Vickey Vanderford, a security guard at the Amarillo Terminal Airport, came across a baby girl around 11 p.m. on Sept. 27, 1977, sitting between the airport’s sliding glass doors. The blonde, brown-eyed baby was swimming in an oversized T-shirt and grasping a bottle of soured juice. 
 
 A fresh diaper was fashioned from a janitorial cloth, a search for her parents began and when the last flight of the day had cleared out, Vanderford said she realized the little girl had been abandoned. 
 
 Vanderford guessed the child was between 16 and 18 months old. After the abandonment was reported, the baby was taken to Northwest Texas Hospital for observation. She seemed healthy aside from some faded bruises on her face and body and a dark purple bruise inside her ear. 
 
 Amarillo police opened an investigation and the baby was placed into the custody of Potter-Randall County Child Welfare. 
 
 This child became known as Jane Doe 927. Her real identity is still the subject of debate 40 years later. 
 
 One month after her abandonment, Jane Doe 927 was thriving in her foster home, according to Globe-News files. She was described as “sharp” and was not too bashful to say “hello” to every new person she met. Hamburgers became her favorite food. 
 
 “Blonde and frequently described as pretty, the baby girl has caught the attention of media and many citizens of Amarillo,” said a Globe-News article in December 1977. “About two weeks after her plight was published, more than 100 persons had filed with child welfare authorities to adopt her.” 
 
 The investigation faded that month after a hopeful New Mexico couple decided Jane Doe 927 was not actually their missing daughter. Parental rights were terminated in January 1978 and the adoption process followed. 
 
 A ‘perfect match’? 
 
 Four years later and a thousand miles west of Amarillo, Rosalee Webster arrived back in her Long Beach, Calif., home. She — along with her daughter, Bonnie — had left her husband, Charles Webster, in 1977 to go to a wedding in Idaho. 
 
 Rosalee came back after the mysterious yearslong absence, but Bonnie did not. Upon her arrival back on the West Coast, Rosalee began telling her family varied stories about what happened to her daughter. 
 
 She said the child had died and was buried in the mountains of Idaho; she also said Child Protective Services had taken Bonnie away from her. 
 
 “I didn’t know what to believe,” Charles Webster recently told the Globe-News. 
 
 Rosalee said she had traveled between Idaho and Texas. She called her family once during her absence, saying she had succumbed to substance abuse and couldn’t remember what happened to Bonnie. 
 
 Rosalee also told a story about her live-in boyfriend who allegedly threatened to kill Bonnie, and her decision to leave Bonnie at a bus terminal or an airport in Nampa, Idaho. 
 
 Rosalee never allowed the family to push any further into the story. She said she couldn’t remember and refused to speak of it. A missing person report was never filed. 
 
 “That was the end of it as far as we knew,” Webster said. “I had released my concern for Bonnie into God’s hands because I didn’t have the wherewithal to look for her.” 
 
 Rosalee was disowned by her side of the family, and every May 19 — Bonnie’s birthday — she grew extra quiet until her death in 2008. 
 
 In 1998, Pattie Whitaker, Rosalee’s sister, posted on a genealogy forum searching for anyone who had information on Bonnie’s whereabouts. 
 
 “I am looking for a person, who is alive, she is my niece, born May 1976, in Long Beach, Calif.,” the post said. “Was abandoned in a bus terminal in Nampa, Idaho, at the age of 18 mos (months) birth name ‘Bonnie Lee Webster’ anyone out there has info please contact me, she is 23 now and I have been searching for years and will not give up.” 
 
 Ronda Randall, a genealogist and blogger in New Hampshire, stumbled across the post years later while she was sifting through missing persons posts. 
 
 Whitaker’s post made Randall pause because she was researching New Hampshire serial killer Robert Evans, who had lived in Idaho and Texas. 
 
 So Randall began helping Whitaker in her search. They couldn’t find any news articles regarding an abandonment in Nampa, but they did find the Amarillo Globe-News file that matched the time and description Rosalee had spoken about in her stories. 
 
 Then they saw the photo of Jane Doe 927, taken by John Ebling, a staff photographer with the Globe-News at the time. 
 
 “As time passed and I’ve heard more about the circumstances of the abandonment from the family, then it’s hard not to look at the pictures and think, ‘Wow that child really could be that child in a year,’” said Randall. “Until I saw the picture, I assumed Bonnie was dead.” 
 
 When Webster saw the two photos side by side, he said, it looked nearly like a “perfect match.” 
 
 Doe’s new name 
 
 If there’s a link between these two stories, the first step is administering a DNA test with the woman who claims to be Jane Doe 927: Shelley Schooley. 
 
 “I identify as a born and bred Texan, and I always will,” Schooley told the Globe-News. 
 
 The 41-year-old is currently “raising two young men to become gentlemen,” and enjoys attending high school football games. Schooley blogs about parenting and life after divorce, and sometimes crochets. 
 
