TX - Opal Jennings, 6, Saginaw, 26 March 1999

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This just in today on Houston news channel KTRK/ABC affiliate:

http://www/abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/state/010104_APstate_skeletallhtml

I hope this link works--the website it www.abc13.com

Summarizing, skeletal remains of a child have been recovered about 10 miles from where Opal Jennings went missing in 1999, abducted from her grandparents' front yard. Her kidnapper is serving life in prison for her abduction but has never been tried for murder.

I hope and pray Opal has been found. I thought we had a thread for her, but I can't find it.
 
Search for skeletal remains continues

By Chris Vaughn
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH -- For the second full day, homicide detectives and crime-scene officers meticulously combed a brushy field in northwest Fort Worth where what is believed to be part of a child's skull was found this week.

Sgt. J.D. Thornton, who leads the Fort Worth homicide detectives, said they found additional bones at the site Thursday but could not determine whether they were animal or human.

continues....
 
Thanks, Lynn!

Latest word from Dallas Morning News is that they found a pair of pink Barbie tennis shoes as well, which is what Opal was wearing when she was abducted.
 
your welcome Texana :)

Remains Tentatively Identified as Clarksville Girl Missing Since 1999

The six-year-old girl originally from Clarksville, Arkansas, disappeared in March of 1999 while playing outside her grandmother's home in nearby Saginaw.

DNA testing results could take up to six weeks.

Richard Lee Franks of Fort Worth was convicted of aggravated kidnapping in the abduction.

Richard Franks, life in prison for this???
 
It sounds like from the exact match of shoe (size 13 pink Barbie tennis) and some other items, plus the general age and condition of the bone fragments, this is indeed Opal.

I'm amazed Franks' first trial was a deadlocked jury! Although the evidence was circumstancial, it was still strong enough IMO to convict the sorry SOB. He drove a car that matched the description, he changed his appearance radically the day after she was abducted (and the description matched him) and he even confessed to having her in his car--although he later tried to recant that. Apparently, he had thoroughly cleaned his car, and with the length of time between his arrest and the abduction, they couldn't recover any fingerprints inside the car--something was said then about the heat and humidity here destroying evidence. And with no recovery of the body, there would always be some idiot on the jury who would hold off on a murder conviction. Oh, and I forgot, he's a convicted sex offender as well.

Maybe they can bring him to trial now for her murder. He had no reason to give up her location, because he knows if he goes to trial, he'll get lethal injection. He deserves it.

For some reason, the loss of this child really grabbed my heart. I have two daughters, and had Opal lived, she would be about as old as my oldest now, and the youngest is only a little older than her when she was abducted. And being a Texan child as well--near a city I've always loved--I have just never stopped grieving and praying for this child. I've always known in my heart she was killed by that SOB, but I thought I would feel better when they did finally recover her.

Instead, I just feel even more saddened.
 
Was Opal kidnapped from Clarksville, Arkansas or Saginaw, Texas? I have seen two different locations listed as the 'missing from' on different websites.
 
Up2theminute said:
Was Opal kidnapped from Clarksville, Arkansas or Saginaw, Texas? I have seen two different locations listed as the 'missing from' on different websites.


opal was kidnapped from her grandmother's yard in texas while playing with her cousin who i believe was 2 at the time.

opal's mother and other relatives held a news conference yesterday, but i did not see opal's grandmother. does anyone know her status?
 
izzyB said:
opal was kidnapped from her grandmother's yard in texas while playing with her cousin who i believe was 2 at the time.

opal's mother and other relatives held a news conference yesterday, but i did not see opal's grandmother. does anyone know her status?


My understanding, as I've followed this case from day 1, Audrey Sanderford, grandmother, is in Texas (Corpus Christie), and still fighting for children's rights. I am OUTRAGED At MONTEL WILLIAMS TO CONTINUE TO ALLOW THAT SICK PSYCHIC.... SYLVIA.....to be on his show........... Sylvia, who told Audrey on a show back in ??? I believe 99, that Opal was alive and taken to southern american island by many men... Sylvia you will live in a very warm place when your time comes. Take sunscreen baby.

Uggggggggggggggg, poor Audrey for sometime, kept insisting in various newspapers that her dear granddaughter was alive somewhere.

Rest in peace Opal. There is justice, it just may take 70 or 80 years to come. Poor baby.
 
Thanks, Blueclouds!

I completely agree with you about the psychic. Will Montel give the true story now? Probably not. :furious:

I think the family is going to have an even harder time dealing with the recovery because of Madame Sylvia's lies.

Was it ever made public why Opal was living with her grandmother? Just curious.
 
Opal Jo'Dace Jennings
November 24, 1992 - March 26, 1999
Rest in peace, beautiful child, you will be so missed.

Praying for healing and justice, for Opal and all who love her.
Much love, Lanie

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
 
Up2theminute said:
Was Opal kidnapped from Clarksville, Arkansas or Saginaw, Texas? I have seen two different locations listed as the 'missing from' on different websites.
opal was playing in her grandmother's front yard in saginaw with 2 of her cousins when a man came up, picked her up, punched her in the stomach, threw her in the car, and drove away. the other children went into the house to tell their grandmother, but opal was never found until just the other day. someone riding their horse in the woods, about 5 miles from her grandmother's home, found the remains/shoes.

because this is local, everyone here knows the name opal jennings immediately.

the man that was tried for her kidnapping admitted that he had some contact with her, but never confessed to killing her.

at the time of the trial, it was said that he had a below average iq.

opal was a beautiful child and what her family has gone through is a living hell. i'm sad that this happened at all, but i think finding her may help to give them some closure.

i saw sylvia brown on montel one time (she's a psychic) and she told opal's grandmother that she was getting the vision that opal was sold into white slavery. i wanted to go through the tv and shake sylvia brown.
 

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