An Ice Cream Truck Abduction

Eleven year old Mikelle Biggs had been waiting for the ice cream truck with her younger sister, Kimber. Like most young children, Kimber had grown cold and lost her patience, and decided to go home. Upon arriving home, her mother had immedately sent her back out to tell Mikelle to come home too.

Kimber, in total, had only been gone 90 seconds, but in that short window of time, Mikelle was abducted. The rear wheel of the bike that Mikelle had been riding, still spinning, left behind. A neighbor with a criminal past had caught the eye of investigators, but not having enough evidence to charge him, they had to leave him alone. Less than a year later, this neighbor attacked and nearly murdered a nearby neighbor.

Is it possible he is the one responsible or Mikelle’s abduction or is it possible there is someone else who played a role in this and has eluded the authorities for more than twenty years?

Mikelle Biggs disapppeared on January 2, 1999. A tip in her disappearance was published on March 19, 2018.

A dollar bill in Wisconsin was the latest tip received that the Mesa detectives were investigating in Mikelle Biggs disappearance. The dollar bill was reported to the police on March 14, 2018 in Neenah, a town 9 miles southeast of Appleton.

There was a message written along the edges of the 2009 bill:

“My name is Mikel (sic) Biggs kidnapped From Mesa AZ I’m Alive.”

The note appeared to have been written in a child’s handwritting. Mikelle’s name was spelled wrong and “s” in “is” almost sits on its side while the “kel in the name is written in cursive. The Neenah Police Investigator Adam Streubel examined the bill and questioned the authenticity. He had noted that Mikelle’s first name was misspelled and suspected that it could have been just a senseless joke.

The detectives have said that they don’t dismiss any evidence that they find and that they follow up on any and all leads but that they don’t believe that this message was written by Mikelle. One of the lead detectives, Jerry Gissel, said evidence that that they found during their initial investigation showed that Mikelle was running away from somebody.

“It wasn’t somebody that she knew or wanted to be with. She dropped the bike, she was running toward home, she dropped quarters, and it was swift. And somebody grabbed her and, I believe, abducted her in a car and drove away with her,” Gisselll stated in an 2009 interview with ABC News.

Mikelle’s family believe her to be deceased and on the fifth anniversary of her disappearance they held a funeral for her with an empty casket. The family still believes that Dee Blalock, a convicted sex offender, who lived just two blocks away, and had spent the entire night in their garage, but are still suspicious of him, is responsible for her abduction. Blalock is currently serving a fifteen-and-a-half -year sentence in an Arizona prison for charges unrelated to Mikelle’s case.

A Trafficked Child’s Account

Voices of the Present and the Future would like to bring to attention the human trafficking industry on this last day of Mental Awareness Month.

There have been millions of women, men and children around the world who have been and who continue to be subjected to forced labor, domestic servitude, or the sex trade at the hands of these human traffickers. It’s a form of modern-day slavery, the inhumane practice of human trafficking that takes place here in the United States as well.

Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes investigated by ICE. In it’s worst manifestation, human trafficking is akin to modern-day slavery. They are forced into  prostitution, involuntary labor and other forms of servitude to repay debts-often incurred during entry into the United States.

One story from a child who was trafficked:

“I was 17 around when I met ‘Robert’. It started off with me and my friend meeting him for social purposes. It just went on for about nine months and we were living in different hotels the entire time and I don’t even remember how many men there were. I was a runaway and wasn’t living anywhere stable, so since I was underage most of the time, I sort of needed him in order to get hotels and move around.

I had already been a prostitute since I was 15 and I think I just didn’t even know what was right or wrong and how I should be treated. Towards the end, he held me against my will in a hostage situation and forced me to prostitute and took all the money and just beat me severely.

The last time I saw him, he was just beating me until he was absolutely tired. I was covered in bruises, my face was completely disfigured and it’s causing me issue with my back to this day because of the way he was beating me and torturing me. That was probably the worst. There was a client in the room and he was having issue with something I couldn’t do because I was all beat up. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to do anything. He wanted his money back. When Robert and him were talking I ran out of the room and somehow was able to run faster than him.

