Sam Mullins

Slade had been assigned to be the point of contact between Sheena and the police ever since they still thought Sheena was Noelle.

During the month between the Halloween arrest and the police figuring out that the Davises were in fact the Walkers, Sheena was laying low at Little London Farmhouse with her children and almost nothing else. The police had seized everything, and Sheena didn't have a penny to her name, to any of her names. So she was being looked after by social services and Officer Slade.

During the month between the Halloween arrest and the police figuring out that the Davises were in fact the Walkers, Sheena was laying low at Little London Farmhouse with her children and almost nothing else. The police had seized everything, and Sheena didn't have a penny to her name, to any of her names. So she was being looked after by social services and Officer Slade.

But then the facts from Interpol, the police learning her true identity, and all of a sudden, her mother, who she'd spurned six years earlier, was on a plane to reunite with her. Barb Walker was the only person who never stopped looking for Sheena. When Sheena first disappeared, of course, there was outrage, media coverage, police investigations.

But then the facts from Interpol, the police learning her true identity, and all of a sudden, her mother, who she'd spurned six years earlier, was on a plane to reunite with her. Barb Walker was the only person who never stopped looking for Sheena. When Sheena first disappeared, of course, there was outrage, media coverage, police investigations.

But as the months folded into years, the crowd thinned out. Until it was just Barb, trying to get Sheena's story on TV in any way she could. America's Most Wanted passed on her pitch. Unsolved Mysteries didn't call her back. So she settled for an episode of the shortly-lived program called Missing Treasures.

But as the months folded into years, the crowd thinned out. Until it was just Barb, trying to get Sheena's story on TV in any way she could. America's Most Wanted passed on her pitch. Unsolved Mysteries didn't call her back. So she settled for an episode of the shortly-lived program called Missing Treasures.

For Barb, Sheena's birthdays came and went on the calendar, marking not her arrival in this world, but her absence from it. After a few years, a Canadian police officer suggested to Barb that she should just move on and forget about her, because she wouldn't be the same kid anyway. But then the call finally came, and she got on a plane to meet her now 21-year-old daughter.

For Barb, Sheena's birthdays came and went on the calendar, marking not her arrival in this world, but her absence from it. After a few years, a Canadian police officer suggested to Barb that she should just move on and forget about her, because she wouldn't be the same kid anyway. But then the call finally came, and she got on a plane to meet her now 21-year-old daughter.

Detective Bill McDonald sent Slade to meet her.

Detective Bill McDonald sent Slade to meet her.

They set up the meeting in a social services building, in a room with a children's play area. They brought Barb through the door, and there was Sheena, the daughter she never gave up on, in the flesh, a mother herself now, The moment that Barb thought might never happen was here.

They set up the meeting in a social services building, in a room with a children's play area. They brought Barb through the door, and there was Sheena, the daughter she never gave up on, in the flesh, a mother herself now, The moment that Barb thought might never happen was here.

As mother and daughter embraced, everything around them was an unconscionable mess. But this moment was not. There was a flurry of loose ends to be tied up before Sheena was allowed to fly back to Canada with her mother and children.

As mother and daughter embraced, everything around them was an unconscionable mess. But this moment was not. There was a flurry of loose ends to be tied up before Sheena was allowed to fly back to Canada with her mother and children.

She needed to give statements to both the British and Canadian authorities, get her bail cancelled, and to alert the Canadians about the avalanche of paperwork heading their way to process not just Sheena, but her two children. And the biggest meatball of all was that not tomorrow or next month, but at some time in the future, the Devon police would need her to testify in court against her father.

She needed to give statements to both the British and Canadian authorities, get her bail cancelled, and to alert the Canadians about the avalanche of paperwork heading their way to process not just Sheena, but her two children. And the biggest meatball of all was that not tomorrow or next month, but at some time in the future, the Devon police would need her to testify in court against her father.

But there was a caveat.

But there was a caveat.

If Sheena was going to testify in the eventual murder trial, it would need to be her choice and her choice alone to do so. By putting her on the plane to her home nation, her actual home nation, the Devon police knew that she was under no obligation to ever come back. Up to that point, she'd been aloof and uncooperative at every step.