 She also proudly identifies as a Schooley — her “forever name.” The child who was deserted at such a young age now has a large extended family and a strong mother-daughter bond. 
 
 “My mom truly is my best friend,” she said. 
 
 Schooley always knew of her abandonment. Her family told her as early as she could understand, and even collected a stack of yellowed Amarillo Globe-News clippings. 
 
 “We have them all; that’s my first baby picture,” said Schooley, referencing Ebling’s photo. 
 
 Schooley’s adoptive parents were living in Odessa at the time. They had adopted their son a few years prior and the same social worker contacted them about Jane Doe 927. 
 
 After spending a weekend with the little girl, the Schooleys finalized the adoption, chose the name “Shelley” and gave her a birthdate of June 22, 1976. 
 
 Along with the newspaper clippings, there’s a stack of adoption documents detailing those pivotal months at the end of 1977. 
 
 “There’s a lot of the story we have pieced together from psychological evaluations when I was going through the adoption phase,” said Schooley. 
 
 These evaluations, explained in Schooley’s Adoption Summary, indicate her biological family used adult language with Shelley, trained her to sleep in the back seat of a car and read to her a lot. 
 
 “She will pick up a book, even one without pictures, and sit down and start ‘reading’ it to herself,” the document describes. 
 
 Social workers also recorded a fear of men in the young girl, describing her cries when she met new men. 
 
 Unlike other adopted children, Schooley said she never had a desire to search for her “missing link.” 
 
 “The only thing I was concerned about was medical — what if I’m a carrier of something? What if there’s something I’m going to pass on to my kids?” she said. 
 
 While her relationship with her adoptive parents is stable and secure, Schooley said she has always battled a feeling of not being “good enough.” 
 
 “How do you raise a child for that long and then be able to separate from them? Those are the questions I have that nobody’s going to be able to answer,” she added. 
 
 Schooley said she’s come to peace with the circumstances of her abandonment, remaining hopeful that her biological parents had her best interest in mind. High above it all, she said she shapes her life around gratitude. 
 
 “Back in the ’70s, unwanted babies were thrown away and I wasn’t,” Schooley said. “I wasn’t bounced around from foster home to foster home like my brother was. I was never put into group homes. I was never bounced around. I was welcomed into a loving family and that never changed, even to this day.” 
 
 Last month, Randall found Schooley through the friend of a Facebook friend, living in Newfoundland. After multiple social media and blog posts searching for clues of Jane Doe, Randall was sent the link to a YouTube video posted by Listen to Your Mother, a celebration of Mother’s Day through live readings by various authors. 
 
 “My first baby picture appeared in the Amarillo Globe-Times on Sept. 28, 1977,” Schooley said in the video, standing at a podium. 
 
 And the story was relayed, once again, not in a newspaper platform, but from the lips of the woman who was raised hearing about her early days sitting alone between airport sliding-glass doors. 
 
 “Especially that part about the spoiled juice, it was just heartwrenching,” Randall said. “That line just got me.” 
 
 Since discovering the video, Schooley and the Websters have connected and conversed about the “what ifs” in each of their stories. But with proms and college in the near future for Schooley’s two sons, she cannot justify spending the money on a DNA test to determine whether she is Bonnie Lee Webster or not. 
 
 “I would go through with that if it provided closure to somebody who has been looking for their lost relative for 40 years,” Schooley said, “but that would be the only thing I feel I have to offer.” ||||| The designer of Schlitterbahn's "Verruckt" water slide was taken into custody at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Monday night. (Published Tuesday, April 3, 2018) 
 
 The designer of Schlitterbahn's "Verruckt" water slide was taken into custody at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Monday night. 
 
 The water park company's co-owner Jeffrey Henry is accused of rushing the world's tallest waterslide into service and the designer, John Schooley is accused of shoddy planning. 
 
 Both were recently charged with reckless second-degree murder in the decapitation of a 10-year-old boy on the ride in 2016. Caleb Schwab died on the 17-story ride when the raft he was riding went airborne and hit an overhead loop. 
 
 Henry & Sons Construction Co., which is described as the private construction company of Schlitterbahn, was also charged with reckless second-degree murder. Second-degree murder carries a sentence of 9 years to 41 years in prison. 
 
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 The Volusia County Sherriffs Office released bodycam video of a shootout between police and a man who shot his estranged wife in front of their children in 2016. The woman and her three children were rescued by police and the man was arrested. (Published Friday, April 6, 2018) 
 
 They also were charged with 17 other felonies, including aggravated battery and aggravated endangerment of a child counts tied to injuries other riders sustained on the giant slide, called Verruckt, which is German for "insane." The indictment accuses Henry of making a "spur of the moment" decision to build the ride, and that he and Schooley lacked technical or engineering expertise in amusement park rides. 
 
 Henry was ordered held in a Texas jail without bond last week, pending extradition to Kansas. 
 
 The attorney general's office said Monday night that Schooley was taken into custody at DFW International Airport after arriving on a flight from China. 
 