I didn’t tell anyone. I kept it to myself until I got a call from the FBI that he’d been arrested for something else and asked would I talk. Having to go face everything and realize how serious everything was. For the longest time I didn’t even think it was that serious.

At the trial, it felt empowering to look at him the entire time. I’m sure it drove him crazy. He can never touch me but he had to look at me and listen and it made me feel good.

I had to learn that if I don’t at least have some kind of love and value for myself, no one ever will. My advice to other girls would be to let people help you.”

Empower yourself and help empower other writers, leave comments, follow, subscribe or just hit the like button. If you have a similar story to share we would love to hear it. Let us know what you have to say here at Voices, past, present,and future.

A SCANDALOUS AFFAIR

Voices of the past brings to you one of the greatest True love stories in history. It is intertwined in the professional success and personal tragedy surrounding Mary Godwin Shelley and Percy Shelley’s Aldulterous Affair.

While we all love to indulge in a juicy love story from time to time, this one provides a bit more than that, all from our history.

Mary Godwin, only a teenager, daughter of the famous proto-feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, eloped with A VERY MARRIED PEOT, Perscy Shelly. They left England to escape all the scandal, traveling Europ together.

Percy Shelly’s PREGNANT wife, devastated that her husband abandoned her, committed suicide in 1816. Percy and Mary had no regard for Harriet, Percy’s wife, and they married. Not that it mattered to Mary, she had already been calling herself, “Mrs. Shelly” before the title had become vacant.

With such a scandalous beginning, fate would be delivered to Percy and Mary Shelly through success and tragedy. Their union had scandalized England causing them to live abroad for the rest of their lives. They had multiple children, but only one would survive to adulthood.

Percy’s progressive politics and unique style would negatively affect his career while Mary would find success with her groundbreaking nove, Fankenstein….

Six years after marrying, in 1822, Percy will drown in a boating accident in Italy. A devastated Mary, along with her son, would return back to England, and forge a successful literary career for almost thirty years before she died in 1851.

INTERESTING FACT: It is said that Mary Shelley kept her dead husband’s heart in her desk for 30 years.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and as always, support your fellow writers. Leave comments, hit the like button, or if you are inclined to do so, PLEASE follow me, for more interesting stories such as this one.

An Unmarked Grave

Voices of the Present and Future has recently been reading about the 751 unmarked graves found at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan. If you haven’t been following the news, please continue reading this post as this discovery just comes weeks after the remains of 215 children were found at a similar residential school in British Columbia.

A statement was given by Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. He said he was “terribly saddened” by the discovery in Saskatchewan. He also said it was “a shameful reminder of the systematic racism, descrimination, and injustice that indigenous peoples have faced.”

Between the years of 1863 and 1998, there were more than 150,000 indigenous children that were taken from their families and placed in these schools throughout Canada. Often, these children were not allowed to speak their language or to practice their culture. Many being abused and mistreated.

A former residential school student, Florence Sparvier, spoke at a press conference stating, ” They made us believe we didn’t have souls. They were putting us down as people, so we learned to not like who we were.”

A commission that was launched in 2008 to document the impacts of this system, found that large numbers of indigenous children never returned to their home communities. The practice amounted to cultural genocide. In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for the system, although this does not bring back the lives that were lost or to quote the words used, “the souls” that were lost.

Chief Delorme said there may have once been markers for the graves but the Roman Catholic Church, which oversaw the cemetary, may have removed them. It is not yet determined if all of these unmarked graves are those of children.

There was an estimated 6,000 children who died while attending these schools. The students were often housed in poorly built, poorly heated, and unsanitary facilities. There was also physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the school authorities which led other children to run away.

I urge you to take a moment of silence for the lives of those lost and prayers that identities will be provided for the unmarked graves that have been found.

Thank you for following Voices of the Present and Future today.

Why Was He Released?

