By Whitney Hodgin
Dodge City Globe/CherryRoad Media
Special to the Tribune
Kansas Trooper and local hero Cody Parr was the special guest speaker at the Oct. 12 meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution at the Kansas Genealogy Library in Village Square Mall.
Parr has gained much experience as a crime stopper in his 20 years as a Kansas trooper, having played a part in the seizure of over 3,000 pounds of illegal narcotics including the state’s largest methamphetamine load of 240 pounds.
He has also saved several children from trafficking along our Kansas highways. He focused his presentation on one in particular, a girl nicknamed “Yami” who was three years old at the time.
Many southwest Kansans (including Greensburg donors) played a role in Yami’s life during the 2020 Christmas season and Parr reported she is now a thriving second grader with her parents by her side living up north.
Parr didn’t know he was en route to rescuing the little girl, (who had already been missing for six days) when he pulled over a suspicious van traveling between Meade and Minneola on Highway 56.
The lesson in the story that he focused on was the significance of linguistics and body language in the pursuit of deception. In other words, if a person’s actions and words don’t match, deception is afoot.
When asked why he pulled over that particular van, Parr said it was because the windows were blacked out and it had Illinois license plates.
“It’s not hot in Illinois – you don’t need window tint that heavy,” he opined.
Parr asked the driver to step out of the vehicle and shook his hand, and while the man was sure of speech his hands were warm and clammy.
In addition to a dozen men was one woman and a little girl, the driver accidentally let slip. That little girl had been wrapped in a blanket and stowed away underneath the third-row seat of the van.
She was clutching a thin strip of cardboard with two names of family members and a phone number. It was all she had left in the world.
Yami had been taken from her parents by a dishonest coyote they’d paid to help them cross the border between Mexico and the United States.
“There’s a lot of evil out there,” Parr said. “At hat time, Wichita was in the top 5 sex trafficking hubs.”
Yami was cared for in southwest Kansas until she could be reunited with her family, he said. She turned four years old before they could reach her, and even though birthday presents poured in from residents in Sublette, Meade, Minneola and Greensburg she refused to open any until her parents were by her side.
Parr spoke briefly on the late trooper David Ploutz, who was buried that day and had served this state for 30 years.
After the presentation, members enjoyed delicious zucchini bread and banana bread prepared by Kalen Hahn. The club donated American flags for display on the flagpoles at Village Square Mall.
Email the writer whodgin@cherryroad.com.
