Crossing Guard Didn't See Somer Monday Afternoon

ORANGE PARK, FL -- One of three crossing guards Somer Thompson should have passed on her walk home from school Monday afternoon didn't see the young girl walk by the day she disappeared.

The Orange Park police officer who oversees the crossing guards says the first two, who were closest to the school, aren't sure if they saw Somer.

The first crossing station is just steps away from Grove Park Elementary, at Miller Street and West Gano Avenue. The second is about a half-mile down West Gano. At the third stop, another 2/10-mile down Gano, the crossing guard "is confident she didn't see Somer."

None of the crossing guards would talk on camera. We tracked Somer's routine walk home from school and it's exactly one mile.

"Coming and going from school, usually there are larger groups of children that are walking together. [They should] keep their eyes open, stay away from cars, stay away from anybody you don't know," Clay County superintendent Ben Wortham says.

Wortham says his heart sunk when he learned Thompson disappeared leaving school. She's 7 years old and in the first- grade.

"Looking at age characteristics, I think maybe an 8- or 9-year-old looking at the judgment of a student 8 or 9 years old certainly would be better than the judgment of a 5- or 6-year-old kindergartner or first-grader," Wortham says.

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