Still Missing NV - Francillon Pierre, 3, North Las Vegas, 2 Aug 1986 *mother arrested in 2019*

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[h=1]Francillon Pierre[/h]
  • francillon_pierre_1.jpg
  • francillon_pierre_2.jpg
Francillon, circa 1986; Age-progression to age 29 (circa 2011)



  • Missing Since 08/02/1986
  • Missing From North Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Date of Birth 10/01/1982 (35)
  • Age 3 years old
  • Height and Weight 3'6, 32 pounds
  • Clothing/Jewelry Description A light gray short-sleeved sweatshirt with two ivory-colored buttons on the sides.
  • Distinguishing Characteristics African-American male. Black hair, brown eyes. Francillon's nickname is Yo Yo. He is of Haitian descent.


[h=3]Details of Disappearance[/h] Francillon was last seen at the Broad Acres Swap Meet in North Las Vegas, Nevada on August 2, 1986. He has never been heard from again. Francillon lived with his mother, Amy Luster, and stepfather, Lee Luster, at the time of his disappearance. His biological father, Jean Pierre, was Amy's former boyfriend.

The Lusters were charged with felony child abuse in December 1985; they allegedly beat Francillon and caused 30 to 40 welts on his body. They were awaiting trial in that case when the child disappeared.

Amy and Lee told the police they'd taken the boy to the swap meet and lost track of him there. They asked authorities not to publicize his disappearance or distribute photographs because they didn't want the media to sensationalize it.

A month later, they attempted to sell some of Francillon's toys at a garage sale to finance a trip to Seattle, Washington. They canceled the sale after it was reported in the local news. In December 1986, Lee and Amy were charged with perjury. Authorities stated they had lied about their backgrounds and where they had lived and worked.

The Lusters suggested Jean might have been involved in Francillon's disappearance. Investigators located him in Haiti about two and a half months later and searched his apartment, but found no trace of Francillon. Jean then traveled to Nevada, took a lie detector test and passed. He was ruled out as a suspect.

Amy and Lee are considered suspects in the child's case, but they have never been charged in connection with it. They moved to Florida about eleven months after Francillon disappeared. They stated they still believed Jean had taken Francillon, and that the reason they moved to Florida was to be closer to Haiti, where they believed he was.

Few details are available in Francillon's case. It is classified as a non-family abduction.

http://charleyproject.org/case/francillon-pierre

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/6530/
 
Woman arrested in Boca Raton for Las Vegas murder that happened more than 30 years ago

A Dania Beach woman has been arrested on charges that she killed her 3-year-old son while living in Nevada more than 30 years ago and covered up the crime by saying the boy had disappeared.

Amy Fleming, 60, faces a charge of felony murder and is currently being held in the Palm Beach County Main Detention Center after being arrested in Boca Raton.

She is currently being held on $1 million bond.

[...]

A news conference on the case is planned for Monday afternoon by North Las Vegas police.
 
As a Las Vegan, this is amazing. When he disappeared, I do not recall the suspicion on the parents too much. As an adult, looking back, of COURSE it makes sense. So happy to see resolution to a case that has never quite left this town. I wonder who finally talked?
 
Here's a link to the press conference they had http://bit.ly/19UkljA

Someone applied for a birth certificate in the child's name in 2017, police believe it was an attempt at identity theft. That got NLVPD looking at the case again, additional witnesses and information gathered since '86 helped them put together enough to get arrest warrant for mom. Apparently the mother and her boyfriend wrote letters to one another while they were in jail for obstruction back then that allude to what happened.
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A woman who moved to Florida from the Las Vegas area a year after her 3-year-old mysteriously vanished more than 30 years ago has been arrested on a warrant charging her with killing the boy, authorities said Monday.

Amy Elizabeth Fleming of Dania, Florida, was being transferred to Nevada from jail in Palm Beach County following her Jan. 29 arrest on a murder charge in Francillon Pierre's death in August 1986.

The child has not been found, but North Las Vegas police Officer Eric Leavitt said investigators recently obtained new witness accounts saying Fleming killed him. Leavitt declined to specify how authorities believe the child died.

