cover of episode Dulce Alavez

Dulce Alavez

2021/1/28
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The podcast discusses the mysterious disappearance of 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez in Bridgeton, New Jersey, in 2019. The case involves conflicting witness statements, anonymous letters, and various theories about what might have happened to her.

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This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.

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My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

Today, I am discussing the case of 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alaves, who went missing in a park in Bridgeton, New Jersey in 2019. This story was brought to my attention by several people who follow me on social media. And although it's still a pretty new case, I was really surprised to find that Dulce hasn't received more coverage. So I wanted to bring attention to it here because it really is a crazy case.

There are conflicting witness statements, anonymous letters that pushed a family advocate to stop working on the case, and a lot of theories about what happened to Dulce. But let's get into it.

Dulce Alavez was born on April 25, 2014 in Bridgeton, New Jersey, to her mother Noema Alavez-Perez and her father Edgar Perez. Now, Bridgeton itself is actually a pretty small, rural city of about 25,000 people with a large population of Mexican immigrants, many of which came to work the vast amounts of farmland decades ago.

Dulce was only five years old when she went missing, but she is an adorable little girl, and by all accounts a happy kid who just started kindergarten, loved the movie Frozen, and dressing up like Elsa. And she was always begging her older cousins to show her YouTube videos of Peppa Pig.

Let's talk about the family dynamic. Dulce's mom, Noema, was a very young mother, giving birth to Dulce when she was only 14 years old. And Dulce's father, Edgar, wasn't really in their lives. According to Noema, he questioned whether or not Dulce was even his until she began to resemble him more as she got older.

And then at that point, he let her know that he did plan to fight for custody of her. But due to Noema being so young, she actually shared custody of Dulce with her parents. And I couldn't find anything about Edgar ever actually fighting for custody. But two years later, Dulce became a big sister when Noema gave birth to another baby from a different man.

This time, a boy named Manuel that they would affectionately call Manny. But after her second child was born, Noema dropped out of high school during her sophomore year. And by the time she was 18, she moved out of her parents' house, leaving both Dulce and Manny behind. Noema spoke to the Missing Pieces Network and told them that she understood that she wasn't in her children's lives as much as she should have been.

and spent a lot of time hanging out with the wrong crowd, smoking weed, and drinking. But when she became pregnant for the third time at the age of 19, Noema was ready to change her lifestyle. She stopped smoking, she stopped drinking, and she stopped hanging out with friends that she considered to be a bad influence, and began making an effort to take a more active role in the lives of her children. This brings us to the day that Dulce goes missing.

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Monday, September 16th, 2019 seemed like a totally normal day. Five-year-old Dulce goes to school along with Noema's eight-year-old sister. So after school, around 4pm, Noema picks up the girls along with three-year-old Manny to take them all to Bridgeton City Park. But before they get to the park, they stop at a convenience store to get some ice cream and some scratch-off lottery tickets for Noema.

Investigators were actually able to recover the footage from this stop, and the video looks totally normal. They all pick out their ice cream, and while Noema is paying for everything, Dulce picks up her little brother and walks him to the counter, and then she starts standing on like one leg, just kind of bored, and playing around with Noema's sister. To me, it kind of looks like all kids waiting for their parent to pay at the store.

So after they all get their ice cream, they head over to the park and Noema parks the car in a parking lot facing a small playground so the kids can play. But Noema and her younger sister decide to stay behind in the car while Dulce and her brother, who again are five and three years old, go to the playground. Noema told the police that the reason she stayed behind was so that she could scratch those lottery tickets while her younger sister did homework.

Now, before I get into what happened next, I have to tell you about this park. When I first heard Dulce's case, I was thinking it was a park like the parks we have here in Phoenix, where it's like a small parking lot, maybe 10 feet away from the playground with like two slides, a jungle gym, and maybe a field to run in.

But no, Bridgeton City Park is this huge, heavily wooded area spanning over 1,000 acres. There are also two lakes, an outdoor amphitheater with a swimming beach, a 7,500 square foot splash park, Bridgeton High School is right there, and it even has its own zoo with nearly 100 animals in it. I'm talking lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, a full zoo.

