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

[NL007]

I wonder if they would consider testing her DNA for ancestry. It would have been pretty hard even in the early 80s for an American child to go missing without nobody noticing, much less a woman and her child. Nobody had a tenant that left all the sudden without paying rent and no neighbors noticed the people next door vanishing overnight? No one's employee just randomly stopped coming into work? Did a welfare check get sent back and nobody found out what happened to the mom and daughter receiving them? How about the IRS? They will not let anyone go unfound.

It could be that this woman was a runaway that got pregnant and nobody knew about her baby. But I would think a transient with a baby would have been noticed by someone in a year and a half of traveling. She could have been in an abusive relationship and left but why did her neighbors, co-workers, or her husband not report her missing? In the early 1980s domestic violence laws were not what they are today. If she simply took the baby and left unless she had a broken arm or something the police would have released her to her husband so he would have no reason not to report her missing. It's actually more likely he'd want her found so he could continue his abuse of her if he's that kind of guy.

I think perhaps this woman and her baby could be immigrants, perhaps from Russia, Poland, or another eastern European country. Maybe neither one of them were citizens and that's why they seem to have appeared and then disappeared out of thin air. Could they have come to the US to live with family and the family member couldn't be found or passed away unexpectedly before she found them? I can see how being destitute in a strange land with a toddler and no way to go back home could cause one to think there's no way out but to jump in the river.

Or maybe they were just from one of the more remote parts of the US so less people were around to notice a woman and her baby coming up missing? One thing is for sure, this little girl needs to be identified.

 

[paul1980]

All very good points. Delta Dawn was a baby - no identifiers that an adult woman might have such as a tattoo or earrings and a necklace.

 

[Vox_Veritas_JT]

If this poor infant was thrown in the water by the mother, who then also jumped, I have to believe it was to thwart an attempted abduction or imminent grievous threat.

Makes you wonder where Robert Ben Rhoades was trucking on the date in question? If there was a high level of traffic about this mother and infant on the CB as reported then perhaps a predator such as Rhoades specifically sought them out?

Of course its impossible to tell without having found the body of the woman.... What if the tip of the woman/mother in the river was a red herring? The woman might have been abducted and kept for sometime before being dumped far far away. The vanishing and inability to find the mother is highly suspicious when a smaller arguably harder to find victim is located without much trouble.

 

[paul1980]

Bumping for Delta Dawn. We will keep searching for your name, angel.

 

[paul1980]

Walk on, Delta Dawn. We will keep looking for your name.

 

[paul1980]

Thinking of Delta Dawn. 34th anniversary in a month.

 

[Jake479]

Today marks 34 years since her body was found. I really hope she is identified soon. RIP Delta Dawn. We'll never stop trying to find your name.

 

[folieadeuxnola]

:bump: raying:

 

[paul1980]

Walk on, Delta Dawn.

Who could just toss a defenseless baby into a river? *Rage. Seethe. Boil.*

 

[bflocket]

1. Delta Dawn is reported to have been found in the dog river in Pascagoula, MS. (missing children websites) However, I have seen old newspaper articles that report that she was found in the dog river in Escatawpa MS.

2. Do we have a member here that knows exactly the spot in 1982 from the descriptions where this might have been along I-110 and does anyone know where some actual shots of the river and bridge might be? If not, anyone local willing to go take a few?

I was trying to read through this thread this morning and it gave me an OCD fit and I didn't get through it all. So forgive me if I missed this anywhere.

Is the Escatawpa River known as "Dog River? In relation to where the bridge is. It's been called that in the past, but all of the maps I saw called it "Escatawpa River." What made this more confusing for me was the "Dog River" in Mobile, one county east of Pascagoula.

 

[Gardener1850]

[h=1]Wanted Wednesday: Baby Jane Cold Case[/h]

It’s been over 34 years, but the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department refuses to give up on Baby Jane, an unidentified toddler found lifeless in Dog River in Pascagoula.

Seaman, along with Jackson County investigators, pulled the body of a two-year-old blonde girl from the marshes. Initial reports in ’82 showed Baby Jane had been dead for 36 to 48 hours and drowning was the cause of death.
There is a composite drawing of what the toddler could have looked like, but any and all details surrounding Baby Jane’s death remain foggy. Captain Chris Stratton with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said, “The previous night she was reported by some truck drivers that her mother was carrying her and they were walking on the side of the road and several people offered her a ride she refused and we’re assuming that’s the mother of the baby that was found because no one has ever found out who that was and nobody has reported a child missing or the woman.”
Baby Jane’s body was exhumed in 2008 to extract DNA, but no matches have been made and still no one has come forward to claim the toddler.

http://www.wxxv25.com/2017/01/18/wanted-wednesday-baby-jane-cold-case/

 

[Jake479]

[h=1]Wanted Wednesday: Baby Jane Cold Case[/h]

http://www.wxxv25.com/2017/01/18/wanted-wednesday-baby-jane-cold-case/

I really hope she is identified soon. RIP Delta Dawn

 

[paul1980]

blonde, white, female baby... it's kind of shocking that she fell down the memory hole.

 

[NL007]

No new info? I am always checking, but I never find anything. I still think mother and daughter were foreign born, and that's why they've not been identified.

I agree with you, Paul1980. It's surprising "Delta Dawn" doesn't get the attention she deserves.

 

[paul1980]

A problem with the "foreign-born" hypothesis is that what would a foreign mother with a female baby be doing in Ole' Miss, The U.S' most conservative and provincial state?

 

[sloane7777]

I'm inclined to think it was a abused woman , most are alienated from friends , family etc. and if she had recently moved there w/ hubby, who would miss her , and old acquaintance's would probably not even know the child existed, that's the only thing that makes sense to me as for the mother maybe her body was caught in underbrush and never discovered , maybe Gators etc. , Maybe Mom was picked up and a uid in another city or state (trucker theory) any UID females on a hwy or in a river off a hwy within days in any state?

 

[cvaldez1975]

probably a poor family, sadly enough

blonde, white, female baby... it's kind of shocking that she fell down the memory hole.

 

[paul1980]

Riley Ann Sawyers ("Baby Grace") was a blonde, white, female toddler like Delta Dawn and got a lot of coverage. I think the crucial difference is that in 1982 there was no world wide web and no social media just tv, radio and printed newspapers. the world was a lot less connected and i doubt that Delta Dawn was publicised nearly as widespread as Baby Grace.

 

[NL007]

A problem with the "foreign-born" hypothesis is that what would a foreign mother with a female baby be doing in Ole' Miss, The U.S' most conservative and provincial state?

Florida and Texas both have pretty sizable Russian communities, of course I'm not sure how long they've been there. It's possible that this was a transient woman or beaten wife, but I find it harder to believe that the family and/or neighbors of this little girl would have been completely unaware she ever existed throughout her whole entire approx. 2 years of life than her possibly being foreign born. Back in the 80s we didn't have phones and internet to distract us so we knew our neighbors, and families drifted apart but not as far apart as they do now.

But, Bella Bond wasn't noticed by many, which was a very odd in this internet age. And now we have the Bob Evans guy whose wife was never reported missing until very recently, even though she's actually been missing for decades. Perhaps this will end like that case, with the family coming out of the woodwork eventually when they realize their family member didn't actually move out of town? Idk.

The only thing I actually know and don't have to make wild, crazy guesses about is that this case is one of the ones that really bothers me. Well, they all do, clearly. But I'd especially like to see this one solved.

 

[paul1980]

I hope people here will come to this thread.