WAURIKA, Okla. – Less than a week after little Aubrey Goodson of Waurika was found in Florida, she and her mom are trying to get back to their normal lives.
Aubrey was taken to Florida by her father, Bradley Goodson, when he failed to return her at the end of a scheduled custody visit Feb. 5. Now Aubrey is back in Waurika and her relieved mother, Amanda Edwards, sat down with 7News to share just what it felt like to find her little girl.
Edwards could not keep her eyes off Aubrey. She was all smiles and said there was not a better feeling in the world than to hear Aubrey screaming and playing with her toys like she had done before. Edwards said she will never again take for granted the little things Aubrey does.
It was a long, hard two weeks for Edwards; two weeks not having any clue where her daughter was. But finally last Friday, after the OSBI got involved, Edwards received the news she was hoping for.
"One of the agents turned around his phone and had a picture of Aubrey, the one the media had last week, turned it around like ‘Is this your little girl?'. And all I looked at was her eyes and I was like ‘That's my little girl.' I went ballistic, went crying and everything. They were like ‘She's okay. She's at the police station.'" said Edwards.
Edwards says the pain of enduring two weeks not knowing where her child was is hard to explain.
"[I went through] every feeling that you could possibly have. It was something that I don't ever, ever want to deal with again," said Edwards.
Edwards says it was a miraculous twist of fate that Goodson went to Florida and happened to move in with Lisa Delong. She was observant enough to realize there was something "off" with Goodson's story and the instinct to investigate and find out about Aubrey's disappearance. Then she had the guts to get the child to police. She says if it had not have been for Delong, the search for Aubrey would probably still be on.
"I told her, I said, ‘I don't know how I'm gonna repay you for the rest of my life.' I said you're a hero in my book, and an angel for Aubrey's sake to know that at least for that last week and a half that she was with her. I know that Lisa was taking care of her. She has her own kids, so it's not like she doesn't know how to take care of a child, but at least she was getting nap time, fed, you know diaper change."
Edwards says this whole experience has made her step back and appreciate the little thing Aubrey does in a whole new light.
"Hearing her voice every morning when we wake up, as soon as she wakes up it's ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy!' [I] missed hearing that, even missed her screaming and crying or her bad moments, even when she screams and doesn't get her way. I miss all those moments, anything and everything, I missed it all."
Goodson says it will take some time to get things back to normal. And right now she says she is probably being too lenient with Aubrey, but she is just so thankful to have her back.
Bradley Goodson will come back to Oklahoma next week to face charges. Jefferson County District Attorney Jason Hicks says Goodson waived extradition during a hearing in a Florida courtroom today.