And according to the City of Bridgeton website, it is one of the most visited attractions in the county. In addition to realizing that there were probably a ton of people in the park that day, what really stood out to me and made my heart sink was reading about the hiking trails.

According to the park's website, Bridgeton City Park's trail system is a, quote, combination of fire roads and single-track trails that encompass the complete park system. Access points are along all arteries of the park and are even tucked behind the zoo, end quote.

So these trails are all over the park, some along the side of the two lakes, and they kind of snake in every direction, meaning that there are so many different exit points. So, Noema and the kids are at this smaller playground behind Bridgeton High School that is a part of this larger park.

You guys know that I am crazy about research, so I really wanted to get a sense of how far Noema was from these two very small children while they played in the park. NBC Philadelphia did this amazing video walkthrough that you can find on their YouTube channel, where they show the walk from where Noema parked her car to the small playground where Dulce and her brother were playing. It takes the reporter about a minute to walk the about 30 meters from the parking lot to the playground.

The whole time this news anchor is doing the walkthrough, you can see the news van behind her get smaller and smaller as she walks towards the playground. She goes around a slight curve, past a basketball court with some fencing, and a hill to get to this playground. So by the time she gets there, the large news van is barely visible.

So when Dulce and her brother were playing, I'd imagine they might be able to see their mom's car, but I think it would be pretty difficult for anyone from the parking lot to see small children from that far away. After all, Dulce was estimated to be at most three and a half feet tall, and who knows how tall three-year-old Manny was. To the south of the playground are some buildings used by park staff.

From what I could find, it seems like they were pretty much just storage buildings that would hold items and equipment used to maintain the park. But behind these buildings, behind where Dulce and her brother were going to play, is a road that splits off into a few different roads, including a road straight out of the park.

What is also terrifying is that not too far from this area is a spillway that leads into Sunset Lake, one of the two lakes in the park. But now that we've set the scene, let's talk about what happened. So at about 4pm, Noema parks her car and Dulce and Manny run to the playground about 30 meters away.

Noema says that she was able to see her kids on the playground for most of the time they were there, but for 5-10 minutes, she lost track of them when they moved over to the swings due to the hill blocking her view. A lot of news outlets report that Manny came running and crying to Noema's car. So I want to play for you exactly what Noema says happened next. This is her at one of many press conferences.

So your little sister said, I don't see them, we should go check on them. And what was the sequence of events when you did finally go see your son? We went walking, we went walking and we just saw my son standing there. And his ice cream wasn't even in his hand anymore. They had said that somebody had threw his ice cream on the floor. I think he fell, I'm not sure. We just saw him crying. Then that's where I asked them, where's your sister? He just pointed behind the building. I guess he was crying because he had left them by himself.

So when they see Manny, he is crying and alone, and Dulce is gone. They try to ask him what happened, but according to Noema, this three-year-old does not speak at all yet. But they figure out that Manny lost his ice cream, and he points to those buildings behind the playground when they ask where Dulce is. So of course, they check behind the buildings, but no one is there, so they start walking around, just kind of calling out Dulce's name, looking for her.

Noema has stated that at first, she thought that maybe Dulce was just playing some type of game with them, like hide-and-go-seek. But after calling out for Dulce and getting no response, Noema goes to the basketball court to ask the people there if they saw anything. I couldn't find any direct quotes in my research, I'm assuming because they are probably minors, but they tell Noema that someone threw Manny's ice cream on the floor and Dulce ran away.

And they say that they saw a black man and a Mexican man with two kids in the area her children were playing in, and that they think Dulce might have been abducted.

At this point, they have been looking for Dulce for about 10-15 minutes, and Noema decides to call her brother who lived near the park, and she asks him to walk over with their very sweet but very intimidating looking dog in hopes that he would see Dulce on the walk, and maybe be able to intercept her and possibly anyone who might have taken her.

But he can't find Dulce either, so at 4.48pm, after Dulce has been missing for about 30 minutes, Noema decides it's time to call 911.

Okay.

Okay, where in the Bridgestone Park are you? The one with the basketball court where high school is. Okay, so you're at the basketball courts behind the high school? Yes. Okay. And what was she seeing last learning? She was wearing, give me a second.

