A 911 call between an armed man and Ohio police dispatchers has revealed the moments of terror endured by his non-custodial daughter, who repeatedly begged him not to kill her.
The 7-year-old girl, Oaklynn Alexander, was returned to her family physically unharmed following the incident earlier this month.
The investigation began on Nov. 11, when Charles Ryan Alexander took his non-custodial daughter from her grandmother’s house in Jefferson County, Ohio, after he tried to pick up the child from her school and failed, the Medina County Sheriff’s Office said at a press briefing, streamed by WKYC Channel 3.
An Amber Alert was issued with Alexander’s vehicle description, and later that evening, the Brunswick Division of Police located Alexander and his daughter, the sheriff’s office said in a press release.
When police tried to stop him, Alexander fled, prompting a car chase, per the release. Police deflated the tires of his vehicle and he stopped in a parking lot in nearby Medina township.
He engaged in several conversations on the phone with dispatchers, threatening to kill himself and the child, police said.
In audio recordings of the 911 call released by Medina County authorities, Alexander is heard threatening law enforcement by saying he’s armed, while telling his daughter calmly that she would be “going to heaven.”
“I will shoot us both, stand back!” he is heard yelling during the call, while the girl in the background is heard begging him “please don’t.”
“I wanna talk to her mother,” Alexander says to a dispatcher, later adding: “If you’re listening, Ashley, you should’ve called.”
As the child asks him questions, her voice in a calm panic, he tells her they would be “both going to heaven.”
“How do you know we’re going to heaven?” she asks.
“We’ll both go,” he says calmly.
“I am going to heaven?” she asks, before saying, “No!”
When she starts choking up, he says, “‘Cause you’re a good person.”
“I don’t want to go to heaven today,” she says, her voice rising in panic, choking up.
“I didn’t want it to happen either, I just wanted to talk to your mother,” Alexander says flatly.
One of the 911 dispatchers interrupts to say: “Stay here,” later adding, “I know you didn’t want to hurt [your daughter] and you didn’t want it to be like this.”
“Let’s not do anything we can’t undo,” she calmly tells him.
As the dispatchers try to negotiate with him, the child is heard repeatedly asking about “going to heaven.”
At one point, she cries out in panic: “I don’t want to go to heaven today!”
“I’m not going to die,” she repeatedly says.
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Another 911 dispatcher tries to calm Alexander down by empathizing with him: “Just keep talking to her if you don’t want her to be scared.”
“Let’s not do anything that is going to make it even more unfair to her, ‘cause you love her, I know you do,” she says.
He was later fatally shot by officers and the child was rescued, per Medina County police.
