Identified! MS - Pascagoula, WhtFem Child 45UFMS "Delta Dawn", 1-3, Dog River @I-10, Dec'82 - Alisha Heinrich

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I've been thinking on this case the last few hours...so much emphasis has been put on trying to see about missing children...how much emphasis has been put on trying to identify the woman (possible mother)? Not knowing what happened to her, if she jumped, was murdered, etc. There were several people who seemed to have talked to her. Truckers and people at the truck stop(?). Has anyone offered to give any more details about her? Trying to look at things from a different angle here. Being down in the south, everyone has an accent, if she wasn't from around the area (based on clothing that has been mentioned prior) the accent would of stuck out. It's been brought up multiple times that she may of ran away and no one knew she had a baby...if that were the case then someone somewhere may still have her as a missing person. Just on a whim I looked up missing women from the 1981-1983 time frame, using Caucasian/blonde hair (going off Delta Dawn) and around birthing age 15-40 and it populated over 200 missing people cases in the country. Maybe one of them could be her? I really wish we could get more information from witnesses about her...maybe that could be the clue needed....just rambling thoughts.
 
crazyrabbitlady said:
I've been thinking on this case the last few hours...so much emphasis has been put on trying to see about missing children...how much emphasis has been put on trying to identify the woman (possible mother)? Not knowing what happened to her, if she jumped, was murdered, etc. There were several people who seemed to have talked to her. Truckers and people at the truck stop(?). Has anyone offered to give any more details about her? Trying to look at things from a different angle here. Being down in the south, everyone has an accent, if she wasn't from around the area (based on clothing that has been mentioned prior) the accent would of stuck out. It's been brought up multiple times that she may of ran away and no one knew she had a baby...if that were the case then someone somewhere may still have her as a missing person. Just on a whim I looked up missing women from the 1981-1983 time frame, using Caucasian/blonde hair (going off Delta Dawn) and around birthing age 15-40 and it populated over 200 missing people cases in the country. Maybe one of them could be her? I really wish we could get more information from witnesses about her...maybe that could be the clue needed....just rambling thoughts.
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Would be nice to see what else witnesses might remember... It’s a little out of the norm for a young girl hiding a pregnancy/birth to, seemingly out of nowhere, discard a child this age? IMO. I would have been closer to the child’s age than the mother’s so I guess I can’t really speak to the “norm”...I’m just used to reading about young mothers making a decision like this immediately after giving birth. That makes me even more curious though - what would have spurred the woman to haphazardly risk ‘disposing of’ (unbeknown to her or otherwise) a living, breathing almost-toddler? I’m sure it’s been discussed a thousand times but doesn’t hurt to rehash possible theories ....


JMOO
 
I agree with you completely on why a woman would wait this long....however I am biast on seeing a woman hide a pregnancy, my mother lived with her parents when she was 17 and hid her pregnancy with my sister until she delivered and that was 1976. But if she was to murder the baby I would imagine it would of been soon after birth, not wait till toddler years. We all assume she threw her in the river, but what if she didnt? I cannot recall the mans name, but the serial killer who admitted to a murder of a woman and tossing a baby in the river...maybe that should be given more thought. Even not if it was him there other possibilities on other people being on the bridge at that time that caused her to end up in the river. From what I have read none of the eye witness accounts ever recall seeing her on the bridge...what if she never made it there, she was ambushed before the bridge and the attacker threw DD in the river as an after thought....just my opinion.
 
cvaldez1975 said:
maybe she didn't toss her in the river to kill her. maybe she jumped holding her thinking she'd be able to hold on. she may have been young and not well versed in physics.
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How narrow is the bridge? If she was walking on the side and a truck came through would she be able to stand there? Or would she try to jump out of the way...trucker said he saw a body in the river, what if she went over to avoid him and he didnt want to get the blame?
 
If the man chasing her was about to catch her, she might have jumped with the child out of desperation. Or maybe he threw them both over.

In either case, I think it's entirely possible that her body wasn't found.
 
Kind of a wild goose chase here...but hang with me...Linda H Peterson went missing from Utah in 1978, at the time she was 5 months pregnant. She had stopped by her husbands workplace and told him she was going to Kentucky...he reported her missing 2 weeks later. IF she did manage to get across the country (him not killing her) and have the baby...baby would be around 2-3 at the time of DD death...and no one would know she’s missing...definitely a wild ideation, but are there any other similar cases where the pregnant woman just ups and leaves and husbands not report it?
 
