ASHANI CREIGHTON - 6 yo (1997) - Orlando FL/ Tulsa OK

TULSA - Tulsa police say new leads may help them and other agencies solve a 15-year-old cold case of a missing child from Florida.


Ashani Creighton, last seen in the late 1990s, is now believed to have been killed in Florida and buried in Tulsa.

Saturday morning, forensic experts and archeologists joined detectives in searching for Ashani's remains.

According to Tulsa police, the Orange County Sherriff's Office in Orlando developed information that Ashani was murdered in 1999. Her remains were later transported to Tulsa, where detectives believe she is buried near 61st and Mingo.

Police say the burial site has since been covered by a parking lot and commercial buildings.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) made arrangements with Necrosearch International to provide ground-penetrating radar operators and a geophysicist to locate the exact burial site, police say. A local company has donated its services to help with drilling, removing and repairing concrete.

So far, two specialized dogs have honed in on a site in the middle of a concrete parking lot in the area.

Additionally, experts from the Oklahoma Archeological Survey and the State Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will assist with recovery and identification if the remains are found.

According to the NCMEC, Ashani was last seen by her mother on March 21, 1997. News reports from that time indicate she was thought to be in Florida with her grandparents, Ernest and Kaia Jackson.

New Jersey police arrested the Jacksons in 1988 for torturing their then 8-year-old son. The boy was found with bruises and burns all over his body after escaping the family's home.

The couple posted bail and fled the state. They remained fugitives until their arrest in Tulsa in 2000. A Tulsa resident alerted authorities when they recognized the Jacksons on an episode of America's Most Wanted.

Tulsa County prosecutors charged Ernest and Kaia for a separate incident of child abuse. Kaia was sentenced to 35 years and is currently incarcerated in Oklahoma. Ernest was found not guilty but returned to New Jersey to serve just over six years in state prison for the 1988 case.


Read more: http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/tulsa-police-to-search-for-remains-of-florida-missing-child#ixzz1o691GQZg

The body
of a girl who disappeared in 1997 and who authorities had said might be
buried beneath a Tulsa strip mall was not found Monday despite an
extensive search.Orange County, Fla., deputies, Tulsa police officers and scientists
began looking on Sunday for signs of Ashani Karin Creighton’s body
beneath a parking lot and the building that houses Kang’s Institute of
TaeKwon-Do, a bakery outlet store, and other businesses just north of
61st Street and Mingo Road.
Authorities believe that Ashani was buried sometime in 1999 on land
where the building was built in 2008. At the time, a house was on the
land with some trees and an open area behind it.
Ashani would have been 6 then. It is believed that she had been in the
care of her fugitive grandparents, who were living in Tulsa.
Authorities had several false alarms Sunday, when they dug into portions
of the building’s foundation to investigate readings by
ground-penetrating radar.
The area remained cordoned off with crime tape as officials used
ground-penetrating radar, extracted soil and walked police dogs around
the businesses and parking lot on Monday.
By Monday evening, workers had excavated a roughly 5-by-5-foot hole in the floor in the Sara Lee Bakery Outlet.
Experts and scientists from across the country, including from the
University of Oklahoma, were assisting in the search, Orange County,
Fla., Detective Marcus Robinson said.
A geophysicist and the ground-penetrating radar were provided by
Colorado-based NecroSearch International, a volunteer organization that
specializes in helping law enforcement locate clandestine graves and
recover evidence.
“I think we have some of the best in the world here,” Robinson said.
But by 11 p.m. Monday, officials said it was likely that they would
discontinue the search if nothing was found within a few more hours
because many of the workers from other areas had to return to their
jobs.
Robinson had said earlier that “we’ve made a promise that we’re not
going to leave here without this answered. What that answer might be, I
can’t say.”
Orange County authorities had been confident that Ashani’s body is buried at the site, he said.
“We wouldn’t have come across the country if we didn’t believe it was here,” Robinson said.
Florida authorities had received a credible tip from an unnamed source that the body is at the site, Robinson said Sunday.
Ashani was 4 when she disappeared in 1997, but authorities believe that she wasn’t killed until 1999.
Her mother last saw her on March 21, 1997, when the girl allegedly was
abducted by her grandparents, according to the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children. Ashani’s grandparents reportedly moved
from Orlando to Tulsa in 1998, the center reported.
When she disappeared, the girl was in the care of her grandparents, Kaia
and Ernest Jackson, who were fugitives in a 1988 New Jersey child-abuse
case.
The Tulsa World has previously reported that she was last seen in 1998.
The Jacksons eluded capture for 12 years before they were arrested in
Tulsa in 2000, the World has previously reported. They lived under the
aliases Butch and Naomi Hill while in Oklahoma, and they home-schooled
their four children.
After their arrests in Tulsa, detectives from Bergen County, N.J., said
Ashani’s mother, who lived in New York, sent the girl to Florida for a
visit with her grandparents two years earlier and hadn’t seen her
daughter since, the Tulsa World reported in 2000.
The Jacksons reportedly came to Tulsa from Florida shortly after
refusing to return their granddaughter to her mother. They assumed new
identities for themselves and their children, as they had done in
numerous other U.S. cities since they were charged in 1988 in a
child-torture case in New Jersey, authorities said 12 years ago.
The couple had been sought since their son Cymande Jackson escaped from
their home in Teaneck, N.J., on June 24, 1988, and wandered into a
restaurant, where patrons reported seeing horrific scars, burns and
other injuries covering most of his body.
The boy was taken into protective custody, and the Jacksons were
arrested in New Jersey, but they posted bail and fled with four of their
other children, the World has reported.
After their arrests here, the Jacksons were convicted of aggravated assault and child endangerment in New Jersey.
Kaia Jackson, now 61, was convicted in 2002 of abusing another child
while the family was living in Tulsa. In 2005, she began a 35-year
sentence at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Facility in McLoud, where she
remains in custody.
Ernest Jackson, now 62, was also named in the 2002 Tulsa case. His trial ended in a hung jury in 2004. He was acquitted in 2005.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/news/crimewatch/article.aspx?subjectid=450&articleid=20120305_450_0_Author153414