 Schooley will be held in North Texas until an arraignment to Kansas. 
 
 The same grand jury last week indicted the Kansas City park and Tyler Austin Miles, its former operations manager, on 20 felony charges. The charges include a single count of involuntary manslaughter in Schwab's death. Miles has been released on $50,000 bond, according to one of his attorneys, Tricia Bath. 
 
 The company has promised to aggressively fight the criminal charges. After Miles and the park were charged, it said it would respond to the allegations in the 47-page indictment "point by point." 
 
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 Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor was charged with with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief after causing mayhem at a UFC media event. (Published Friday, April 6, 2018) 
 
 After Henry's arrest in Texas, Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said in an emailed statement: "We as a company and as a family will fight these allegations and have confidence that once the facts are presented it will be clear that what happened on the ride was an unforeseeable accident." 
 
 According to the indictments, Henry decided in 2012 to build the world's tallest water slide to impress the producers of a Travel Channel show. Henry's desire to "rush the project" and a lack of expertise caused the company to "skip fundamental steps in the design process." 
 
 The indictment said, "not a single engineer was directly involved in Verruckt's dynamic engineering or slide path design." The indictment said that in 2014, when there were news reports emerging about airborne rafts, a company spokesperson "discredited" them and Henry and his designer began "secretly testing at night to avoid scrutiny." 
 
 The indictment listed 13 injuries during the 182 days the ride was in operation, including two concussions. In one of those cases, a 15-year-old girl went temporarily blind while riding. 
 
 Caleb, the son of Kansas Republican state Rep. Scott Schwab, was decapitated after the raft on which he was riding went airborne on a day when admission was free for state legislators and their families. 
 
 The family reached settlements of nearly $20 million with Schlitterbahn and various companies associated with the design and construction of the waterslide. The two women who rode on the same raft with Caleb suffered serious injuries and settled claims with Schlitterbahn for an undisclosed amount. 
 
 "Clearly the issues with Schlitterbahn go far beyond Caleb's incident, and we know the attorney general will take appropriate steps in the interest of public safety," the family said in a statement released Monday through their attorneys. 
 
 The indictment said Schooley was responsible for doing "the math" that went into the slide's design and signed an operations manual claiming the ride met all American Society for Testing and Materials standards. But the indictment lists a dozen instances in which the design violated those standards and says investigators could find no evidence that so-called dynamic engineering calculations were made to determine the physics a passenger would experience. The indictment said Schooley lacked the technical expertise to properly design a complex amusement ride such as Verruckt. 
 
 The indictment said Schooley admitted, "If we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular." 
 
 Weather Alert Severe Thunderstorm Watch in Effect Until Midnight 
 
 Prosapio said Schlitterbahn does not expect any changes to the Kansas City park's season, which is set to open May 25 and runs through Labor Day. The Verruckt slide has been closed since Caleb died. 
 
 Mike Taylor, a spokesman for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, says it does not believe it has the legal authority to shut down a business, other than for an epidemic or contagious disease outbreak. 
 
 The company also operates water parks in Galveston, Corpus Christi, South Padre Island and New Braunfels, Texas, according to its website. 
 
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 In the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, there has been a national conversation about banning assault rifles. But what defines an assault rifle is up for debate. Here is everything you need to know about assault rifles. (Published Friday, April 6, 2018) 
 
 Associated Press writers David Warren and Terry Wallace in Dallas also contributed to this report. 
 
 Copyright Associated Press / NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
– The toddler in the extra-large T-shirt was sitting between sliding glass doors at Amarillo Airport when a security guard found her late one night in September 1977, clasping a bottle of spoiled juice. Faded bruises signaled a troubled past, one from which the blonde, brown-eyed girl, aged 16 to 18 months, had been abandoned. Dubbed Jane Doe 927, the toddler was adopted by a loving family and rechristened Shelley Schooley. Her past would remain a mystery for four decades. Now the Amarillo Globe-News reports a DNA test could unlock those secrets. That is, if the mother of two decides to take it. Until now, Schooley says, she never wanted to pursue her "missing link." In a 2015 YouTube video, Schooley explains, "It's never mattered to me. I have my family and I wouldn't trade them for anything." Meanwhile in 1998, a woman named Pattie Whitaker posted on a genealogy forum that she "will not give up" searching for her niece, Bonnie Lee Webster, who disappeared in 1977. The 18-month-old was apparently abandoned by Whitaker's late sister, who never explained what happened to the child. Genealogy sleuth Rona Randall saw the post and found an old newspaper photo of Jane Doe 927—a "perfect match" to baby Bonnie. Last month, Randall found Schooley and put her in touch with Whitaker. Schooley tells the Globe-News she can't justify the expense of the DNA test with two sons to raise. But, she adds, she may do it if the truth provides "closure" for Whitaker, her probable aunt. "That would be the only thing I feel I have to offer," she says. (Parents held out hope their missing daughter was still alive. She wasn't.)