I don't remember what clothes she was wearing, but she was wearing, I just remember her pants. She was wearing like a flowery pants and some heels, some white heels. Okay. Hi, ma'am, stand in line. I'm going to try to get her to the police, okay? And you said she was five, correct? Yes. All right.

Hello, ma'am. Hello. Hi, did you see which direction your child went? No, we were in the car. She came down with my son. They were running to the park and then me and my sister, we came down. When we got here at the park, she wasn't here. They said that my son was just crying with ice cream. They said that somebody threw his ice cream in the floor and my daughter just ran away.

You didn't see anyone else around there that she could possibly have went with? No, not that I know of. Because we didn't know. There's just some other people that are here that said that they saw her running through some houses in the back. And they said that they saw two men. They saw a black guy and they saw a Mexican man with two kids. Who's saying that they saw them?

There's people here in the basketball court that they saw her running. They're saying that there's people there at the basketball court that they saw her running through some houses with two black males. She's light-skinned, Spanish. What color top does she have on? I don't remember. Are you at the basketball court?

Yes, I'm right here right now. That's affirmed. She says that she's at the basketball court. And do you have your son with you, or is your son... No, I have my son with me. They say he was crying when we found him. He was just standing there crying. Oh, he was standing there crying. So who...

You said that the black males took his ice cream? No, they threw it in the floor. They had to throw it in the floor. So the black males took his ice cream and threw it on the floor and then they left with your daughter? Probably because I didn't saw it. When we came and looked for her, we were looking everywhere for her. She said that her son was at the basketball court with her daughter, that there was two black males that took her son's ice cream and threw it on the ground and left with her daughter.

Okay, well, we have the officers. Are you on Mayor Aiken? I already have an officer here. Okay. All right, go speak with the police, ma'am, okay? Okay.

Unfortunately, in this call, the operator incorrectly relays the information Noema is giving her to whoever she is speaking to in the back, I'm assuming an officer. That there were two black males when Noema said it was a black male and a Mexican man with two children. But as you heard in the call, the police were there in literally minutes, so I have to hope that they were able to clear up the issue in the official report.

But quickly, they had search crews looking all around 60 to 70 acres of the park, looking for any trace of Dulce or even the plastic cup and spoon that came with her ice cream. But there was no trace of her. That night, Noema is extensively interviewed by police until about midnight and returns to the park the next day to help search for Dulce.

On day two of the search, they get even more volunteers and officers to help look. At this point, the search expanded from those 60 to 70 acres to all 1,000 plus acres of this park and the adjacent neighborhood. They had helicopters, dogs, dive crews, and a massive amount of people searching the park on foot. The search for Dulce was huge.

And while volunteers and law enforcement are going over every inch of this park, investigators interview and re-interview witnesses as well as take a closer look at Noema and her family. By all accounts, it seems that they are all very cooperative. The police bring in dogs to search Noema's car, which was still parked in the same spot, and they search the family home, but they come up with nothing.

By the end of the day, they still can't find any trace of Dulce and they call off the search after it gets dark at about 7.30. Although they didn't find Dulce that day, investigators were able to gather some pretty important information. Witnesses stated that they saw a man putting Dulce in a red van with tinted windows and a sliding door.

They described this man as a thin, Hispanic male who was 5'6 to 5'8 inches tall with acne and no facial hair. And they say that he was wearing orange sneakers that were possibly Nike brand, red pants, and a black shirt.

One of the most frustrating parts about researching this case are these witness statements and trying to figure out who said what, because this description of the van and the man seemed to be kind of this mash of statements from Manny, who supposedly saw this red van, and the people on the basketball court who were able to describe the Hispanic man.

Now, as far as I can tell, the description of the van comes directly from Manny only, with many news outlets reporting that it did come from Manny, and the county prosecutor saying that it came from, quote, a child of tender age, end quote, which would make sense to be Manny. But again, Manny is three, and Noema says that he does not even speak yet.

The reason I am so stuck on this is because it will become a major piece of information in this case in general, and they will use it when they finally issue an Amber Alert for Dulce at 10pm that night.

over 24 hours since she was last seen. They also begin pulling over red vans and SUVs all over the city. I'm not saying a three-year-old could never communicate this information. I'm just saying that at this point in the investigation, they put a lot of weight and manpower into finding this red van.

