Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992                   TAG: 9203150192
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO   
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOY WAS HIDING FROM `STALKER'

"My teacher told us there was this man going around picking up little children," he said.

Scottie's mother, Annette Gibson, said he learned about the stalker during an assembly at Virginia Heights School. Ironically, police early on had ruled out any connection between the stalker and Scottie's disappearance.

Friday night, about 32 hours after he was reported missing, Scottie was found lying beneath a piece of plywood propped against a garage behind a house on Westover Avenue.

The 5-year-old kindergartner said he got lost after getting off a school bus Thursday afternoon at Maiden Lane and Wasena Avenue.

"I didn't see nobody there that picks me up," he said. "I was trying to get to my mom's house, and I didn't find the way."

Scottie said when he got lost, he started looking for a place to hide. He pitched his lunch box and hat behind the plywood before crawling behind the board. By this time he was several blocks from the bus stop and even farther from his home.

That hideout was good enough to keep police, firefighters, school security officers, teachers and other concerned citizens guessing. City police and school personnel spent most of the day Friday going door to door, and searching Wasena Park and the Roanoke River bank for the boy.

The break in the case came around 11 p.m., when Lori Lanum of Hampton Avenue walked out her back door looking for her cat, Buster.

When she heard the chattering of a cold child coming from beneath the plywood against the garage across the alley, she ran back inside to get her husband, John. He jumped from bed, dressed quickly, ran downstairs and went out the back door with a flashlight.

When he pulled the plywood back, Lanum saw the boy lying face down on the ground. He didn't move.

"Hey, buddy, you OK?" Lanum asked. Scottie pushed himself up with his arms as the flashlight shined in his eyes.

Lanum offered to pick the small boy up.

"I've got to get my lunch box," Scottie told him. "I've got to get my hat."

Lanum carried the boy into the couple's apartment and wrapped him in blankets until police arrived.

During Scottie's stay in the lean-to, Buster the cat had been his companion. "The cat was coming up my back," he said.

The Lanums had noticed that Buster seemed to want to go outside a lot.

"He loves kids," John Lanum said.

Doctors at Community Hospital said Scottie was fine, but his feet were slightly swollen and his ears were reddened by the cold he endured. Temperatures in the Roanoke area dipped into the 20s the past two nights, and daytime temperatures barely crept above 40.

The Lanums watched the 6 o'clock news Friday and "we knew this kid wasn't going to be found alive," John Lanum said.

Five hours later, Scottie was sitting in the Lanums' living room chatting, just like he was in his family's apartment Saturday morning. "Whenever it was dark, I went to sleep," Scottie said.

The 3-foot, 38-pound boy was wearing a leather jacket, tan dress pants, long johns and a pair of high-top tennis shoes when he was found.

And as he concluded his story about being scared, tired and cold, he romped through his living room with the enthusiasm only a 5-year-old can muster.

Still one memory for him endures above all.

"I was glad to see my mama," he said.