I wonder if something similar to Acacia Bishop happened here? She was abducted by her grandmother, who then jumped with her into a body of water in an attempted murder-suicide. The grandmother survived, but Acacia's body was never found.

I'm leaning towards the woman seen with DD being her mother, but other than that it seems like a plausible scenario. Either the mother survived and managed to get away unnoticed, or she also passed away and her body was never found. I doubt the mother or child were ever reported missing, if anyone did try to report the mother it probably would have been a case of "she's an adult, she can do what she wants".

I'm sorry about how incoherent this probably is, it's past midnight here!
 
crazyrabbitlady said:
Kind of a wild goose chase here...but hang with me...Linda H Peterson went missing from Utah in 1978, at the time she was 5 months pregnant. She had stopped by her husbands workplace and told him she was going to Kentucky...he reported her missing 2 weeks later. IF she did manage to get across the country (him not killing her) and have the baby...baby would be around 2-3 at the time of DD death...and no one would know she’s missing...definitely a wild ideation, but are there any other similar cases where the pregnant woman just ups and leaves and husbands not report it?
Click to expand...

Wouldn't surprise me if it's a situation similar to that.
 
Triss said:
The child in the picture does look a lot like Delta Dawn but I'm pretty sure it isn't actually her. The photo quality looks too good to be taken in the early 1980s. Just my opinion.
Whoever made these fake Find a Grave profiles is a disgusting troll. It's so disturbing, disregarding dead people's memory like that. I wouldn't be surprised if the personal information and the photos of the couple were stolen from someone else too. I wonder if they're reading this forum.
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For those who want to know how to identify what photos are really vintage, I'm attached a family photo actually taken in 1981.
test.jpg
 
If the presumed mother of this little girl also died that night too, and was the other person spotted floating in the river by the Trucker, is it possible that just by her placement in the water she was able to float away or be taken by the water at a different rate? Looking at Google Maps, it seems like this river spills out into the Southern Gulf area. So she could have possibly washed up on the shores of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida or Louisiana. Is Delta Dawn's DNA in Codis?
 
bluejeanbaby said:
If the presumed mother of this little girl also died that night too, and was the other person spotted floating in the river by the Trucker, is it possible that just by her placement in the water she was able to float away or be taken by the water at a different rate? Looking at Google Maps, it seems like this river spills out into the Southern Gulf area. So she could have possibly washed up on the shores of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida or Louisiana. Is Delta Dawn's DNA in Codis?
Click to expand...
I live in Jackson County, MS. It is absolutely possible for her to have washed up somewhere else, or been drug down and snagged on something. If she was in the water, she is not there any longer. The next hurricane would have scattered what was there most likely.
 
cvaldez1975 said:
maybe she didn't toss her in the river to kill her. maybe she jumped holding her thinking she'd be able to hold on. she may have been young and not well versed in physics.
Click to expand...
I’ve always believed this. Also why is this titled Dog River because I thought it was the Escatawba River she was pulled from? As far as the mom being ambushed this area doesn’t have any way to ambush anyone. It’s just bridge, road, and delta. Even now it’s miles of walking to get to a more inhabited area.
 
Locals sometimes refer to it as dog river. It is not the actual dog river as that is in Mobile, AL. The old news articles and police reports I have seen list it as both dog river and Escatawpa River. They are one in the same.
 
I don't think for one moment this mother killed her child or jumped for that matter. From eyewitness testimony and of those who spoke to her, she seemed afraid. I feel she either fell or who ever she was running from caught up with her, an altercation ensued and she was pushed whilst still holding the baby.
Because there seems to be no progress finding out who this little girl was, maybe we should search for any unidentified women's bodies that have been found since then. Not just searching that time frame or even that particular spot. Start off small and slowly expand the search time and area.

Edit for spelling mistakes.
 
I wish could call this thread something better than Delta Dawn. She's not an object, she's a person. Even something like Mary or Catherine or Jasmine would be a more humanising and dignifying placeholder for our baby girl.
 
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