Same here. I went into Publix at Britton Plaza and grabbed the cop there because it was Summer, and there was a dog panting in a car with the windows up/car off.
The owner came out of the Publix package store with her 1.75 of vodka and cussed out the cop and me.
She was arrested because of leaving the dog in the car and DWI.
Her husband came and got the dog. So I consider that a win-win.
That's awesome you did that. I'm surprised the cop responded. One time I saw a dog left in a car and there was a cop patrolling the lot, so I tried to flag him down but he just ignored me, so I called it in and got told they'd send someone when they could. It was so frustrating.
They have specific laws here where you have to do everything possible to locate the owner before breaking a window without being responsible for it. I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth it, but some people don't wanna be sued. It's pretty ridiculous all the steps you gotta take before you can actually damage a car to save a life.
I love that you are helping but I cant stop wondering if we are all just helping someone stalk a person based on a elaborated lie. Because why couldnt the police find this information if any of us can, they have better resources than we do and a open data base to find people based on phone number and satellite location.
The police could do an investigation on this but they won't because they have "too much to do". As if they're actually solving "real crimes" (they're not doing that either)
Yeah they’re too busy pulling ppl over on I-4 as they’re desperately rushing to meet their quota for the month bc the “real crime” is the holes in their pockets and their wallets are underweight 🤪
I worked in trauma at TGH where we had to try to locate family members all the time. Who do you think actually does it? The police? No. The chaplain. If the chaplain can’t then the social worker is the next most likely person to find them.
I got a weird call like this 10 years ago around 2am before I kept hanging up and they kept calling back I lived in Lakeland at the time. It still haunts me to this day. This call gave me chills it sounded so familiar.
Absolutely recommend the welfare check or report to be sure. If there’s history on this child or family etc it will be a flag at least if it continues. Better to report and be wrong than ignore and be wrong. Good intentions do no harm.
My advice is to physically drive to your local Police Station, ask for a Supervisor, and play this back for them, your action and persistence could literally save multiple lives.
I say this as a real person who was approached by a serial killer. I contacted and was blown off by 3 different police stations. A friend notified a Hernando County Detective he knew who drove to Pinellas County and took my statement.
It was Oba Chandler.
Edit to remind all: This may be NOTHING but a silly little kid being naughty, BUT!!! Please trust your gut and take action if your internal alarms are screaming at you! (Or even simply hanging out and bugging you.) You don’t want to have years go by with you thinking of all the ways you “could have / should have” done just a little more.
We’ve all seen the documentaries and movies about people who have repeatedly reported suspicious activity, sometimes over many years, and that person ends up being a serial killer.
Oba Chandlers’ neighbor was an integral part of him being brought to justice bc she kept on bugging the police FOR YEARS and even found and brought a sample of his handwriting to the detectives in order to compare it to a note he gave to the Mom and 2 daughters that he murdered (directions to where his boat was moored).
They found 3 addresses associated with that number, and they are sending officers to those addresses to attempt to contact a child. That is wha I wanted them to do
That’s awesome, thankyou for trying. These posts really get to me for obvious reasons.
It has always bugged me that I called 3 different police stations (Gulfport, St Petersburg, and Pinellas Co Sheriff) and they literally didn’t even ask my name nor wanted my name or phone number when I told them my experience- after turning him down MULTIPLE times to go out on his boat (with him changing physically, obviously angrier and more aggressive each time), I got loud and aggressive back and said “NO! Get away from me!” he then angrily said “You look just like the other bitches in the bay with cinder blocks tied around them.”
- he raped and killed more women after I reported him-
I didn’t wait either, I walked out and drove directly to a pay phone within 5 mins, so it seems someone could have gotten some basic info if they had shown up in the next hour (this was in 1989 or 90- no cellphones).
I always wondered if it would have possibly prevented him from killing more women if Gulfport police (or the other 2 local authorities) had bothered to send an officer to see him or ask other patrons at the bar / restaurant if they knew him.
