time, but those questions will be asked by the detectives."

Springfield police spokeswoman Lisa Cox said later in the day that officers did not suspect any criminal activity had occurred, but the investigation is ongoing.

Cox said Rosalee knew the people she was with and she went with them of her own accord.

Cox said the search for Rosalee was an all-hands-on-deck situation for the department Tuesday morning, and police also received assistance from the sheriff's office and highway patrol.

Before the girl was found, Rosalee’s grandmother Sharon Martin told the News-Leader she didn’t think her granddaughter would just walk away with a stranger.

Martin said she communicated with Rosalee's mother, who was upset, Tuesday morning as police searched for her granddaughter. Martin later thanked God when a News-Leader reporter informed her Rosalee had been found safe.

Emily Stavely lives in the apartment complex. She said officers went around knocking on people's doors at 3 a.m., to see if they knew anything about the missing girl.

Stavely said there are a lot of children who live in the apartment complex and play outside together in the afternoons.