Mother Still Believes Hailey Dunn was Abducted

“I think some stranger came in and took her,” said Billie Jean Dunn Tuesday afternoon. “That’s been my gut feeling from the beginning”.

She added that her daughter, 13-yearold Hailey Dunn, could not have been coerced to get in a stranger’s car. “She had to be forced in.”

“I told her not to leave the house that day, but she did. She could have been walking to a store, or to play basketball,” Billie Dunn added.

The girl was reported missing since Dec. 28 and has been the subject of an intense search effort by law enforcement officials and private groups.

But one of the groups, Hailey’s Angels, drew the ire of the mother during a Saturday evening event termed an appreciation dinner for searchers.

“KlaasKids and Laura Search Group didn’t know about it and apparently weren’t invited,” said the mother. “We just heard about it and just went. None of our family was invited.”

It was held at the Snyder American Legion, and according to Billie Dunn, focused primarily on the group Hailey’s Angels.

“It was all about them and not much to do about Hailey,” she added. “They showed pictures of themselves at Dunn, in creek beds and out in fields. There was not much about Hailey. They even showed off one of their group’s BMW. “There were kids in there crying (at the American Legion) and there was drinking going on,” she said.

She said she and her former husband, Clint, were singled out by one of the organizers of the event, Freda Radcliff, as they were leaving after viewing about only 15 minutes of the slide show.

“She confronted us about leaving saying she had spent two days putting the slide show together. She also told me that she goes out everyday looking for my daughter and that I haven’t searched yet. But what she doesn’t know is that I just can’t go looking for Hailey in creeks and fields,” she added.

“That dinner could have been a really nice thing, but it turned out horrible. I just wonder why it had to be on a Saturday night at a bar.

She added that Hailey’s Angels had been invited to join KlaasKids in the search “at least a dozen times,” but have refused to join.

“I used to try to defend them, but I can’t anymore,” she said.

She added that the group also became crossways with her because she hasn’t been able to provide money for gas.

“I wish I could give everybody gas money, but I haven’t worked in a month and a half. There is an account set up at City National Bank (in Colorado City) for the searchers, but I don’t know anything about it,” she added.

“I wanted to set out jars or something to raise money for the searchers, but then I was told about the account so we didn’t.”

This weekend, she and her ex-husband will be in Dallas to address a human trafficking awareness group.

“This should help spread the word about Hailey even further, and there will be a web page set up known as hopeforhailey.com.

“There won’t be any blogging where people can talk trash. This will be the only Internet site where you can get mine and Clint’s exact words, and we’ll keep it updated.”

She says she is still in touch with law enforcement officials, but not on a daily basis.

“I call every now and then and they all tell me they’ll let me know if there is anything big,” she said.

She added that she and her former boyfriend, Shawn Adkins, do “hang out together. “We find comfort in each other and he, along with Clint, love Hailey and want her back safely.”

Adkins is the only named suspect in the disappearance.

“But I know Shawn had nothing to do with Hailey’s disappearance,” she added.