IDAHO FALLS — As a child, Kelley Jean Lodmell's trips with her family from their Great Falls, Mont., home to Utah almost always included a stop in this southeastern Idaho town on the banks of the Snake River.
Lodmell and her siblings would eat picnic lunches and stretch their legs along the water's edge before continuing the long drive south.
Now 38, Lodmell returned to the town, her 19-month-old granddaughter Acacia Patience Bishop in tow. She checked into the Red Lion Hotel and the next morning took Acacia to a park on the water's edge, where police and court records say she jumped into the river in an apparent murder/suicide attempt.
As the search for Acacia's remains continued Thursday, Lodmell's past offered a glimpse into what may have led her to choose Idaho Falls as the final destination in a tragic kidnapping ordeal that started some 220 miles to the south in Salt Lake County.
Lodmell's mother and father, Linda and Dick Lodmell, said their daughter likely saw Idaho Falls as a "familiar" place because of their family's frequent stops here during their travels.
The Lodmells described their daughter as a sweet child in her early years, but as she grew older, mental illness seemed to change her into a conniving, manipulative person who "hated anybody to be happy" . . . as time went on she got sicker and sicker," Linda Lodmell said of her schizophrenic daughter, who frequently reported hearing voices and believed that the government was watching her. Mental health experts familiar with such disorders say a mentally ill person commonly may grasp for a place or person that brings back pleasant memories from their past.
"Any kind of connection to when they felt good or happy, they'll always, always connect back to those people or places because their lives are so chaotic and their feelings are so outraged, they'll look for any window to connect with a happier time," said Vicki Cottrell, executive director of the Utah Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).
Executive director for NAMI of Idaho, Lee Woodland, recalled a similar tendency in her stepson, who's schizophrenia is treated with medication.
His "safety place" was Frenchman's Island on the Snake River near Burley, Idaho, where he lived as a child with his family. After moving from the island, Woodland said her son would frequently visit there at difficult times in his life.
"Every time he would go into crisis and become ill he would go to the island and sit there because that was his safety place," Woodland said.
Cottrell described a similar case in which a Utah man suffering from schizophrenia disappeared for 2 1/2 months. Finally, he called from Switzerland, where he had spent time as a child.
"He had a very strong emotional connection to Switzerland, where he had been happier," Cottrell said. "He got there by taking bus after bus until he could work a few places to get some money and get on a plane and get to Switzerland. Something drives them and, oh boy!"
"It's a very interesting and complicated illness," Cottrell said. "It doesn't eat your mind away. The intelligence is still intact but their reality is so far separated." Kelley Lodmell had headed for Idaho Falls before, her parents said.
Approximately 1 1/2 years ago, she caught a bus from Utah to Idaho Falls, where she lived for a time as a transient. Police eventually located her and turned her over to Idaho human services officials, they said. The agency purchased the Lodmells' daughter a bus ticket back to Utah.
Although mentally ill patients are typically treated in the community where they are found, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesman Tom Shanahan said it is possible that in a case like Lodmell's, with her family living in Utah, the agency would arrange for travel back to the home state.
"If they have family and we think their best shot is with family somewhere else then, yes, we would help them with travel and with food and different things to help them get there, but usually that isn't the case," Shanahan said.
Shanahan said patient confidentiality rules prevented him from confirming if his department had ever worked with Lodmell. Idaho Falls police also had no record of contact with Lodmell prior to her arrest Monday, Sgt. Steve Hunt said.
"It's possible we could have given her a bus ticket or something. I just don't have any records on it if we did," Hunt said.
On Thursday, police returned the car to Lodmell's parents, who were in Idaho Falls to participate in the search for their missing great-granddaughter. Following her incarceration, Kelley Lodmell had placed a call to her parents' house in Salt Lake County, but they were not home to take the call.
Acacia's father, Adam Bishop was critical of his mother-in-law during a candlelight vigil Wednesday night for his daughter.
"She (Acacia) will always be an angel and she was taken by a devil," Bishop said.
About a dozen divers and several search dogs and boats have been involved in the search along a three- or four-mile stretch of the river.
Searches were expected to continue through the weekend but with fewer divers participating, Hunt said.
Family members fanned out across town, posting pictures of the little girl in the hopes of finding her alive.
Kelley Lodmell has been on a suicide watch since being charged Tuesday with one count each of kidnapping and murder by aggravated battery and/or kidnapping, both first-degree felonies. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.
She is being housed in a cell with a large glass window so jail staff can monitor her behavior, Bonneville County Sheriff Byron Stommel said.
To help the distraught family, NAMI of Idaho is putting on a concert Saturday night, 7 to 9 p.m., at the Idaho Falls Shilo Inn. Proceeds will go to the Acacia Bishop Fund at Zions Bank. A popular local band, the Affection Collection, will perform. Ticket prices have not been announced, but they will be available at the door.
E-mail: djensen@desnews.com