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Reunion remains a case of unknowns By Mark Freeman CENTRAL POINT � A teenage girl was reunited Sunday in Veneta with her family, 15 years after she disappeared from Springfield in a strange missing-child case cracked in part with help from a Central Point police detective. Fallon Marie Hodges, who allegedly was taken by a baby-sitter as a 3-year-old in a 1985 incident never reported to authorities, was returned about 10:30 p.m. Sunday to Eveleen Strempel, a former Central Point resident who last saw her daughter in 1985, police said. Hodges wandered into a sheriff�s office in rural Persian County, Nev., and told authorities she did not know her true identity, police said. Through old birth records checks, investigators were able to link Hodges to Strempel, who had lived in Central Point until last month, according to police. On Friday, Central Point police detective Michael Wojack then found Strempel in Veneta, setting up Sunday night�s reunion. "There were a lot of emotions, and the girl seemed to be happy," said Sheriff Ron Skinner of Persian County, where the girl had been living the past month. "It�s a pretty remarkable story," Skinner said. "We�re calling it a successful recovery of a missing child." Skinner said whether Hodges� case turns out to be classified as a child-abduction or child-abandonment case was not known Monday. Authorities in at least two states started digging into her past. In an era where missing-child reports prompt intense media interest and all-out searches, police were baffled Monday over what circumstances led to little Fallon getting raised by her former baby sitter the past 15 years. The FBI on Monday began probing the case, with the first order of business trying to determine whether any crimes have been committed � and even how to label a case that one FBI agent called extremely rare. "At this point, we really don�t know what we have," said Mike Morrow, the FBI�s supervisory senior resident agent in Eugene. Morrow, who used to investigate child abductions and serial killers as part of a special FBI unit, said "only a handful" of the thousands of cases handled by that unit resembles the case of Fallon Marie Hodges. Despite the oddities, re-uniting a mother and daughter has an incredible upside for investigators. "Usually, we have to break the news that the child is dead," Wojack said. "But a case where the child is found alive, that�s great. (Strempel) was screaming for joy when I called." Hodges had been living in Washington with Marcella Whitehead and a man named Roland Homenyk. Then the pair left her in Lovelock, Nev., a small town about 90 miles northeast of Reno, according to police. When the pair left, they told Hodges that they would contact her once they were safely away and tell Hodges about her true identity, police said. After waiting a month, Hodges went to Skinner�s office and said she needed help finding her identity, Skinner said. Hodges was able to tell police that she believed that she once was called "Fallon," that she thought she was born in October, and that she believed she had a twin brother named Dustin, police said. Hodges also told police that she�d lived with Whitehead and Homenyk since she was about 3 years old, that she had never attended school or visited a doctor. Using the unusual name, police searched vital statistics records and found a Fallon Marie Hodges who was born Oct. 17, 1982, in Eugene, police said. From there, they traced Strempel to Central Point, where Wojack began searching for Strempel and found that she had moved to Veneta, just outside Eugene, about a month ago, Wojack said. Strempel did not return telephone calls Monday seeking comment. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.