Fleming, who was 28 at the time and is now 60, and her then-fiance Lee Luster told police that the boy, nicknamed Yo-Yo, wandered away from them at a Saturday afternoon swap meet.

"The parents have always been persons of interest in the case," Leavitt said. "At this point, evidence points to (Fleming), but the investigation is ongoing."

Luster, now 62, has not been charged with a crime.

Investigators questioned Fleming and Luster after the boy was reported missing, and Leavitt said they told police that Pierre's father, who lived in Haiti, may have abducted the boy.

Leavitt said the father was cleared as a suspect in 1986. Police are now trying to locate him in Haiti, the North Las Vegas police spokesman added.


Florida woman charged in 3-year-old son's 1986 Nevada death
 
When Francillon first went missing, it wasn’t front-page news.

Police went door to door, showing a picture of the missing boy to neighbors in the area of Pecos Road and Las Vegas Boulevard North, where he was last seen.

Less than two weeks later, on Aug. 14, 1986, the couple contacted a clairvoyant who said the boy was safe and with “someone close in his bloodline,” the Review-Journal reported. At the time, Luster speculated that “it is a possible parental abduction.”


Fleming said Francillon’s natural father was a well-to-do Haitian landowner.

The next day, the Review-Journal reported that Luster had been arrested on Dec. 17, 1985, after a babysitter reported the boy had possibly been abused. Police reports at that time revealed Francillon had 30 to 40 large welts on his back and neck.

Police became suspicious and after multiple interviews discovered a series of “lies” told to them by the Lusters, who were married by that time, the Review-Journal reported. Among them was Lee Luster’s statement that friends had seen the boy within a week before the disappearance was reported, the RJ said in an April 13, 1992, story.

In 1998, a child’s skull and bones were found on the shore of Lake Mead. Luster had told police that he had taken “Yo Yo,” the boy’s nickname, on a father-son camping trip to Lake Mead several days before the boy disappeared. Luster told detectives he didn’t kill Francillon, but said that if he had killed “the little *advertiser censored*” he would have cut him up, the RJ reported.

The next day, police said the remains found at Lake Mead probably were not Francillon’s — light-colored hairs found on the skull did not match the boy’s.


North Las Vegas police to give details on boy’s disappearance

I wonder if the Lake Mead remains were identified as someone else?
I have read that the elements can change hair color after death.
 
Police: Torn letters key to 1986 killing of boy in Nevada
"What happened was totally unintentional, I'm sorry, you know that," Fleming wrote to her then-fiance, Lee Luster, while the two were jailed for several months in 1987 for obstructing the investigation, according to a police affidavit submitted to obtain a Dec. 13 warrant for Fleming's arrest.
 
this story is something. My guess is Lee Luster is talking and will be a witness. Does anyone know if she ever had any other children?
 
That affidavit is infuriating. She should have been arrested way back then! And Lee, too. I fear they tortured that baby until he finally died. IDK if he's talking but if that what it takes to put her in prison for life and possibly lead to the remains of Francillon, I guess it'll have to be enough.

What a bunch of dropped balls.
 
North Las Vegas Police Chief Pamela Ojeda said in a Monday news conference that detectives reopened the missing boy’s cold case in 2017 while trying to trace the origin of a fraudulent birth certificate application in the name of the missing boy.

They believed someone was trying to commit identity theft, but then uncovered other interesting items in the missing person case, including a jail notes between Fleming and her then-fiance Lee Luster that was torn into dozens of pieces.

Those letters told a different story than what the couple initially reported of Francillon’s disappearance.

"What happened was totally unintentional, I'm sorry, you know that," Fleming wrote to Luster while the two were jailed for several months in 1987 for obstructing the investigation, according to a police affidavit submitted to obtain a Dec. 13 warrant for Fleming's arrest.

In another letter, Fleming told Luster: "You're the only one I have left to care about. My family is not there, Yo is not there, I cannot face my friends for fear they will be implicated."