As it so often goes for me, life happens and I had to put my blog and my book on hold. We had a family emergency; one of our little grandbabies had to go into the hospital and stay for a few days and that left me being momma, which I haven’t been to little kids in a long time. They are attention seekers, and when I tried to get some work done, it was Mimi, look at me.

I am back now, and the grandbabies are all fine and well; so, Voices, past, present, and future is going to bring to you the story of the most prolific serial killer, Samuel Little.

I ask you to PLEASE JOIN ME as we dive into his early life:

Born June 7, 1940, to a mother, he claimed, was a prostitute, in Reynolds, Georgia. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he was mainly raised by his grandmother. Little had problems with discipline and achievement, and by his own account, he began having sexual fantasies about strangling women when he was just a child. He remembers this starting in kindergarten when he saw his teacher touch her neck; as a teenager, he collected true crime magazines depicting women being choked.

Little was convicted of breaking and entering into property in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1956, and was then held in an institution for juveninile offenders. He then moved to Florida to live with his mother in the late 1960’s, and by his own accounts, stated he worked at various times as a cemetary worker and an ambulance attendant. He then said he “began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law”, being arrested in eight states for crimes that included: driving under the influence, fraud, shoplifting, solicitation, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and rape. Little claimed that he took up boxing during his time in prison, referring to himself as a former prizefighter.

As you continue to read, see if you agree with me, that there is something wrong with the amount of times this man was arrested and only sentenced to a couple years and then released to only do something more dangerous and haneous to someone else and then then as you read the judicial system will fail again. He should have been sentenced to some kind of psychiatric treatment early on during his earlier incarcerations, but I know they didn’t do that then.

In 1961, Little was incarcerated for three years for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain and released in 1964. By 1975, Little had been arrested 26 times in 11 states for crimes includng theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.

In 1982, He was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and charged with MURDER of a 22-year old woman who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury had declined to indict him for her murder, however, while he was under investigaton, he was extradicted to Florida and tried for the murder of a 26-year old woman whose body was found in September 1982. A prosecution witness identified Little as a person who had spent time with the woman on the night before her disappearance, but due to mistrust of the witness’s testimony, Little was acquitted in January 1984.

Little then moved to California where he stayed in the vacinity of San Diego. In October 1984, he was arrested yet again, for kidnapping, beating, and strangling a 22-year-old woman who survived. One month later, Little was found, by police, in the back seat of his car, with an unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled, in the same location as the attempted murder. Little only served two and a half years in prison for both crimes.

I hope it’s not just me but something is wrong with that sentencing because:

In February 1987, Little immediately moved to Los Angeles and committed at least to additional murders when he was released.

Little was again arrested on September 5 2012 at a homeless shelter in Louisville Kentucky, and then extradicted to California to face a narcotics charge. Authorities used DNA testing and established that he was involved in the murders of three women. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. Little was extradicted to Los Angeles where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the police said Little was being investigated for the involvement in three dozen murders that were committed in the 1980’s, which until then had been undisclosed. The murder case in Mississippi, due to the connection, was reopened.. In total, Little was tested for the involvement in 93 murders of women committed in many of our United Stated.

I wish that after three strikes, the judicial system would have seen that this man was a problem and was going to get worse. Many lives could have been saved.

Little was found guilty on September 25, 2014 and before his death was serving a life sentence at the California State Prison, Los Angeles County. He later confessed to many more murders in hopes of a transfer.

I hope that you enjoyed my return article and will join me next time. Please support my blog and others by joining the conversation.

The Forgotten Ones

While doing some research for my book, I came across a small town murder, much like in the story I am writing, (Check it out in my pages section: Upcoming Book).  I would like to share this story with you now, as no voice should go left unheard.

With a population of just about 400, in a small town called Montverde, Florida,  a community where the residents felt safe to leave their doors unlocked, is rocked.

