CA CA - Lisa Dickinson, 9, Walnut Creek, 5 Sept 1976

Richard

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Lisa Dickinson
Missing since September 5, 1976 from Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County, California.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics

Date Of Birth: April 25, 1967
Age at Time of Disappearance: 9 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'10"; 80 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Blonde hair; blue eyes.
Clothing: She was last seen wearing a yellow crew-neck T-shirt with Snoopy and the word "happiness" on the front, blue ton cut-off shorts and white leather three-strapped sandals
Dentals: Available

Circumstances of Disappearance


Dickinson was last seen on September 5, 1976 in Walnut Creek, California. Lisa was last seen shortly after 7 p.m. while riding her bicycle near the Pleasant Hill station of the Bay- Area Rapid Transit.


She left the home of her parents on to find a shortcut through nearby Heather Farm Park to the Pleasant Hill BART station. The family had planned to take an excursion on BART the following day. When she failed to return home police were notified. An intensive search was mounted.

The only physical evidence turned up was the girl's abandoned bicycle, leaning against a tree at the north end of the park near the Contra Costa Canal.

Foul play is suspected.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Walnut Creek Police Department
925-935-6400

Agency Case Number: 769880

NCIC Number: M-409952268

Please refer to these numbers when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:

California Department of Justice
Daily Review 9/21/76
The Doe Network: Case File 802DFCA

LINK:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/802dfca.html
 
Richard I did a archive search for any news on her case.

I used the parameters of her first and last name. Nothing.

I used the same as above in quotation marks then I added missing.

There is one archived pay per view that popped up with her name under the link but I didn't pay to see the article. Although she isn't listed in the synopsis the article popped up so I think she might be named in the text of the article we can't see.


http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we...page=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

I found several articles on this website that name the man above as a POI in the disappearance of Lisa. (It looks like the archived article above is located on that website in full text).

http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/H/HUGHES_phillip_joseph_jr.php
 
Here is a link to a Blog about Lisa Dickinson, disappearance. It contains a newspaper article and a long discussion/comment section about the case.
-------------------------------------------------

Here's a local kidnapping case you NEVER hear about. This happened 33-years ago, on September 5, 1976. 9-year-old Lisa Dickinson was taken from Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek.

Her bike was found in some bushes near the canal trail, but she hasn't been seen since.

The articles above are from the Oakland Tribune in 1976 (top), and one year after the kidnapping, in 1977 (bottom).

Here are some details about her disappearance....

Dickinson was last seen riding her bicycle in Walnut Creek, California at 7:00 p.m. on September 5, 1976.

She was en route from her home in the 100 block of Los Cerros to a nearby BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station at the time.She was supposed to return home by 8:00 p.m., but did not and has never been heard from again. Her parents reported her missing at 9:00 p.m.

Dickinson's bicycle was found in a grove of walnut trees at Heather Farms Park, near the Contra Costa Canal, three hours after she was last seen.A search of the canal turned up no clues as to her whereabouts, but witnesses said they had seen her at the park's entrance.

Dickinson is missing under suspicious circumstances and her case remains unsolved.One man was considered a suspect. He's been in prison for the past 30+ years for multiple rapes, but he has never been charged or even arrested for kidnapping Lisa.

At the time of her abduction, she was 4'10", 80-pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt with an image of the cartoon character Snoopy printed on the front, she also had on blue shorts and white sandals.

Today, Lisa Dickinson would be 42-years-old.

Anybody who might know something about her disappearance is asked to call the Walnut Creek Police Department @ 925-935-6400.

Source:
CLAYCORD.com: LISA DICKINSON, THE LITTLE GIRL ABDUCTED FROM WALNUT CREEK 33-YEARS AGO, IN THE YEAR 1976

LINK:

http://claycord.blogspot.com/2009/09/lisa-dickinson-little-girl-abducted.html
 
Lisa took a shortcut through a park - I believe it's referred to as the canal trail, and her bike was found among some walnut trees. Do you know (1) was this a very heavily used trail and (2) is/was it heavily wooded?

Did LE suspect that Lisa had fallen into the canal?

It's surprising there wasn't more coverage of this.

Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr. sounds like a really bad guy. I noticed that some of the women he possibly killed were in their teens, while there were a couple of 9 year olds. Although it's very possible he could have killed them all, a 9 year old usually tends to attract a different type of killer than teenaged women. It's possible we have more than one perp here.

Just a thought.
 
A quick check of newspaperarchive.com turned up 29 articles about Lisa from 9/7/76 to 9/2/77. This is a brief synopsis of what I could gather from these articles.

We know that Lisa was taken from the Heather Farm Park. Apparently the canal was in the process of being fenced and locked, but you could still gain access over a small bridge and through a fenced-off new subdivision to the north of the park.

There is a discrepancy about her bicycle. One article says it was found tossed in a walnut grove, another says it was leaning up against a tree. [To me that is an important distinction - if it was propped up, Lisa might have done that herself when she stopped to talk to someone. If it was tossed into a grove of trees, the perp might have done that to keep it from being found right away.]

Lisa was an only child.

Her parents (through her uncle) appealed to the public for any information about Lisa, offering a reward of $20,000 for her safe return or $3,000 for information as to where her body could be found. They asked the kidnapper to draw them a map and mail it to them. Obviously nothing came of this appeal.

In an article dated 9/2/77, Louis R. Fesquez is mentioned as being the prime suspect. At that time he was in prison sentenced to 27 years to life for crimes involving four young women in Contra Costa County. He was found guilty on 9 of 20 charges against him.

