ORLANDO, Florida (Isabelle Zehnder reporting) -- With guns drawn Orlando Police SWAT Team officers were seen raiding the home of missing Orlando mom, Michelle Parker’s ex-fiancé’s parents home Saturday.
Michelle was reportedly last seen dropping her 3-year-old twins off at the home police raided, which is where their father, her ex-fiancé Dale Smith lives.
Dale Smith, Sr. owns the home that is located on Rose Boulevard, two-and-a-half miles away from the volunteer center set up at Oakridge and South Orange Avenue in the area where Michelle’s cell phone was last detected.
Neighbors told Central Florida News 13 that SWAT team officers tear-gassed the house and removed Smith, Sr. from the house in handcuffs.
“Roughly 12 guys piled out, banged on the door, yelled ‘search warrant, search warrant,’ and basically took everybody out of the house,” neighbor Don Partin told ABC News.
Police, who have said Dale is not a suspect, said no one was arrested in the raid.
“All we know is that Michelle was not found in the home,” Michelle’s sister, Lauren Erickson told ABC News. “Police are doing their job to the fullest and looking at all possibilities.”
A friend of the Smith’s spoke with ABC Action News briefly Sunday afternoon and said, “How would you do after you got your house busted into?”
Asked if Michelle’s ex-fiancé, Dale Smith, had anything to do with Michelle Parker’s disappearance the friend said, “Did he what?” She repeated the question and he responded, “Negative, no, not one bit.”
Police have not said why they raided Dale Smith’s parents’ home. Michelle’s mother, Yvonne Stewart, said she was encouraged to see action in the case.
“When I found out it was a family member of the ex-fiancé I absolutely – my heart just pounded out of my chest because, you know, to this day they haven’t even called me once to say ‘Yvonne, we’re so sorry for your loss, we wish we could help.’ Not one phone call from that family which tells me a lot about their character,” Yvonne said.
Orlando Police Chief Paul Rooney said in a news conference Monday that Dale has been named the primary suspect in her disappearance.
Yvonne said during the news conference, “If you could have avoided this Dale, if you had cooperated with the police and took a polygraph test when they asked you, you could have avoided a lot of stress. So unfortunately,” she said, “you brought this on yourself. We’re not going to stop until we find out who did this.”
Rooney said Smith “simply refused” to take a polygraph test when it was offered to him.
“Dale, honestly, if you’re out there, honey, and you’re listening to me, I have always said from day one – it’s okay if couples fight,” Yvonne said. “If you made a mistake, it was just a second of, ‘Oh, I lost my head,’ or whatever and you didn’t know what to do … our family needs to have Michelle home. We need to heal.”
Michelle’s sister also sent a message to Dale: “Help us. Help those kids. It’s the mother of those kids. You loved her at one point.”
Rooney said he didn’t know if the children were with Dale and would not comment if police plan to arrest him.
Michelle's disappearance:
Michelle Parker, 33, went missing Thur., Nov. 17. She was last seen on surveillance video at 3:15 p.m. in an east Orange County neighborhood. She was seen driving to her ex-fiancé, Dale Smith’s home dropping off their 3-year-old twins.
Moments before she arrived, Michellea and Dale had just appeared on a previously taped episode of The People’s Court. The show centered on who would be responsible to pay for a $5,000 engagement ring that Michelle admittedly threw at Dale at a hotel, and that went over a balcony.
The two had a tumultuous relationship. CNN reports that in 2009 Michelle reportedly obtained a temporary restraining order against Dale, citing and incident in which Dale broke the window of her car, threw car seats onto the ground, cursed at her, and told her, “Your day is coming.”
Even though there is a trail of violent incidents in Dale’s past, Michelle’s mother told WFTV she believes her daughter was the “victim of a random crime” and doesn’t think Dale was involved. Because Michelle’s car was found in a mall parking lot they believe she might have been the victim of a car-jacking. This was her belief before Dale's father's house was raided.
Michelle is described as a white female with short brown hair. She is 5’6” tall and was last seen wearing a silver-cross necklace, jeans, and a Florida Gator’s zip-up hoodie.
At 4:26 p.m. her brother, Dustin Erickson, received a text message from Michelle’s iPhone suggesting she was in the Waterford Lakes area, also on the county’s east side.
By 8 p.m. Michelle’s iPhone pinged in the area of Oakridge Road near Belle Isle, more than seven miles from where she was last seen. Her phone was powered down in that area and has not been recovered.
The next day police found her black H3 Hummer license plate AWG-M26 in the parking lot of Walden Palms Apartments, 4700 Walden Circle. Decals for her Glow mobile-tanning business had been removed from the windows. From there the trail has grown cold.
A $50,000 reward is being offered in the case.
Police are urging anyone with information about the case to call Crimeline at 1-800-423-8477.
Readers' comments are welcome below.
Follow this National Missing Persons news writer:
Comments