Children's Safety Zone
Mikelle Biggs Story Index
Contact The Mesa Police Department immediately with any new information!
Mesa Police, Criminal Investigations 480-644-4078, Sgt. Steven Stahl, steven_stahl@mesa.ci.mesa.az.us
They're from everywhere but here, but the retirees at a Mesa mobile home park still care deeply about the fate of a missing Mesa girl.
"She's an 11-year-old girl. If it were my granddaughter, I would certainly be concerned," said Joe Simmons, a retired auctioner from Ontario, Canada.
It doesn't matter that the winter visitors live elsewhere most of the year, he said. "Feeling is feeling."
Simmons and his fellow senior citizens at Val Vista Village raised $33,552 through an auction Jan. 29 for the Mikelle Biggs reward fund. They gave the check to the Nation's Missing Children Organization, which gave it to the Silent Witness Program.
The money is dedicated to the Biggs case, along with $10,000 given to Silent Witness by TRW Vehicle Safety Systems, which employs Mikelle's father, Darien Biggs.
Silent Witness will donate $1,000, bringing the reward fund to $44,570. The K.C. Memorial Foundation has pledged an additional $20,000, and the Biggs family has an $8,000 reward account at Bank of America.
"If there hasn't been anything (an arrest) in a year, then the Nation's Missing Children's Organization will put it to good use to help other children," Simmons said.
Mikelle vanished on Jan. 2 shortly before 6 p.m. at El Moro Avenue and Toltec Street, only four houses away from her home. Mikelle had been waiting for an ice cream truck, but police never found the truck or anyone who saw one.
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Reproduced with permission from: The Arizona Republic Written By: Jim Walsh ©Copyright 1999 Arizona Republic |
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