As a nurse I immediately thought,   How dangerous… elderly man with respiratory disease on oxygen near a FIRE expected to keep up with impulsive, speedy 2 year old child.

If you ever lose your child in a public place be LOUD. "I'm looking for a boy. 5 years old. Brown hair, blue eyes, orange bathing suit, etc..." Yelling out the child's description will hopefully halt anyone with bad intentions and help others to help locate them.

This is why I don’t judge parents who put a leash on their kid.

One day, after putting my son down for a nap, I went to check on him and he was gone. Bed empty. I panicked. I went WILD. Having no idea how he could disappear from my home while I was there- my safety and sanity were not a thought that crossed my mind whatsoever. After police were immediately called and helped look for him, we found him. Under his bed, under his blanket. Where he’d fallen asleep playing, and then hid because mommy was crying and there were strange men shouting his name. I have never felt so terrified, relieved, and stupid all at once. I remember the officer patting my shoulder telling me he was ok and I was a good mom, but all I could think was “you think I care about that? Thank you for finding him and getting here so fast.”

Can we all take a moment to appreciate how professional, courteous and considerate Derrick is.

I can't speak to how every family will initially react to a situation like this, but my baby brother went missing for about 40 minutes in similar terrain at the exact same age as DeOrr, so I can tell you how my family reacted and how it differed from DeOrr's.

To this day I consider it the worst 40 minutes of my life. I was 13, it was my birthday and my friend and I were playing outside in the VERY rural area we lived. My brother slipped outside and my mom thought he was with us but we didn't even hear him come out. We called the police after about 5-10 minutes of looking. I can vividly remember my mom walking up and down the road along the edge of the ravine looking for him, sobbing hysterically and screaming his name.

Eventually my friend realized she could hear him screaming back to my mom, it was coming from up the mountain. We ran up the steep hill, crawled under a farm gate and followed his voice about 1/4 a mile up to the cow pasture. Thankfully our dog had followed him as well so he wasn't alone, that brought us comfort. The police showed up basically right as we found him.

My mom has never spoken a word about it since that day, but I think of it often when I hear about cases like this. I feel so horrible for anyone who goes through this at all, let alone someone without the happy ending. My initial instinct after not being able to find him after 10 minutes was that someone driving by had abducted him.  So I understand why families often feel that way immediately.

However, I do find it odd in this case that they looked for him so long before calling the police given his age, and especially given they were in an unfamiliar environment. We were literally at our home but because of his age and the terrain we felt a lot of urgency to get the cops out there ASAP- also knowing  it would take a while for them to drive there, like in this case.

I also find it odd how calm his mom sounded on the phone. My mom was completely inconsolable, I will forever be haunted by her voice as she called for him, it truly sounded like a wounded animal.

None of this proves anything of course, as people react differently to trauma, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

About the mom unexpectedly getting her period - not all adults have fully regular periods. Birth control, stress, and hormone changes can also affect this. I know that I've gotten my period unexpectedly, sometimes 2 weeks after accidently forgetting to take my birth control one day (hormones are weird like that, I guess). It sounds completely plausible to me.

Sometimes if a parent feels guilty about poor parenting styles or choices they’ve made that led to something terrible happening to their child, they can act suspicious for seemingly no reason.

Stephanie: “we can’t judge someone…”
Derrick: jaw falls through the floor

Hi Stephanie! You did a amazing video regarding Mandy Stokes about a year ago! I was wondering if you would consider doing a deeper dive about it on your podcast crime weekly in the future. You & Derrick do such a good job and I think it would be great to get her story out there again and have a new set of eyes look at the case. Thanks for your consideration 😊

Derrick's experience shines through. Many of the things he pointed out make complete sense.

I mean this with all the respect possible, Y’all have GOT TO CHILL. When 90% of the comments I see are about “Stephanie’s attitude” I think a lot of you are forgetting why we’re here.

Derrick went out of his way to ask that everyone stop commenting on their relationship & things said between them because they’re friends with a pick on type relationship, and to focus on the cases, and people continue to act like she abuses him in the comments. My lord, this is about a two year old child who went missing!

Reading some of the things said, does not seem like criticism. It truly seems like a lot of you JUST DON’ T like her. They are actual friends off the internet. Why do you all feel the need to act like he’s a small child who can’t defend himself? I don’t get why a lot of you are even here if you dislike her this much.

the surprise period coming is not suspicious to me--it happens to me all the time. i have an irregular period and even tracking it doesn't always help, it'll show up like two weeks after the last one, and then it won't come for a month and  a half 🤷‍♀

So, in the interview, it honestly reads to me as self-soothing, like he's reassuring himself that the absolute best people are looking for his son, more than anything else. Like, he's panicked, so he's just repeating over and over that there are talented people looking for his son and they're doing everything they can, if that makes sense. Like a mantra.

I lost my child for literally a minute in JCPenney and the sinking feeling in chest while I was calling for him and he wasn't answering was terrible. I never want to feel that way again.

“ A LOT WORSE situation than THIS”?!?! IF MY child were to go missing, there IS NO worse situation!!

If you ever lose your child in a store or business, please tell an employee immediately! Most big corporate places have special protocols for these situations where we lock all the exits and all employees stop what they’re doing to find the kid. We would check fitting rooms, the back of the store, restrooms, etc. in case the kid was hiding somewhere. With all employees helping, the kid was usually found within a minute or less so the parents weren’t panicking for too long.

-Former target employee

My daughter used to hide in her closet at night and sleep in there like a little clubhouse but my husband never knew so one day when he had off of work and he went to get her for breakfast he seen she was out of her bed and he yelled at me that she was missing from her bed. Even though I knew she would sneak into her clubhouse/closet at night it still made my heart drop into my stomach and time feel like it had stopped. She heard her dad yell so she came out and hugged him so he wouldn’t be scared anymore.
It’s scary even for a second to think that your baby is missing.

MOM DAD...stop fighting, it's making us feel uncomfortable😆

Being in law for so long, I appreciate Derrick’s professionalism and strengths 🤙