Authorities
are resuming their search for a missing Florida girl who is believed to
be buried at or near a Tulsa strip mall, Tulsa police said.



Crime scene investigators and graduate students of the University of
Oklahoma plan to excavate in a grassy area behind the strip mall Monday
morning, Tulsa police Deputy Chief Dennis Larsen said.

In March, authorities excavated inside and in the parking lot of the
strip mall, which houses Kang's Institute of TaeKwon-Do, a bakery and
other businesses just north of 61st Street and Mingo Road.

Larsen said Monday's operation will be much smaller than the earlier
search, which was led by Tulsa police, Orange County, Fla., deputies and
scientists.

Florida authorities will not be present this time, he said.

Authorities believe that Ashani Karin Creighton, then 6, was buried
sometime in 1999 on land where the strip mall was built in 2008. At the
time, the land had a house and an open area.

It is believed that Creighton had been in the care of her fugitive grandparents, who were living in Tulsa.

Ashani was 4 when she disappeared in 1997, but authorities believe that she wasn't killed until 1999.

Her mother last saw her March 21 that year, when the girl allegedly was
abducted by her grandparents, according to the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children. Ashani's grandparents reportedly moved
from Orlando to Tulsa in 1998, the center reported.

When she disappeared, the girl was in the care of her grandparents, Kaia
and Ernest Jackson, who were fugitives in a 1988 New Jersey child-abuse
case.

The Jacksons eluded capture for 12 years before they were arrested in
Tulsa in 2000, the World has previously reported. They lived under the
aliases Butch and Naomi Hill while in Oklahoma, and they homeschooled
their four children.

After their arrests in Tulsa, detectives from Bergen County, N.J., said
Ashani's mother, who lived in New York, sent the girl to Florida for a
visit with her grandparents two years earlier and hadn't seen her
daughter since, the Tulsa World reported in 2000.

The Jacksons reportedly came to Tulsa from Florida shortly after refusing to return their granddaughter to her mother.

They assumed new identities for themselves and their children, as they
had done in numerous other U.S. cities since they were charged in 1988
in New Jersey, authorities said 12 years ago.

The couple had been sought since their son Cymande Jackson escaped from
their home in Teaneck, N.J., on June 24, 1988, and wandered into a
restaurant, where patrons reported seeing horrific scars, burns and
other injuries covering most of his body.

The boy was taken into protective custody, and the Jacksons were
arrested in New Jersey, but they posted bail and fled with four of their
other children, the World has reported.

After their arrests here, the Jacksons were convicted of aggravated assault and child endangerment in New Jersey.

Kaia Jackson, now 61, was convicted in 2002 of abusing another child
while the family was living in Tulsa. In 2005, she began a 35-year
sentence at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Facility in McLoud, where she
remains in custody.

Ernest Jackson, now 62, was also named in the 2002 Tulsa case. His trial ended in a hung jury in 2004. He was acquitted in 2005.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/news/crimewatch/article.aspx?subjectid=450&articleid=20120514_450_0_Author218135