50 minutes of hell

Note: The following article contains information that was found to be untrue. The existence of Kodee and Dan Hennings, and Colleen Hastings was a hoax. 

Click to Read, DE duped in hoax

Michael Brenner
Daily Egyptian

Many in Southern Illinois know Kodee Kennings as the daughter of Dan Kennings, a U.S. soldier fighting in Iraq who left the only member of his family behind in Marion.

Daily Egyptian readers know her as the subject of a May 6 story about her adjustment to life in Little Egypt, the death of her mother and the painful separation from her father. She was also featured in a Jack Piatt Piattology column, a letter to the editor and her own "Kenningsology" columns.

I know her as a girl I have grown to love since writing the May 6 story and someone I have spent countless hours on the phone and in person with. I am not an uncle or a father yet, but she has been like a daughter and a niece at times.

Last Saturday, due to a breakdown in basic human decency, the city of Knoxville, Tenn., almost came to know her as a girl on the milk carton.

I had seen Kodee earlier that morning. She and I went swimming at the Carbondale Comfort Inn before she had to check out and drive to Knoxville with her guardians, Matt and Colleen Hastings. Matt had just secured a new job, and the couple, along with Kodee, were going house hunting in Tennessee.

In the evening, they stopped at the West Town Mall in Knoxville, a name that now lives in infamy to those who know Kodee.

The mall had a usual crowd for a Saturday evening, and Kodee was walking with Matt, talking on the couple's cell phone and trying to keep up. But at one point, she noticed her shoe was untied, so she bent down to tie it, and when she looked back up, she was alone.

In a panic and unable to find Matt or Colleen, she dialed the first number she could find on the phone.

That's when I got the phone call.

I was lounging around with my roommates, watching the end of the Ohio State-Washington State game and basking in the glory of five perfect picks to begin the Daily Egyptian's football prediction season. Through the loud and obnoxious voices of two Daily Egyptian sportswriters, I heard my phone ring. The caller ID said Kodee, which was not unusual. She knew I had free nights and weekends, so it was no surprise I was hearing from her on Saturday night.

But the reason for the call was unusual - and shocking. She was lost somewhere in Knoxville, and to an eight-year-old kid, that is almost as bad as a nuclear war. I told her not to panic because surely someone would help her.

"I've been to Knoxville," I told her, thinking back to visit to the University of Tennessee. "They are friendly people there. One of them will help you."

But I was wrong - dead wrong. Instead of friendly southern hospitality, Kodee was treated to 50 minutes of hell.

I, being naïve and trustful, told her to find the nearest adult and tell her she was lost.

After hearing me say that, Zack Creglow, whom some of you may know as a football beat writer and a weird Irish guy, interjected, making sure I told her to only talk to women - advice that may have saved her life later on.

She came upon a random woman first, screaming, "Hey, lady, I'm lost." She was somewhat calm at this time, but it would not last. The woman, who I now consider a compost heap of a human being, told her to go to security headquarters. Good advice to give to a distraught eight-year-old in a town and a mall she has never been to, huh?

Fresh off a rejection from Ms. Excrement, Kodee moved on to the next decomposing slug puke of a person who refused to help her - a cashier at the nearby JCPenney.

The cashier, apparently mad from a lost child false alarm earlier, told Kodee to go to the back of the store where a security guard surely would be. After all, she couldn't be bothered because customers and their money are more important than lost children.

"She told me to go to the back of the store," Kodee told me. "But I don't know where the back is."

She eventually made it to the back of the store and sure enough, no one was there. She wandered behind the desk and looked around for several minutes, but all she could find was a coffee pot.

I told her to leave JCPenney because no human beings seemed to be present there. Technically they were humans, but I like to think of the human race as kind, decent, caring and intelligent, so I will refer to them as simple primates.

By this time, Kodee was balling up a storm. As she left the store, I told her to scream as loud as she could, and surely someone would help her. She did, and she eventually got someone's attention. But for some reason, the lady thought she was lying and yelled at her - she yelled at a lost child.

I had been on the phone with her for 30 minutes, and she still had not found anyone willing to help her. I knew I could not hang up on her. She was in no condition to be alone, but I had no option but to tell her to hang up on me, call 911 and call me back.

She agreed, and I spent five of the longest minutes of my life waiting for her to call back. She did, and the results were shocking. 911 had put her on hold, thinking it was a prank. Instead of asking where she was or how she got lost, they asked her if she knew the difference between the truth and a lie.

"I know the difference between the truth and a lie," Kodee sobbed. I wanted to cry with her - either that or disembowel the people of Knoxville. I could see the frustration on the faces of my roommates as well as I screamed "They put you on hold!" at the top of my lungs.

Desperately, Kodee wandered back into JCPenney and plead to the cashier, who apparently was employee of the month. It fell on deaf ears once again, and a few minutes later, she was approached by a man who asked her to step outside with him.

Someone had finally noticed she was lost, but it may have been a pedophile or a kidnapper. Wisely, Kodee refused. All she remembers about the man was that he was wearing cowboy boots.

"I just didn't feel comfortable with him," Kodee told me later.

By this point, she was crying in a manner I had never heard before. The pain emanating from her voice was excruciating. She begged me to come to Knoxville to pick her up, which I knew was impossible.

I told her to find some merchandise with tags on them and walk out of the store. Surely then, security would notice. But she would not do it.

"I don't want to go to jail," she protested.

I didn't know what to do. Zack had located what may have been the store in question, and I was ready to rip them a new one. After yelling at them for less than a minute on Zack's phone, whoever was holding my phone and talking to Kodee (I was so mad I don't remember) shoved it in my face.

I said hello, and Colleen was at the other end. After searching basically the entire mall, she had finally located Kodee, and the ordeal was over. But for Colleen, it had just begun.

After screaming unprintable words at the JCPenney cashier, Colleen questioned if she would be able to move to Knoxville after the ordeal - a dispute that has still not been settled.

"I do not want to live in a town where they do not help a crying child," Colleen said.

So it appears to be up in the air if Southern Illinois will have the privilege of knowing Kodee for an extended period of time. But whether she will be here for a week or a year, we should be appreciative of her mere presence because she was nearly taken away by a psycho in cowboy boots.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open. If you are at University Mall and see a crying child - help her! It's common sense and common decency. If I ever hear of something like this happening in Carbondale, I am going to hire a large, neckless man to locate the guilty parties and bludgeon them with any medieval weapon available.

I don't expect it to be a problem. I love this area, and most people here have been wonderful to me as well as to Kodee.

I used to think the same about Knoxville and what turned out to be the myth of Southern hospitality. But with one phone call my respect for Knoxville, along with my naïve faith in humanity, was shattered forever.

Copyright 2009 - Daily Egyptian