Hearing for mother of ‘missing' Rock Island girl postponed so interpreter can be there

Yahoo

19-02-2025

A preliminary hearing for a 37-year-old Rock Island woman has been postponed because an interpreter was not available Tuesday.
Our Quad Cities News crew saw Ilunga speak quietly to another person during the brief Rock Island County Court hearing Tuesday morning.
Ilunga, who earlier reported her daughter, 4-year-old Blessing Aoci, was missing in a stolen car, faces a Class D felony charge of filing a false police report after law enforcement discovered the child had been safely at home the whole time.
No Swahili interpreter was available for the hearing Tuesday, so the preliminary hearing was rescheduled to March 4. Court records show Ilunga is allowed to travel to Davenport 'for work purposes only,' and is out on conditional pre-trial release.
A community joins law enforcement in a search
On Jan. 16, Princess Ilunga called 911 shortly after 6 a.m. and reported her vehicle, which was left running, was stolen. During the call, Ilunga told the dispatcher six times that her daughter was in the car. 'It's important to note that Ms. Ilunga speaks very good English, albeit with an accent,' said Rock Island Police Chief McCloud at an earlier news conference. 'She is easy to understand.'
At 6:24 a.m., the stolen car was found about eight blocks away, abandoned and with no sign of Blessing.
An Amber Alert was issued, followed by a mobilization of local, state and federal law enforcement resources 'on a scale not seen in my 30 years in the Quad Cities,' McCloud said at the news conference. 'We had upwards of 120 law enforcement officers working hundreds of man hours, joined by countless concerned citizens from around the area who walked block by block in cold temperatures, drove around in vehicles and shared information through social media.'
Searchers considered every possibility – that Blessing had been transferred to another stolen car, that she had gotten out of the stolen car and was lost, or that she had been abducted by someone else.
Throughout the day, officers responded to numerous unfounded sightings of Blessing, as well as reports of pink backpacks or pink coats left abandoned in alleys or back yards, while numerous calls for service were put on hold as all resources were diverted to the search for Blessing.
After about nine hours of intensive searching, McCloud said, 'Blessing suddenly showed up at the back door to her residence, unharmed, showing no signs of distress or even of having been out in the cold temperatures.'
Body cams support the findings. 'We have tried to understand why (Ilunga) would invent this story, but when confronted with all the information, the family stopped cooperating with the investigation,' McCloud said.
'During the course of the investigation, we learned that Blessing had, in fact, been inside her own residence the entire time, her identity hidden from officers by her mother from the moment officers arrived,' McCloud said. Body-camera footage showed Blessing inside the residence, no longer wearing the pink coat she earlier was described as wearing.
'This was, by all account, an intentional deception that wasted the time and resources of six local law enforcement agencies, the Illinois State Police, the FBI and the federal marshals,' McCloud said.
Ilunga has seven children, many close in age and all with familial resemblances, 'so there was no reason to believe that (the girl Ilunga referred to as 'Baraka') and Blessing were not one and the same,' said McCloud. 'In fact, Ms. Ilunga actually pointed to 'Baraka' and said that Blessing looks just like her sister. '
Ilunga advised officers not to speak with 'Baraka' 'because she was too young and did not speak very well,' he said.
As officers pored over body-camera footage, they determined Ilunga was lying.
'Throughout the day, we had a detective assigned as a liaison for Ms. Ilunga,' McCloud said. 'Body camera and other video evidences show Ms. Ilunga continued to perpetuate the lie several times. It was only when our detective had to run back to the station that Ms. Ilunga seized her opportunity to put the pink coat back onto Blessing, and took her outside into the alley where she was found shortly thereafter by a citizen,' McCloud said.
'We have tried to understand why she would invent this story, but when confronted with all the information, the family stopped cooperating with the investigation,' McCloud said.
Immediately after the girl was 'found,' the family vanished. Later, Ilunga was arrested in Wisconsin, and was transported back to Rock Island.
In addition to 18-year-old Jaron Bailey-Harris, four juveniles also were arrested in connection with the stolen car.
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