The Color of Puke

A Girl Dies in Baltimore
Who Cares?
by Mary Jane and Dan McCann (updated August 2018)

A person of interest, seen with Annie McCann in a pastry shop in Baltimore

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“Don’t worry,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said as he embraced us in his crowded executive conference room on August 23, 2013. “I’m a parent, too, and you’re doing exactly what I’d be doing in your place.”

What were we doing? We were trying to galvanize the Baltimore police department, his police department, to investigate the death, the sinister death, the apparent murder, of our 16-year old daughter, Annie, five years earlier.

Almost ten years now…

…and less than two years before Batts was sacked for his role in the tragic death of Freddie Gray, and the riots that later rocked Baltimore.

Ironically, Batts did a lot better by Freddie Gray than he did by Annie McCann.

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Annie McCann, on a school field trip a few days before her death

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On Sunday, November 2, 2008, we received the worst news imaginable. After apparently running away from our home in Northern Virginia on Halloween morning, our Annie had been found dead, stuffed…