On April 8th, 1980 Georgia Jane Crews left her family home around 8:30 pm to walk to the convenience store, which was only about a mile from her home. She had planned on getting some snacks for  a film she was planning to watch that night. Before Georgia left, she told her brother Toni, that she would be back shortly.

An hour passes and Toni becomes concerned that Georgia hasn’t returned yet. His first thought is that she had just gone to a friend’s house to watch the movie instead. But, after calling around, he would learn that no one had heard from her, causing him to start searching the neighborhood.

Parents, Mike and Linda, had been out setting up trotlines on Lake Minnehaha, as Mike was a commercial fisherman. When they returned home, they found Toni in a panic as well as a few of the neighbors helping to search for Georgia. The idea or mere thought that something bad had happened to her was completely out of the question. Many believed she was just somewhere close by. Another hour will pass before Linda calls the police.

Let me remind you that this is a small town of only about 400 people, so when I tell you that there was only one part-time police officer at Montverde, do not let it come as a shock to you.

When the police offier realizes the severity of the situation, he calls for help from the surrounding counties. By the end of that night, there were several officers from three different police departments, sniffer dogs (K9), and a helicopter all involved in the search for Georgia.

The K9 had been able to  pick up on Georgia’s scent leading away from her house and then down a dirt road that went in the direction of the convenience store. Georgia had liked to walk baraefoot, and the police had found small bare-footprints at places along the road, giving them hope that they were heading in the right direction. Only after a short distance on the dirt road would the dogs lose Georgia’s scent as well as the footprints. At this point, the investigators believed she had gotten into a car; willingly or by force, it was unknown.

Night would grow longer and the sky would get darker. It was at this point that Georgia’s family realized something was wrong. Georgia had been scared of the dark, and would not have waked anywhere alone at night in the dark. It was certain that Georgia would not have run away from home. Just as she had told her brother Toni where she was going, she always informed someone of where she was going and always asked for permission if she was leaving their garden.

Midnight would strike. Over 100 residents alonside police were searching for Georgia. Police were also conducting door-to-door interviews, trying to gain some idea of what happened to Georgia. Lake Florentine would be searched by divers the following day. Police  would follow up on sighting of several suspicious and unfamiliar cars that had been reported, none linking to Goergia’s disappearance. The FBI would enter the search a few days later, confirming the theory that Georgia had walked down the dirt road and then got into a vehicle by using tracking dogs. A helicopter was also used to search the area using heat sensing technology, but nothing would be found.

On April 10th, the Lake County Sheriff’s department, Georgia’s grandmother, and the Montverde police chief would receive a phone call from an anonymous caller, claiming that Georgia was dead. The caller would refuse to give any further information, and the police would be unable to track the call.

Six days after this phone call was received, they would find little Georgia’s body in Fern Park, Seminole County, by a family of four. The decomposition of her body would make it difficult for a visual identification, but through the efforts of the medical examiner and a bone spur on one of her feet, an identification would be made as well as the fact that Georgia was still wearing the clothes she was last seen in. She was found lying on her back, one leg tucked behind her back, a single stab woound in the back, the possibility that she was strangled also hasn’t been ruled out. Luckily there was no sign of sexual assault. This poor girl has been through enough.

Several clues were left behind by the killer, one such clue being that of a homemade metal cross necklace. Georgia’s family had never seen the necklace before which would lead the police to only one other possibility, it belonged to the killer. Several anonymous phone calls were made to the police, thought to be from the same person who told them that Georgia was dead. He had statedthat he knew who the killer was, but became nervous and mumbled things about their own safety, before hanging up. The police held a public press conference urging anyone with information to come forward and that their identity would remain secret. They urged the unknown caller to call them again and share any information, but the caller never called again.

Little Georgia’s voice can no longer be heard again, but through my website I bring her voice and her story to light. It could be through this necklace that was left on her body that they may find the killer. . The necklace had been made from two pieces of silver, that had been drilled and then welded together, before being attached to a silver chain.

Little Georgia’s life ended before she was given a chance to make her mark on the world. I wanted to give her voice a chance here on Voices, past, present, and future.