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And on this day, Noema's current boyfriend, who is not Dolce's father, is questioned by investigators and then taken into custody of ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Noema tells the media that she has no idea why he was detained or really what was going on. And the only comment that ICE would give was that he was eventually released.

The issue is that many people believe that by detaining Noema's boyfriend in relation to being questioned about Dulce, this greatly discouraged other people in the community from coming forward when they really needed witnesses the most. I actually found a ton of statements from authorities and Noema begging the community to not be afraid to come forward and reiterating that their immigration status will not be questioned.

But it seems like the damage was already done. On top of now dealing with a community who is more afraid than ever to speak with police, they also face a lot of other obstacles.

The park is huge, and with such a large search party and so many people in the park in general, it was nearly impossible to preserve any footprints or tire tracks or much of any other evidence of Dulce or her possible abductor. Police Chief Michael Gaimari Sr. stated that surveillance footage showed that roughly 400 vehicles drove by the park in the time before and after Dulce went missing.

And although they managed to speak with about 80% of the vehicle owners, they were unable to get a hold of the other 20%, leaving about 80 vehicles with who knows how many potential witnesses in them unaccounted for. Investigators state that they conducted thousands of interviews and reviewed thousands of hours of video surveillance, diligently looking for any sign of Dulce.

Although there are no cameras in the exact area Dulce was last seen in, the police have obtained other videos that confirm Dulce was in the park that day. According to authorities, although there is not video surveillance covering every inch of Bridgeton Park, there is no way to get in and out of the park without being caught on at least one camera.

Meaning that if Dulce was abducted, that person is 100% in that footage. All they need is for a witness to come forward and give them information that will allow them to match that to their video footage.

By September 24th, a week after Dulce went missing, the FBI finally steps in, and they add Dulce to their most wanted missing persons list. They are also finally able to get a hold of Dulce's biological father who was living in Mexico at the time. Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of details about this interview, but it does not appear that they consider him to be a suspect in the case.

By October 9th, the reward goes up to $52,000 after three New Jersey state police unions pitch in. There are also quite a few vigils held to pray for Dulce's safe return. It seems that although many people were afraid to speak with police, the community really rallied behind the search for Dulce.

And on October 15th, the police finally release a sketch of a possible witness they want to speak with. So not a suspect or person of interest, just a witness. The Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office that has jurisdiction over this case said that the sketch was created after a new witness came forward.

They also made a point to state that the description did not come from the child witness who gave the initial description that led to the Amber Alert issued the day after Dulce went missing.

But the description of this sketch states that the witness they are interested in speaking with is a Hispanic male, approximately 5 foot 7 inches tall with a slender build believed to be about 30 to 35 years old, who was wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a white baseball-style hat. The sketch also shows what looks like acne on his chin.

So nearly a month after Dulce is gone, the police released this sketch and description of this witness that is very similar to the description of the suspect they released with the initial Amber Alert. Both Hispanic, both thin, both about the same height, and both have visible acne.

I am really not sure if these are two different men or if the police just kind of wanted to change the title of this person from suspect to witness in hopes of garnering more information about them. I don't know, but the witness statements are endlessly confusing to me. The next big development in the case doesn't happen until March of 2020, when cryptic letters related to Dulce's disappearance start popping up all the way in Ohio.

One letter shows up at the Austintown Library, which is like a seven-hour car ride away from Bridgeton, New Jersey. According to Janet Lowe, a spokesperson for the library, the letter was mostly illegible, but was immediately turned over to police. The next letter shows up at an ice cream shop, which of course we know that Dulce was literally eating ice cream when she disappeared, but this letter is also pretty illegible.

Next, an index card is sent to Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Racecourse, prompting police to search about 40 acres of wooded area near this location. It read, quote, 76 Truck Stop, Dead End Street, Entrance Woods, Please Look, end quote.

But after two days of search parties, drones with infrared technology, and cadaver dogs, nothing is found. But in my opinion, the strangest letter or really set of notes was this final correspondence. These notes were sent from Ohio to Jackie Rodriguez, who at this time became the spokesperson for Dulce's family. Here is Jackie telling ABC6 Philadelphia about these notes. It was, it was...