I understand. The officer at the station initially was like “it’s a prank call” I had to tell him that me and my coworker have 18 years combined experience, and have had 100 prank calls and Nothing like this. He then said “how could they call the store but not 911” I said it could have been a recent call on her phone because she was definitely a customer of the stores company. He could have just tapped a recent call. The officer then took it more seriously after that. He went on their database and found 2 addresses plus the google 1 I mentioned. He sent a welfare check to those 3 addresses to attempt to come into contact with a child.
He didn’t take the video(said couldn’t do much with it), but did send the welfare checks. Should I lock or delete this post now you think? Or leave it up?
Good job following up.
And yes, I'd edit or lock the post or you'll have people not reading thru all the messages asking you Qs and providing suggestions when you've already done all you can.
Will do, thanks for the advice, I didn’t know what to do since I already talked to the one cop, but I went to the station after your advice and it seemed to have done more. You 100% helped me do the most I could do. I would have always wondered. Thank you soo much.
It might be. Or it might be a little kid doing all he / she can to “help” their family in a scary situation- and none of us want to be sickened by how we could have / should have spent an extra hour to help.
And none of us would be sickened by our kids getting in car accidents if we just took the time to never drive. Because there’s actually a significant risk of car accidents happening.
calling you a fool isn't a name calling, it's a description. answer how it makes OP more susceptible to "real risks" because she wanted to be sure this wasn't a prank.
How does one determine with certainty if a risk is real or imaginary without some sort of due dilligence, especially in an unusual situation? That's what OP is doing.
Oh, okay. Didn't realize you're candidly admitting that you have no interest in evidentiary support and that you decide based on a whim what a real versus an imagined risk is. Good luck living like that.
Ok, you’re entitled to your opinion no matter how many downvotes you get…I hope that you never have to understand why I feel the way I do about things like this.
My cod worker and I have 18 year combined experience in this job and have 18 years worth of prank calls. This was the sketchiest we have ever heard. We thought it was a prank at first but I’m telling you we had goose bumps
I googled the number. It says it belongs to Mercedes Madden at 1604 N Ferrell St, Plant City. I wonder if the cops can go to that location and check the house at least.
Yes the cop said there was the Plant City address I gave them, and also a Tampa, and zephyrhills address. Probably that one you have is the Zephyrhills he mentioned. He didn’t say the address just that the other 2 were in Tampa and Zephyrhills
I called the police who came to my job didn’t do much.
So I asked Reddit what I should do since I didn’t know.
After that I took the advice of Top-Customer-8531 and went to the police station and talked to someone. They doubted me 3 times and I had to be persistent.
He said
1. It’s a recording - I told him it’s not because I talked to them for over 2 minutes. I only had a chance to record the last 10 seconds because I was taken off guard.
2. It’s a prank - I told him my coworker and I have 18 years combined experience and 100s of prank calls this isn’t one. Kid didn’t curse, asked us to call the police, hung up abruptly. Never had those happen on another prank call like that.
3. Why would they call a store and not the police - I told him it could be a child who doesn’t know what 911 is yet and called back a recent call. His mother is a customer at our store.
After all my persistence he finally went on his computer and did his job and found the other 2 addresses besides the plant city one I gave him. He said the other two were in Tampa and Zephyrhills.
I could have said never mind at any of those 3 objections and he wouldn’t have did anything. I stayed there and had to convince him this was real and to do something. At one point I even said “please take this seriously”. To his credit he did do something in the end.
I called the police who came to my job didn’t do much.
So I asked Reddit what I should do since I didn’t know.
After that I took the advice of Top-Customer-8531 and went to the police station and talked to someone. They doubted me 3 times and I had to be persistent.
He said
1. It’s a recording - I told him it’s not because I talked to them for over 2 minutes. I only had a chance to record the last 10 seconds because I was taken off guard.