Two witnesses whose names were blacked out in the affidavit also told police they overheard Luster tell a woman in a jailhouse meeting area that "Amy had killed the baby."

Florida woman’s jailhouse letters leads to her arrest for 1986 killing of missing son, 3, police say
 
In wake of Fleming's arrest 8 News NOW wanted to share some past stories from when the case during the 80s when North Las Vegas Police detectives first started working the case.

There was a lot of skepticism surrounding Fleming and her then-boyfriend Lee Luster's account of what happened.

Videos from the 80's at link: Revisit past 8 News NOW stories on Amy Fleming and Lee Luster

 
In wake of Fleming's arrest 8 News NOW wanted to share some past stories from when the case during the 80s when North Las Vegas Police detectives first started working the case.

There was a lot of skepticism surrounding Fleming and her then-boyfriend Lee Luster's account of what happened.

Videos from the 80's at link: Revisit past 8 News NOW stories on Amy Fleming and Lee Luster

Unbelievable! Francillon was prone to fires... they were going to look for psychiatric help for him... beating him with a belt was an isolated incident... and all the ”poor me“... I just can’t! :mad:
 
old article:

Searching For A New Start Couple Come To Orlando -- Questions On Missing Boy Remain

July 4, 1987

"Amy and Lee Luster say that after inspecting merchandise at a flea market near Las Vegas they turned around and her 3-year-old son was gone.

That was 11 months ago. Since then, police say, the couple's bizarre behavior and revelations about their past have made them suspects in the boy's disappearance and triggered intense media scrutiny.

Now, in an apparent attempt to escape the publicity, the couple have come to Orlando in search of a new life.

They leave a long list of unanswered questions, North Las Vegas police said. Chief among them is whether Francillon Pierre, the son of Mrs. Luster, 29, and a former boyfriend, is dead or alive.

The couple would not discuss the case when they stepped off a plane Tuesday at Orlando International Airport. Luster, 32, told Nevada officials in Las Vegas that he has a good job prospect in Central Florida as an electronics salesman.

The Nevada Department of Probation and Parole gave the couple a 30-day travel pass to try to find work and a home in Orlando, a decision that the department's deputy chief said is unusual. If the Lusters don't succeed, they must return to Las Vegas.

The couple's troubles began in December 1985, when they both were charged with felony child abuse stemming from a beating of the boy, said North Las Vegas police Lt. Dorin Goudreau. News reports said 30 or 40 welts were found on the child's body.

While awaiting trial on Aug. 2, the Lusters told police they had lost the boy while at the flea market...."

Searching For A New Start Couple Come To Orlando -- Questions On Missing Boy Remain
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Mother returned to Vegas in 1986 missing child murder case

A 60-year-old woman who was arrested in Florida after police in Nevada reopened an investigation of the disappearance of her 3-year-old son in 1986 has been returned to Las Vegas in custody to face a murder charge.

A court official said Wednesday that Amy Elizabeth Fleming is due for an initial court appearance Thursday in North Las Vegas. Records show she was booked Tuesday into the Las Vegas jail.

[...]
 
Woman charged in son’s 1986 disappearance jailed in Las Vegas

February 27, 2019

"...Prosecutors charged Fleming, 60, with murder on Dec. 13. She was suspected for years in the disappearance of her son, 3-year-old Francillon Pierre, last seen Aug. 2, 1986, at the then-Broad Acres swap meet in North Las Vegas....

Fleming was booked into the Las Vegas jail with bail set at $1 million, jail records show. She was arrested Jan. 29 in Palm Beach, Florida....

Ojeda on Feb. 11 cited an ongoing investigation when asked to discuss whether Luster could be arrested. North Las Vegas Justice Court records on Tuesday did not show any pending charges for Luster, whom police consider a person of interest in the case.

It remains unclear how Francillon died, Ojeda has said, and it wasn’t clear where detectives think his body may be.

Court records Tuesday night didn’t show when Fleming is scheduled to appear in court."

Woman charged in son’s 1986 disappearance jailed in Las Vegas – Hanahan Herald
 

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