I want to say eight piece, eight notes put into a regular envelope and then sent out like that. And it was just all scribble. But when I looked in the front to see where it came from, I seen Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio. I'm like, this is dual state related.

This is Ducer related because I had seen and heard from previous notes coming from Ohio. And then I seen that there was a search behind a casino like the week before. So I said, this is Ducer related. And I'm like, oh. So I looked at the front and it was sloppy. What was weird was they had my last name right.

But it looked like they had wrote Jessica. Jessica and Jackie are two different names, but it looked more like of a Jessica than more of a Jackie with no number on it, like P.O. box. And it said it was blank. So I'm like, how the heck was this put into my P.O. box?

So what I did was I first I called the detective. I told them, I'm like, listen, I am freaking out. I am scared because this was put in my P.O. box and my P.O. box number is not even on the envelope. So they hurried up. They came here within 15 minutes. They picked up the letter, the notes, and they went to the post office. And I went to the post office and I said, you know, how is this put in my P.O. box if I'm

It does not have a PO Box number on it. And she told me, well, I typed up your last name and the closest name to this was your name. But that doesn't sound right. How are you going to put a random letter in someone's PO Box with no number? Yeah. It's weird. Yeah.

The circumstances behind how that letter got into her P.O. box are so strange, and I'm not sure we will ever really know what happened there. But a key thing about these notes is that they were able to make out a few words on them, including the word Alaska, border, 1776, Mexico, Civil War, New England, and kids' home orphanage.

But after this incident, Jackie actually had a pretty bad panic attack and had to go to the hospital, ultimately leading her in taking a step back from the case to protect herself and her family. But at the end of the day, all police could confirm is that the handwriting on all of these notes match.

We don't really know what all of these notes and words mean, and there is no way to know if there is a deeper meaning behind them or if it's just a prank. So Dulce has been missing for five months at this point, and the leads and tips seem to be drying up. But during this time, Dulce's mother Noema seems to be making an effort to speak with the media to raise awareness about Dulce. She did a ton of interviews and even went on the Dr. Phil show.

But Noema is heavily scrutinized. Her interviews are basically picked apart, with many people stating that she seems cold and emotionless.

People even came forward to speak about the day after Dulce went missing, stating that Noema didn't seem to be looking for Dulce or be as concerned as they would have expected. They point to Noema apparently taking a break during the search to eat some pizza. I think it's important to keep in mind that Noema was five months pregnant at this time, and apparently had not eaten since the day before.

So in my opinion, I don't think her taking a break to eat a slice of pizza is anything alarming. But the largest and most common criticism of Noema has been about not keeping a closer eye on Dulce and her brother that day in the park.

This led many people to theorize that this could have been strategic on Noema's part so that she could sell her daughter into sex trafficking or possibly some type of illegal adoption. The idea is that by making her sister stay in the car with her, whoever planned on taking Dulce would not have mistaken her sister for Dulce, and that the only witness would be three-year-old Manny.

But there were actually a ton of witnesses in this case, so I'm not sure how solid that plan would be. Noema has received so much criticism that she has publicly acknowledged it several times. And she states that of course she wishes she could go back to that day and keep a closer eye on the kids. But despite this criticism, she still continues to speak out in the media in hopes of generating leads in her daughter's case.

Noema also stated in a press conference that the police would randomly stop by her house all the time to talk about the case as things came up. She was extensively interviewed and appears to be cooperating. They also took and returned her cell phone multiple times throughout the investigation.

And since they returned it to her, I have to believe that they didn't find anything they considered evidence of a crime. On the one-year anniversary of Dulce's disappearance in September of 2020, Noema told ABC6 Philadelphia News, quote,

I'm grateful for them because not a lot of people are helping my family, support us, looking for Dulce. There's a lot of people judging me, my family, saying we had something to do with it, but we had nothing to do with it." I have to take a moment to reiterate that there is no correct way to grieve in a situation like this.

And on top of that, I think it's important to note that although Noema is fluent in English and in my opinion speaks it pretty well, she grew up in a household where Spanish was the primary language. And many people who speak Spanish fluently have come forward to say that the interviews with Noema that are conducted in Spanish are much different from those that are conducted in English, as it just takes Noema an extra moment to respond,

which makes total sense to me. And even though I absolutely took six years of Spanish, unfortunately, I can't make out a lot of what she's saying in these Spanish interviews. But I can tell you, I watched a lot of these interviews in Spanish and in English. And when Noema is interviewed in Spanish, her answers are much longer, and she tends to get much more emotional.