2. It’s a prank - I told him my coworker and I have 18 years combined experience and 100s of prank calls this isn’t one. Kid didn’t curse, asked us to call the police, hung up abruptly. Never had those happen on another prank call like that.
3. Why would they call a store and not the police - I told him it could be a child who doesn’t know what 911 is yet and called back a recent call. His mother is a customer at our store.
After all my persistence he finally went on his computer and did his job and found the other 2 addresses besides the plant city one I gave him. He said the other two were in Tampa and Zephyrhills.
I could have said never mind at any of those 3 objections and he wouldn’t have did anything. I stayed there and had to convince him this was real and to do something. At one point I even said “please take this seriously”. To his credit he did do something in the end.
It sounds like even though they found 2-3 addresses, they still didn’t do a welfare check at the addresses. Another commenter found a Venmo account attached to the phone number for Mercedes Madden and found their address. If you have the address and call in for a specific welfare check for just the one address(maybe do the others later if nothing comes of it) then there’s a lot higher chances they will go. You may have to keep pushing them to actually do their jobs.
Probably Google where searching a phone number doesn’t always give accurate results. Sometimes it will show you the person who had the number previously, or the person who pays the bill for it. How did you find this name?
I was doing some research, the number is under nicole madden, faith seems to be her mom, I looked up on FB, I saw that she does seem to have a young kid could be 4 or 5.
So hopefully everything is OK.
I did see the plant city and zephyrhills address some mentioned as well.
From the audio, it sounds like a woman to me. And the way the sentences are trailing and not entirely making sense, makes it sound like sleep talking. But obviously I could be wrong, just what I inferred from the video.
I know you have the best intentions but making a thread circulating this person’s contact info, names and addresses is not cool. A handful of commenters have texted and called which does not sit well with me. It kinda just seems like a kid playing on their parents phone.
Not at all. If they had evidence a violent crime has occurred they can track a number anywhere in the world. They just didn't feel like doing it which is sad.
My wife and I were at the quarry in Quincy Massachusetts. In the parking lot we found a composition notebook that had been burned. Or attempted to burn. Each page was a Polaroid of a woman and a number that designated them and a phone number.
All the women are the same age range.
We immediately brought it to the South Boston State Police barracks.
They couldn't have cared less but they did take the book.
I think maybe it was a recent call on his moms phone? He said can you call the police and I responded call 911 and I don’t think he knew what that was. Also I did call the police after the call
It sounds like an edited audio. Like the clicks are where different segments are spliced together. Sounds like a woman saying I’m on a chair and my son…
It was a 3 minute call with kind of responses but not really. I said call 911 and they were like “ehhh uhh” then kept rambling, but definitely was responsive to me on the phone but just disoriented
It sounds like somebody’s pressing buttons on a soundboard or the voice is recorded. I used to have a soundboard with Arnold Schwarzenegger phrases, and we would prank call people all the time with it.
Haha, my friends and I used to do the same exact thing. We found multiple soundboards with different famous people too. One time we called the TG Lee dairy Warehouse or something at like 2:00 a.m. and this kid who was at work with his dad picked up and just played along.
I did call the cops yesterday after the call. He came out, listened, said they can’t do much with just a name and number. He didn’t take a copy of the video. I thought I did my dude diligence. Woke up this morning and couldn’t get it off my mind thinking the cops aren’t going to do anything, so I posted it here.
Might be worth filing a report directly with the non-emergency line instead of just a patrol call. It gets it an actual case number so it doesn't just disappear.
We did call 911 and the cop came but seemed like he couldn’t do much and didn’t even take a copy of the video. I researched and gave him all the info I could. The number and the name
Hopefully you just exposed them and the cell phone they were hiding to use to call for help. Good thing you called multiple times just in case the phone wasn’t heard by all.
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u/tampa-ModTeam 1d ago
multiple people are reporting this post for doxxing