your welcome Linda, I hope they find her so her family can have closure. You are such a good person for helping out.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/southeastvalley/tempe/story/Tempe-PD-2-investigations-involve-missing-baby/xgsbK2cK80iD5ZWBC0ifjg.cspxTEMPE, AZ -- Police confirm to ABC15 there are two, separate, yet parallel investigations involving the disappearance of 8-month-old Gabriel Johnson.
A team of detectives are working a missing persons investigation and a homicide investigation at the same time because it is unknown if boy's mother gave the child away or killed him.
Tempe detectives have also released photos taken of the baby boy who has been missing since his mother left Tempe with him in late December.
Tempe Police Lt. Mike Horn said in an e-mail that the pictures were taken from Elizabeth Johnson's camera when she was arrested in Miami Beach, Florida nearly two weeks after the pair went missing.
Horn told ABC15 a group of investigators from the FBI, San Antonio Police Department, Maricopa County Attorney's Office and other agencies are actively involved in the case across the country.
Johnson was indicted by a grand jury Thursday.
Horn says investigators believe all the photographs were taken at a Home Gate Hotel and that the last two photos have a date stamp of December 26.
Johnson was indicted on charges of kidnapping, child abuse, custodial interference, and conspiracy to commit custodial interference.
Well known TV show, America's Most Wanted, featured the Gabriel Johnson case, but Horn would not discuss any tips generated by the publicity, only that investigators continue to get tips and are using every means possible to get information.
Officials say Johnson fled the state with her son during the week of December 22 in an apparent custody dispute.
Tempe officials confirmed that on Thursday night detectives searched the home of a Scottsdale couple considered 'persons of interest' in the case of missing 8-month-old Gabriel Johnson.
On Friday, Jack Smith said police took his laptop computer and made a copy of his business computer's hard drive. He said they also took brochures they had for a foster agency.
Jack Smith said he had "a hard time understanding" the timing of the police activity at his home.
"If they had got here at 6 in the morning, they could have had coffee with me and spent the day with me," he said. "But yet, they had to keep my daughter from going to bed last night until midnight. My daughter is always in bed before midnight."
He said police arrived around 7:30 p.m. to secure the home until the search warrant arrived. Smith said detectives began searching around 11 p.m., finishing around 1 a.m.
The Smiths say they offered to allow police search the home weeks ago.
"Let me tell you how worried I was," said Jack Smith. "I fell asleep on the couch."
Tempe Police Lt. Mike Horn discusses the case
The search warrant came just hours after Tammi Smith voluntarily met with Tempe detectives for more than two hours Thursday.
As she walked out of Tempe Police Department Headquarters, Smith could be heard saying, "That was rough."
She went on to talk to reporters and quickly admitted that she played a role in manipulating paperwork with Elizabeth Johnson, the mother of baby Gabriel.
"I made a poor decision back when I met Elizabeth," said Smith. "I helped her (Elizabeth) file her paperwork so she could get her child support and things like that. There was another name put on there and I helped her (Elizabeth) fill out that paperwork, and because of that it obviously doesn't make me look good."
The name on the paperwork was apparently Craig Cherry, Tammi Smith's cousin, which prompted Tempe police detectives to look into the possibility Cherry was Gabriel's father.
When contacted by phone Friday, Cherry said he does not blame Tammi Smith for helping Johnson use his name on the paperwork, suggesting he was a "potential father" of Gabriel. He said he believed Tammi Smith was trying to protect the baby from his biological father, based on what Johnson told her about him.
"Instead of putting a false name there, I helped her (Elizabeth) put another name," said Tammi Smith.
With her husband, Jack, waiting nearby, Tammi went on to say she and her husband do not have attorneys, but were considering calling one.
While the Smiths are labeled "persons of interest" in the case by Tempe Police, Elizabeth Johnson is considered the prime suspect in her son's disappearance and is not cooperating with detectives.
Police released several photographs of Gabriel Friday, which they said were taken in Johnson's San Antonio motel room and were found on Johnson's camera.
Logan McQueary's family has been keeping relatively quiet about the case, his father Frank McQueary spoke out about the case Friday, asking the public for help finding his grandson.
He asked people to keep an eye out for, "that next door neighbor buying stuff for a baby and they didn't have a baby before. Let somebody know."
He said the family is confident Gabriel is alive, despite phone calls and text messages from Johnson to McQueary saying she had killed the baby and that his "blue" body was in a diaper bag in a dumpster.