12/1/76 article - Fesquez was caught after a police chase. He had a 12 year old girl with him at the time - he'd kidnapped her a day earlier and raped her 5-6 times. At the time he abducted her, she was walking from her home to the county fairgrounds to feed her quarter horse that was stabled there.

Fesquez also alleged tried to entice two other girls into his car in to separate incidents.

Fesquez had an extensive record regarding sex crimes.

Now here is an interesting follow-up - a 12/10/76 article claims Lisa was possibly taken by someone on a motorcycle, and asked for any information from women/girls regarding a man identifying himself as a policeman, possibly a narcotics officer, showing a badge and/or handcuffs.

With that article coming on the heels of the arrest of Fesquez, I can't help but wonder if his M.O. was to approach young girls/women claiming to be an officer and asking them for help. Perhaps his victims even agreed to get on his motorcycle ostensibly to go to the police station for some purpose. (I am thinking of Ted Bundy - he used that ploy to get a woman into his car, claiming he was an officer and needed her to accompany him to the police station. She was the only known Bundy victim to escape alive). Three witnesses claim they saw a young girl matching Lisa's description ride off with a man on a motorcycle. She was wearing a helmet.

After this article, I can find nothing else about Fesquez in the archives. I'll do an internet search for him.

A quick check of Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr. turned up nothing - I'll do an internet search on him too.
 
This is about a man who committed at least one crime LE had attributed to Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr.:

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY / DNA links girl's 1978 slaying to convict who died in 2002 / Authorities have now tied 8 killings to ex-handyman

http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-09-30/bay-area/17391914_1_stray-kitten-sheriff-s-office-dna

You might have to cut and paste this into your browser, because when I click on the link it doesn't seem to work.:waitasec:
 
Richard I did a archive search for any news on her case.

I used the parameters of her first and last name. Nothing.

I used the same as above in quotation marks then I added missing.

There is one archived pay per view that popped up with her name under the link but I didn't pay to see the article. Although she isn't listed in the synopsis the article popped up so I think she might be named in the text of the article we can't see.


http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we...page=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

I found several articles on this website that name the man above as a POI in the disappearance of Lisa. (It looks like the archived article above is located on that website in full text).

http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/H/HUGHES_phillip_joseph_jr.php

All that pay per view article said is:
"But, while Hughes has been cleared in some cases, he remains a person of interest in seven others : (one of which is Lisa Dickinson): Lisa Dickinson, 9, disappeared Sept. 5, 1976 while riding her bike from her home on Los Cerros Avenue in Walnut Creek toward Heather Farms Park. Her bike was found leaning against a tree inside the park, but the girl has never been found."
 
I am glaf they at least have a suspect in such an old case. I'd love to see this little girl brought home, as I know she still has family searching after all these years.
 
My mother says Lisa was her best friend when she was in elementary school. They went home from school together, played together, and my mother even had a bear she named Lisa right before she went missing. She was very sad to learn that they still have not found Lisa. They were both only children and their birthdays are only days apart. Walnut Creek is not an unsafe neighborhood. In fact its one of the safer towns of Contra Costa. My mother does say she remembers my grandmother telling her not to play by the canal. And after Lisa's disappearance my mother says her and her friends were not allowed to go out by themselves. I've seen someone note that it seems unusual that she was out on her bike that late in the evening. Its actually not that peculiar in the 1970s, especially since it would still be light out in September and the heat would have died down by 7pm. It typically stays warm here through October. It does seem odd that her mother would have let her go to the BART station on her own. The BART stations have never been quite safe. I've heard of young women often last being seen at local BART stations. Even I have been offered a ride by a stranger at one. Another thing, if I remember correctly, is that Heather Farm Park is quite far from the BART station.
 
Walnut Creek only 25 mins from Antioch CA home of Phillip Garrido. This disappearance occured just a couple months before he kidnapped Kathrine Calloway in 1976. Just can't help but think that he is connected to at least some of the many missing girls in the general San Francisco area. Many, many young girls and teens over the years have just vanished from this area. Someone in that area has to at least be responsible for some of the missing girls. What are the odds that these abductions could all just be random? Wish I had the link but somewhere on one of these boards a list was compiled of all the girls missing from the SF area. I am amazed at the number and close locations of many of the young girls. Lisa Dickinson and Gayle Marks are two strange cases.:banghead:
 
September 5th marked the 35th anniversary of the disappearance of Lisa Dickinson.

Has anyone seen any recent news articles or feature stories on her case?
 
Richard-

Nothing recent on Lisa. I will say that I believe that Hughes is responsible. I'm not ruling out anything, but Hughes is in CDC for three murders. One of those was of Leticia *advertiser censored*, three houses down from Lisa's home, just a year prior. Although he went to the *advertiser censored*'s house because his wife had suggested Leticia as a victim (they worked at the same bank), I believe that he was very familiar with the neighborhood from younger days.

There are circumstances which lead me to believe that Hughes is responsible for at least four other unsolved murders in the central CoCo County, probably more. Four I am certain of. Three based on publicized information, and one that I have not seen anything written on.

Kellay-

What motivated me to write on this thread is that it may happen in the not-too-distant future that I am able to devote a considerable amount of time to the research and investigation of this case. Should that come to pass, I would very much like to speak with you mother. I hope you continue to follow this thread in the coming months.
 
I still can't believe her case didn't receive more attention. Usually any case involving a child who was obviously abducted by a stranger receives national attention, hers seemed to have not, and there isn't much information out there on her case either.
 

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