MISSING FAIRFAX 10-YEAR-OLD IS FOUND DEAD
July 5, 1989
Ten-year-old Rosie Gordon, the subject of an extensive search in her Lake Braddock neighborhood since her disappearance Sunday night, was found dead yesterday morning under a clump of trees off a road about five miles from her home. Fairfax County police sources said they were baffled by the case, saying there were no marks on the girl's body and no clues to how she died. Police officials said that the case is being treated as a homicide and that an autopsy is scheduled for today. The medical examiner at the scene said the death may have occurred within 24 hours before the body was discovered, according to a police spokesman, Officer Michael Proffitt.
The apparent slaying of the 10-year-old, described as happy and smart with many friends, sent shock waves through the community, which had rallied behind the family in force in a vain attempt to find the child over the past three days. Rosie was last seen riding her bicycle home from a friend's house several blocks away, and parents in the area said yesterday that the death has shattered their sense of safety in the quiet suburban neighborhood. "It's very hard to accept. Now what are we going to do with our kids?" said Minny Urquieta, a neighbor with an 8-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. "Now I'll have to walk them out to the park . . . . When my son found out, he yelled, and my daughter started crying. She can't understand."
The body was found by Traci Burns, 18, shortly after 11 a.m. yesterday, about 10 feet off the side of Bentonbrook Road near a dead end at Edenderry Drive, west of Route 123 and south of Fairfax City. Burns spotted the body while driving by and told her father, Larry Burns, who went to the site and alerted county police. Larry Burns said that he saw no bruises on the child's body and that her clothes -- shorts and a top -- appeared undisturbed. Although her face was covered with leaves, Burns said there apparently had been little attempt to conceal the body, which was visible from the road yesterday morning. "If someone was trying to hide the body, there are a million places here they could drop it off, and it wouldn't be so obvious," he said.
Rhiannon Gordon, known as Rosie, had been at her best friend's house a few blocks away from her own home on Hollins Lane in the Lake Braddock community, and left at 6:55 p.m. Sunday to make it home by a 7 p.m. curfew, according to a family friend, Don Callaway, speaking on behalf of the family. Rosie was accompanied by her friend to a street corner about 300 yards from where her father, David Gordon, found her bicycle a short time later when he went out looking for her, Callaway said.
Police said that spot, on Lake Braddock Drive, was only about two blocks from her home, but Callaway said the road curves at that point and is obscured from view by foliage. "Where the bicycle was found is an ideal situation for someone to be grabbed with no one seeing it," Callaway said. Police originally believed that Rosie had run away, but Proffitt said that was based on early information that proved faulty. Rosie's family felt all along that she had been abducted, Callaway said. "Rosie was a happy child and an active child," Callaway said. "They had just had an active family weekend, and she wasn't being punished or anything."
The news of Rosie's disappearance Sunday night had resulted in a massive effort by scores of neighbors and the county police to try to find the 4-foot-6 brunette. While police searched with helicopters, dogs, foot patrols and a boat on Lake Braddock, residents conducted what Callaway referred to as a "shoulder-to-shoulder" hunt within a two-mile radius and canvassed virtually all of the 1,300 homes in the Lake Braddock community. By yesterday morning, the focus of the search had switched to areas farther away, with a network of citizens-band radio buffs putting out word to watch for Rosie as far south as Fredericksburg and as far north as Gaithersburg.
The local Domino's Pizza restaurant passed out fliers with Rosie's picture on it with each delivery, and the neighbors were to take stacks of the fliers to last night's Fourth of July celebrations throughout the area. But the family's hopes began to flag by yesterday morning, the third day of the search, Callaway said. "Waking up and Rosie not being in her bed this morning was tough," he said. "The family hasn't had any sleep to speak of."
David and Lien Gordon, Rosie's parents, also have a son, Wayne, 15, who had held up well throughout the ordeal but whose spirits had gone downhill by Monday night, Callaway said. Another neighbor, who asked not to be named, said parents have started talking about creating a buddy system for children to walk to and from school buses so they are never alone, even for a short time. "There isn't a parent here who isn't scared to death," she said...
LINK:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...nd-dead/8b390d95-a139-421d-8589-961c22f0105a/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...s-death/d93c9032-7b1f-4ebf-b48d-810e60f8c888/
Police still seek clues in 10-year-old's murder
