Boy was I wrong!!!!!!!!!!!

[Master Scribe]

After giving PF my location for the Pixie Civil Defense map I said that if something happened here know one would know....

BOY WAS I WRONG !!!

Take a look at the attached link..and by the by she is a neighbor just a couple of houses down

http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2005/03/16/top/100781.txt


Have a good one

Master Scribe
aka Robert

[Lilith]

Wow! How freaky....

[cherrypie7788]

Whew, I'd be PISSED if someone did that to me, working off of a picture that was 15 years old.

More embarrassed than angry my ass.

[Oldfart]

Charles Darwin and I have one thing in common, the Missing Link.

[sodaklostsoul]

:( link did'nt work

[Master Scribe]

It seems they have removed the story for todays news....here is the story sans picture.... thanks to everyone for reading it.




Not America'a most wanted: Johnston City woman caught up in case of mistaken identity

BY JIM MUIR



Johnston City High School food service worker Shelayne Mulkins still can't believe federal marshals took her from the school to Benton, where they questioned whether she was a woman featured on the ‘America's Most Wanted' television show.




JOHNSTON CITY - Right down to the mini-van she drives and the ranch-style home where she lives, Shelayne Mulkins readily admits her life is very normal and routine.

Happily married, the mother of two children and holding down a full-time job, Mulkins, 37, splits her time between home duties, work, church activities and acting as chauffeur for her 15-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. The lifelong Williamson County resident said she envisions her life is much like all Southern Illinois women.

"I get up every morning, take my kids to school, go to work and enjoy my work," Mulkins said. "I come home from work and do the same thing everybody else does - dinner and dishes and kids and homework - and then I get up the next morning and do it all over again."

All that changed recently for the personable Johnston City woman when she spent a harrowing day trying to prove that she really is Shelayne Mulkins.

The odyssey began last Friday while Mulkins was working. A food service worker at Johnston City High School, she has held that job for more than four years.



"It was just another day except that we were short-handed that day and I was working in the back instead of at the register where I normally work," Mulkins said. "Mr. Grant, our principal, came up to me at about 11 o'clock and told me that there was somebody there that wanted to speak with me."

Mulkins said she walked around the corner to find a U.S. marshal waiting for her.

"I walked up and he (U.S. marshal) asked me what my name was and I said 'Shelayne Mulkins' and he said, 'are you sure?'" Mulkins said. "I told him I've always been Shelayne Mulkins. I didn't have any identification on me but I kept telling him that I would go home and get my driver's license but he told me that wouldn't do any good. He just kept asking me if I was who I said I was."

Mulkins said the officer then showed her a picture of a woman who was identified as Michelle Comstock of Tucson, Ariz., who had recently appeared on "America's Most Wanted." The officer told her Arizona authorities had received a tip through the popular television program - a tip that Mulkins was really Comstock, who is wanted on manslaughter and DUI charges.

"They took me to Mr. Grant's office and there were three more U.S. marshals there and they kept telling me that they had received a call saying that I was really Michelle Comstock," Mulkins said. "At first when they were explaining why they wanted to talk to me I thought they meant that this other woman had stolen my identity. Then after I realized what they were saying, I just kept telling them that I was me - Shelayne Mulkins - but they just kept asking me questions, like 'where are you really from?' and 'you have the chance to tell the truth.' Then they told me that I would have to go with them."

Mulkins said the four marshals also told her that if she did not voluntarily agree to go she would be handcuffed and forcibly removed from the school. Mulkins said she has no police record, not even a speeding ticket, but agreed to accompany the officers to the U.S. marshal's office in Benton.

"At that point I was ready to go so I could be cleared of this," Mulkins said. "I'm usually a big crier but I didn't cry, even though I felt like it. I know who I am and I knew that I didn't have anything to worry about so I just wanted to prove it and get it over with."

Mulkins was taken to Benton and fingerprinted, "all eight fingers and both thumbs," she said, and then detained for nearly three hours before officers told her she had been cleared. She was then returned to the school. The entire ordeal, she said, took nearly four hours.

"They told me they were sorry for the inconvenience," Mulkins said. "And nobody was ever rude or mean, but I was very relieved when it was all over."

Comstock was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison after she drove her vehicle through a home in Tucson on Dec. 1, 1991, killing 5-year-old Collin Gunning. Comstock was charged with manslaughter and DUI, her third drunk driving charge, but fled the area one week before her scheduled trial. The jury found Comstock guilty of both charges and the 41-year-old woman has now been on the lam for more than 14 years.

Brent Broshow, a spokesperson with the U.S. marshal's office said law enforcement officers were only doing their job. Broshow said federal officials received a tip that Comstock was living in Southern Illinois and simply followed up on the information.

"It was a warrant out of Arizona and we acted on a collateral lead. We don't know where the lead came from, we just acted on it," Broshow said. "We're obligated to follow up leads like this; we pretty much have to, especially in cases like this where the woman was sentenced to 20 years."

Broshow said locally federal officials did not investigate Mulkins or inquire about her background, but simply acted on the information relayed from Arizona.

"The photo we had of Comstock was 15 years old so that's what we were going off of," Broshow said. "There are a lot of similarities between the two women."

Mulkins said her husband, Billy, who is an employee at Maytag in Herrin, and other relatives were actually more upset about the incident than she was.

"It's a small town and rumors start flying pretty quick," Mulkins said. "Several of my relatives said they (federal officials) could have made a couple of phone calls and found out that I have lived here my entire life, I went to school here. I was already married and had a child when the lady in Arizona ran her car through the house. Everybody keeps telling me that this didn't have to be handled this way."

Marian Martin, Mulkins' aunt, said the entire incident could have been avoided if federal authorities had simply made a couple of phone calls.

'If this investigation had been going on for any length of time, it should have been apparent that she was not the culprit. Had they asked around at the high school they could have settled the matter," Martin said.n;"The custodian at the high school lived on the same block that she grew up on for at least 15 years. The high school secretary was the grade school secretary when Shelayne was a child. There are teachers who teach at the high school who had taught Shelayne in some of her classes when she attended school there. They could have contacted the court house in Marion to verify her birth certificate. She has had a driver's license in this state. I am for law and order, and I don't usually make waves, but isn't this out of line?"

Mulkins said despite the nerve-wracking experience, she was more embarrassed than angered by the incident.

"They took me out of the school in front of the kids, which was very embarrassing," Mulkins said. "I just kept thinking that God had me covered and everything would be all right."

[wyndhy]

sounds like she was very understanding about it all. good for her! mistakes happen and as long as they treated her fairly, i don't believe there should be any repercussions for the marshalls, they were only doing their job, even if it was based on false info. i really was glad to read that they did not treat her roughly.

[Cheyanne]

Well... I would be pissed! :(