Georgia Woman's Hunch Pays Off

On Jan. 15, 2006, Tracie Dean had a gut feeling that just wouldn't go away. It started when she visited an Evergreen, Ala. convenience store on her way home to Decatur, Ga. Inside, Tracie saw an adorable little girl playing in the aisles with a red cowboy hat, and  something about the child gave Tracie pause.

As Tracie was leaving the store, she saw an older man with the little girl who also got her attention. Tracie became suspicious and as she drove away, jotted down the license plate number on the older-model SUV the man was driving. But even after Tracie drove off, that little girl's image stayed with her and compelled her to act.

Still feeling unsettled, Tracie called 911, but police told her everything checked out and that the man Tracie saw was, in fact, the little girl's grandfather.

But, still, hours later, Tracie couldn't stop thinking about the tiny girl with a red cowboy hat. For days, Tracie perused websites dedicated to missing children, called several law enforcement agencies and then called America's Most Wanted.

Tracie told AMW that she thought the child she saw in Alabama might have been an Ohio girl who disappeared in 2004, leading AMW hotline operators to immediately contact the detectives on that case. Unfortunately that lead didn't pan out, but that didn't stop Tracie.

Days later, Tracie drove back to that Alabama convenience store looking for the surveillance tape of the little girl she saw. As Tracie pored over images from the store's surveillance system, an Alabama police officer walked in the store, took the tape and found out where the man and small child were living.

As it turned out, Tracie's suspicions were right-on, and what cops found when the went to the family's trailer was disturbing.  When police questioned Jack Wiley and Glenna Faye Marshall about the two children living with them, they discovered that the couple's stories didn't match.

Authorities picked up the man and the woman on charges of providing false information. But, upon further investigation, police found enough to charge Wiley and Marshall with multiple sex crimes against the 3-year-old and a 17-year-old boy found in the trailer. Now, Wiley has been charged with rape and sodomy, while Marshall is in custody on child abuse charges.