"The people that have Gabriel don't want to give him up, that it's somebody that Elizabeth for some reason or another has this arrangement with, that they want to keep him, and we want him back," said McQueary. "I want my grandson back."
Officials say Tammi, who had wanted to a adopt Gabriel, spoke to Elizabeth Johnson in jail Wednesday.
Smith said she is confident that baby Gabriel is still alive after meeting with Elizabeth Johnson.
According to Smith, Johnson left the toddler with an unknown couple in San Antonio, Texas on the day after Christmas.
She told reporters after the meeting that "according to Elizabeth, these people are going to try to hide this baby because they believe that in a few years nobody will notice who this baby is."
Smith also said Elizabeth told her the couple came to Elizabeth's hotel room in Texas with a new car seat, placed Gabriel in the car seat, and abruptly left.
"She did definitely describe the people and what they look like, they're definitely in San Antonio, she (Elizabeth) did sign paperwork, but they did not notarize it or anything like that," said Smith.
According to Smith, Elizabeth also told her during the nearly 45-minute jail house visit that the couple did not "buy" Gabriel and the man and woman were both white in their 30s.
In the meantime, police say a reward of up to $5,000 is being offered for the safe return of the Tempe toddler who disappeared with his 23-year-old mother last month.
The reward is being offered through Crime Stoppers in San Antonio, Texas.
Anyone with information about Gabriel can call Crime Stoppers at 210-224-STOP or online at
http://www.sacrimestoppers.com. Johnson was arrested last month in Miami and according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, she was booked into an Arizona jail on charges of custodial interference and kidnapping.
Her cash-only bond is set at $1,100,000.
The Tempe Police Department is leading the investigation. According to spokesperson Steve Carbajal, investigators believe Tammi and Jack Smith have undisclosed information that will lead them to baby Gabriel Johnson.
"We should have been persons of interest from day one," Jack said. "We are persons of interest. We were probably the last people to see Gabriel before he left town."
The Smiths had apparently tried to adopt the 8-month-old from mother Elizabeth last month, but Gabriel's father, Logan McQueary refused to sign the adoption papers.
"When Gabriel disappeared, they said basically, if you really care about your son and you want him back, and you want Elizabeth to bring him back, that you'll sign the paperwork and then she'll bring him back to us, and you'll know he's safe," said McQueary. "And I said, no, I'm not signing any paperwork."
The Smiths said they were just relaying messages from Johnson to McQueary after she had taken off with the baby.
"Let's do this paperwork, and maybe she'll tell us where the baby is," Tammi said. "It's not legal anyway, but does she have to know that? I mean, I'd rather get the baby back and sign the phony papers, but I guess the detectives don't want us to do that."
When McQueary tried to gain custody of Gabriel, Elizabeth apparently disappeared with the infant.
Carbajal said Elizabeth initially told authorities she gave her baby to a couple she met in San Antonio while on the run after skipping out on a custodial hearing in Phoenix.
"They wanted the baby and she simply gave it to them," said Bob Johnson, Elizabeth's grandfather. "It sounded like a pretty weak story. It was almost on the border of unbelievable that a person would do that with an 8-month-old child."
But Johnson also said he doesn't believe the Smiths had anything to do with Gabriel's disappearance.
"That's ridiculous... no, God, no," he said.
Bob said his daughter met Tammi at an airport when Gabriel was just a month old. He said Gabriel was fussing and Tammi came to help Elizabeth, and then cared for Gabriel the entire flight home. After that, they apparently kept in touch.
In a Facebook message posted by Tammi on December 23, she said, "Please keep praying for Gabriel and his Mommy's safety on the road! She has found underground help in TX that has given her formula/diapers, etc. and all the legal formalities... Keep praying for his safety.
Appearing on the Nancy Grace show again Friday, Tammi said the message was directed at Gabriel's father.
"At first she mentioned that it was a domestic violence shelter, and she had used the word 'underground' maybe once in the conversation," said Tammi. "And instead of saying 'domestic violence,' I didn't want that to make Logan think that he was violent towards her."
Despite reports that they wished to adopt Gabriel, the Smiths now say they have nothing to hide, and that they're doing all they can to reunited Gabriel with his father.
"We were actually just thinking of maybe just getting a dog," joked Tammi. "It seems to be a hard process adopting, and I don't know that we want to go through this again, unless the courts said, here's a baby and the parents both signed. That's different."
Police are also working with the FBI, along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and are taking tips from all over the country from anyone who may have spotted the baby.