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Mick Jones-From Chicago
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Date Posted: 18:58:42 05/01/01 Tue
Child's headless body still unidentified; mystery vexes KC police
By TANYANIKA SAMUELS - The Kansas City Star
Date: 04/30/01 22:15
For now, only a small, brown, crescent-shaped birthmark offers any clue to the identity of a little girl whose headless body was discovered in a wooded area Saturday.
Kansas City police found the girl's nude body about 7 p.m. near 59th Street and Kensington Avenue. It had been there a day or so, they said. They would not say whether there were signs of physical or sexual abuse.
Police have scoured the area, but so far, they have not found the girl's head. Without it, they said, identifying her will be difficult.
Though investigators took fingerprints, little information is expected to come from that, said Kansas City police Sgt. Dave Bernard.
"The chances that a young child has been fingerprinted are remote," he said. Fingerprinting of the body "was done as a matter of course, but we're not holding out a lot of hope."
The footprints often taken of infants at birth aren't compiled into a usable database, he said.
The girl was black, about 3 feet tall and weighed about 41 pounds. The Jackson County medical examiner has narrowed her age to between 3 and 6 years old.
Police are following up on several calls they received about the case and about missing children. But they have received no solid clues yet. Anyone with information about the girl is asked to call Kansas City police detectives at (816) 234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS (474-8477).
Police are reaching out to day-care centers and schools, asking officials whether a pupil matching her description was missing from their classes.
Also, investigators are checking missing-persons reports from other area police departments, including one case in Kansas City, Kan., and reports of similar cases nationwide.
Community leaders are rallying to help with the investigation. The Community Movement for Urban Progress (Move Up) is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the girl's identity.
Members of Move Up were in the neighborhood on Monday, handing out fliers seeking information and asking for help. They urge anyone with information to call their confidential hot line at (816) 753-1111.
"This child has a name and deserves nothing less than for all of us to learn that name and bring the perpetrators to justice," James Nunn, executive director of Move Up, said in a statement Monday.
One theory is that the girl is from outside the Kansas City area.
But instinct tells Bernard that she was probably a local girl.
"Someone out of state might not know the area well enough to leave the body there," he said.
The same lingering suspicion nags at Cynthia Canady, who lives on Kensington Avenue, just half a block from the woods.
When the police crime-scene van pulled up on 59th Street on Saturday, she knew they had found a body. But she was shocked when she learned of what happened.
"I hate that they had to find a little girl like that," she said. "It's really scary, especially if it turns out to be someone in the neighborhood."
Authorities happened onto the girl's body that day while on another case. A resident had called police to say his elderly friend may have wandered into the woods. When police went looking for him, they found the girl. The elderly man was found safe nearby, but now neighbors are worried.
Across the street from the woods is Hibbs Playground, a park where neighborhood children often hang out and play. But neighbors said the park has been empty since Saturday.
Chris Miles, 14, who lives in the neighborhood, said he hasn't been back to the park since police found the little girl.
"When we used to play hide-and-seek, we used to go hiding in the woods," he said. "But now everyone's scared of the park....It'll probably be months before we go back."
@tag1:To reach Tanyanika Samuels, call (816) 234-4376 or send e-mail to tsamuels@kcstar.com.
This is a terrible crime. How could anyone that claims to be a Human Being do something like this? I wonder why the authorities haven't been able to track down who she is at all?
I keep an eye peeled with my girls at all times. YOu have to now a days. This nations of laws gives the criminal the right to go back into the street and do it again and we as a nation do nothing? Unreal.
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