California mom uses Craigslist to find daughter's missing assistive communication device

From the San Jose Mercury News:

After her 11-year-old mentally disabled daughter's $10,000 communication device went missing, Patty Mulligan refused to sit idly by.

She hung posters, seeking its return, in San Jose's Willow Glen neighborhood, where she accidentally left it on the curb on Thanksgiving Day. She scoured Craigslist. Nothing turned up — at first.

Then Jan. 6 she searched Craigslist again and she saw it: an ad selling a DynaVox for $3,500 that sounded an awful lot like the one especially programmed for her daughter, Hedy, who does not speak and relies on the sophisticated device to communicate.

Mulligan, who lives in Berkeley, called the seller and quickly realized it belonged to Hedy.

"I played dumb and asked him a lot of questions," Mulligan said. "He said he bought it in a storage locker sale."

Afraid she would scare off the seller, she arranged to meet him the next day at the Capitol Flea Market in San Jose to buy it.

She called San Jose police the next morning and undercover detectives met James Durr, 42, of San Jose, instead. They matched the serial number and confirmed Mulligan's suspicions. Police took Durr into custody on unrelated outstanding warrants in the possession of stolen property. Police plan to forward the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office for potential felony charges of misappropriation of lost or stolen goods.

"What happens is this guy is riding his bike and he sees a laptop computer in a bag and takes it," said Sgt. Ronnie Lopez. "It becomes disingenuous when he starts to research it, finds out it's worth $10,000 and tries to sell it."

Mulligan's family had been visiting her brother on Thanksgiving Day when she accidentally left the device on the curb late that evening before they drove away. She didn't notice it was missing until the next day.

"It was devastating," she said. "It's a piece of equipment that is so important to Hedy."

Hedy was born with a rare chromosome disorder that left her severely mentally disabled, with no verbal skills whatsoever. Before she got the DynaVox in May 2008, Hedy primarily communicated through gestures or the occasional picture.

Hedy's teachers and therapists had spent hours programming the DynaVox with words and pictures specific to her needs. The device has a touch screen with different words and symbols that Hedy can touch to have the computer speak on her behalf.

"She needed something to express herself, and this was it," Mulligan said.

Mulligan had spent more than a year working with a technology specialist, doing assessments and paperwork to submit to her health insurance, which ultimately agreed to spring for the device. But the insurance company would not pay for a second one, and the family's homeowners insurance would pay for only half.

After it went missing, Hedy was forlorn.

"She kept looking for it. She would look at every computer screen in the house and if we pulled out our iPhone, she would try to grab it," Mulligan said.

So, of course, the family, especially Hedy, was ecstatic when it was found.

"We were in disbelief that we had actually recovered it," Mulligan said. "It just seemed like it was gone."