For decades, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office in Prescott, Arizona, along with the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children, the National Missing and Unknown Persons System and a long list of other partners, have been working to identify the little girl. But even after getting clues several times, the matter remained unsolved.
Thanks to advanced DNA technology, that girl now has a name.
Authorities identified her as Sharon Lee Gallegos during a news conference on Tuesday. This is the oldest cold case resolved by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.
Four-year-old Gallegos was kidnapped on July 21, 1960, while playing in her grandmother’s backyard in Almagordo, New Mexico, officials said. According to the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children, she was taken in by “a couple who were following her”.
While “Little Miss Nobody” has been identified, more work remains to be done on the case as authorities work to find out who kidnapped her, what happened in the days following her abduction, and her What was the cause of death? Sheriff David Rhodes said Tuesday that investigators have found some clues from Gallegos’ cousins, who were with him when he was abducted.
“We want to say thank you as family,” Gallegos’ nephew Ray Chavez said during the news conference. “Thank you for what you’ve done for us, thank you for keeping my aunt safe and never forgetting her. It’s still sinking in.”
Chavez said that her family described Gallegos as a very spirited, happy little girl who loved to play with her cousins. Her death and disappearance had a lasting impact on the members of her family and as a result, they consider themselves to be overly protective of the children in their family.
At the time, investigators determined that Gallegos’ The remains had been burnt one to two weeks earlier. Since no further trauma was apparent, the cause of death was difficult to determine and due to the suspicious nature of the case, Gallegos’ Police said the death was ruled a homicide.
According to the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children, when found, Gallegos was about 3-foot-6 and weighed an estimated 55 pounds. She had brown hair and was found wearing a checkered blouse, white shorts and adult-size sandals that were cut to fit her. Her fingernails and toe nails were also painted, the center said.
The center said that after her body was discovered, the local community raised money to buy a coffin and a proper burial for the little girl. “Little Miss Nobody” was carved on the stone of her head with the words, “Blessed are those who are pure in heart.”
Advanced DNA testing moves the needle for answers
In 2021, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Othrum, a Texas-based laboratory that works exclusively with law enforcement, to see whether advanced DNA testing could help solve the mystery of “Little Miss Nobody.” could.
Othrum’s chief business development officer, Dr. Kristen Mittelman, told CNN that Othrum received the case in December 2021 and returned the identity to authorities in February 2022.
The evidence isn’t always strong enough to reconstruct and build DNA profiles, Mittelman said. But better technology means the lab can create DNA profiles that weren’t possible in the past.
The FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS, is the standard technology currently used in forensic testing, Mittelman said. CODIS looks at 20 DNA markers and compares a person to a known database of thousands of DNA profiles from past criminals.
“What our technology does… is it looks at hundreds of thousands of markers and is able to assess your identity without you having to go to any database,” she said.
The “Little Miss Nobody” case was crowdfunded in about a day, she said.
“It shows how people are really looking for the answer to this, and finding out who this little girl was,” Mittelman said.
CNN’s Claudia Dominguez and Amanda Moses contributed to this report.