So I do think the language barrier could be making a difference in terms of her getting emotional when she's being interviewed. And I have to point back to that 911 call, because she seems pretty upset to me. Of course, this is just my opinion, but I don't really see anything crazy inappropriate about Noema in these interviews.

The fact that she was so open with police and never retained legal counsel is more than I can say for a lot of key players in missing persons cases.

However, one thing I can't get out of my head is that decision to stay in the car with her little sister while the kids played. It was a nice day in the 70s and 80s, the playground had benches and tables, so why not scratch the lottery tickets and have her sister do homework right next to the kids instead of from 30 meters away?

Why stay in the car? And specifically, why did her sister stay in the car? I get that maybe Noema being five months pregnant just made her not want to walk the 30 meters to the playground. But why does the 8-year-old want to do homework instead of playing on the playground? Why take her at all if she didn't plan on playing? I don't think any of us can say for sure, but I cannot get this part out of my head.

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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So where is the case now? Did they ever find the man in the red van? Well, at this point, you might understand why I am so hung up on these witness statements, especially this red van that Manny described. Because now, a year later, the police and prosecutors start saying that they aren't putting as much weight into the red van with the tinted windows and sliding door anymore.

So basically, most of everything they put out in the Amber Alert other than the description of Dulce is not relevant anymore. I get that sometimes investigations just kind of go this way, but I can't help but think of all the hours spent looking into the red van were pretty much a waste of time. Here is Cumberland prosecutor Jennifer Webb McRae telling ABC6 Philadelphia News about this red van.

So I had mentioned in previous press conferences that we were looking for a red vehicle, right? Red van. We received, and this is public, we received that information from a witness of tender years, right? I would not discount it. And, but we have searched and gotten many, many tips about red vans. We've,

examine every video that we could possibly find in the area of the recreation area in Bridgeton and track down all of the vehicles that we could track down. Sometimes when you look at video, you can't see the license plate or something of that nature.

What I want the public to understand is that we have that information. We've ruled out as best we can every red vehicle, red van in the area. But I'm not wed to a red van. But it was the best piece of information we had at that time from a witness of tender years.

So what happened to Dulce? I feel like the possibilities in this case are kind of endless. Could Dulce's father have taken her to live with him in Mexico? Did Noema sell Dulce? Was she taken by a man in some type of vehicle? I mean, I don't think it's impossible that a predator could have been in the right place at the right time when Dulce and her brother were pretty much playing alone on the playground.

Maybe that person just drove up on that road, by the park buildings, saw the opportunity, and took it. Another interesting theory comes from the surveillance video, when they are all getting ice cream. In part of the footage, you can see a man who appears to be waiting to pay, but also just kind of staring at the kids. So did this man see Dulce and follow them to the park and wait for that opportunity?

Is it possible that Dulce just wandered away and got too close to that spillway and fell in? I feel like this is one of those cases where you can theorize all day. But what gives me so much hope that this case can be solved and that Dulce can be found is how certain the police are that if they can just connect with one of those witnesses in the park that day that they have not been able to speak to, they can find out what happened to Dulce.

Dulce's family and many people in the community are still hopeful that she is alive and well. The reward for information that leads to finding Dulce is now up to $75,000. If you have information about Dulce, please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Dulce Maria Alaves was 5 years old when she went missing and will turn 7 in April of 2021, so she is probably taller than 3 to 3.5 feet now and probably weighs more than 60 to 70 pounds. But Dulce is Hispanic with brown hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a yellow t-shirt with a white elephant on it, black and white pants with flowers on them, and white sandals with a heel.

Our call to action this week is to share Dulce's picture and the sketch of the potential witness the police want to speak with. These will be available on the Voices for Justice social media accounts. Please take a moment to at least look at her photo if you are unable to share. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted, produced, and edited by me, Sarah Turney. For more information about the podcast or to submit a case you'd like me to cover, visit VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. And for even more content, you can join the Patreon family for just $5 a month at Patreon.com slash VoicesForJustice.