By REGINALD FIELDS
Staff Writer

(11/3/94) -- A tape of the emergency call made for Susan V. Smith the night she reported being carjacked and her two children abducted was released by Union County Sheriff Howard Wells on Wednesday.

The Oct. 25 call came in on the Union County communications non-emergency line at 9:02 p.m.

Rick McCloud of 4460 Lockhart Highway made the call after Smith knocked on his door looking for help.

McCloud told dispatchers that a woman at his house said a man jumped in her car at a traffic light and then drove off with her two children.

"He took off and she got out the car here at our house," McCloud says.

The dispatcher asked if the man in the car still has the kids?

"Yes ma'am," McCloud says. "And her car. And she's real hysterical."

By 9:04 p.m. Sgt. Tommy Cudd and Cpl. Neal McKeown are headed to the McCloud home to speak with Smith.

Five minutes later McKeown radios deputy Bobby Hicks to stop at the house while he and Cudd go look for Smith's burgundy Mazda Protege with Smith's two boys, Michael Smith, 3, and 14-month-old Alexander Smith.

At 9:12 p.m. Hicks and Sgt. Johnny Sherfield arrive at the McCloud home to speak with Smith. A moment later Hicks gives Wells a description of the car and suspect.

At 9:16 p.m. Wells sends out a `bolo' -- a radio message for all law enforcement officers to be on the look out for the car with a black suspect driving and two small children in the back seat.

Within hours, the message would be sent nationwide.

Sherfield speculated the reason the call came on the non-emergency line is because Union County just added the 911 system in August, and the seven digit number McCloud dialed is the number residents are accustomed to dialing when needing help.

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