HEAVEN LASHAE ROSS - 11 yo (8-2003) - Northport, AL

View Poster

Case Handled By:

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

HEAVEN LASHAE ROSS
Case Type:
DOB: Jun 11, 1992 Sex: Female
Missing Date: Aug 19, 2003 Race: White
Age Now: 11 Height: 4'6" (137 cm)
Missing City: NORTHPORT Weight: 100 lbs (45 kg)
Missing State : AL Hair Color: Red
Missing Country: United States Eye Color: Brown

Case Number: NCMC970206
Circumstances: Heaven was last seen at home around 7:03 a.m. on August 19, 2003. She left home to walk a few blocks to the bus stop and never arrived. Heaven has several moles around her mouth and her ears are pierced. She was last seen wearing a hot pink shirt with "brat" on the front, hot pink shorts with "brat" across the back, and light blue suede tennis shoes. Heaven may go by the nickname Shae.

http://www.missingkids.com/missingki...archLang=en_US

MISSING CHILD: HEAVEN LASHAE ROSS

August 21, 2003






Search Underway for Missing 11-Year-Old



(Northport-AP) -- A Northport woman fears her 11-year-old daughter has been abducted and questions why police have not issued an AMBER Alert for the child, who was last seen about 7 a.m. Tuesday.

FBI agents have joined police in the search. An AMBER alert would signal a nationwide search for the child.

Beth Lowery said Heaven LaShae Ross, called Shae, disappeared somewhere between her home and a bus stop about 50 yards away on Hunter Creek Road. Northport Police Sgt. Kerry Card said police were investigating the child's disappearance as a missing person case, not a kidnapping.

Tuscaloosa Police Captain David Hartin said that an AMBER alert had not been issued because the case did not meet the requirements, which include knowledge that the child is in physical danger and having a good description of a kidnapper or vehicle.

Shae's aunt, Frances Taylor, said she believes that someone Shae knew offered her a ride and she accepted because heavy rain was falling at the time.

Like her aunt, many others who know Shae said it would have been uncharacteristic of the sixth-grader to run away or skip school.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) AP-NY-08-21-03 1224EDT




www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=1411665

Northport Girl Disappears En Route To Bus Stop

Police Search With Dog, Helicopter

POSTED: 11:45 p.m. CDT August 19, 2003





NORTHPORT, Ala. -- A Northport family is living through the worst type of mystery tonight: Their 11-year-old daughter is missing.

Shae Ross vanished without a trace Tuesday morning while walking the 75 yards to her school-bus stop.

"My oldest daughter had left to go to school, the baby was still getting dressed, and she came in there and told her daddy she loved him and she'd see him in a little while," said Ross' mother, Beth Lowery.

But the family hasn't seen her since.

The morning started out as it usually does. Shae left the house to join her older sister for the bus ride to school. Shae's sister had left before Shae and was waiting at the bus stop, but Shae never arrived.

"We have one person who saw her after she left the house," said Terry Carroll of the Northport Police Department. "Then we don't know where she went or what happened."

One neighbor saw the 11-year-old pass by, but a neighbor further along did not.

Police have little to go on, and Beth Lowery fears the worst.

"I think someone was just sitting there and grabbed my baby," she said.

Police used a helicopter and a dog to search around the neighborhood for the missing girl, but so far, the search has turned up no clues.

The family hopes someone will see Shae and help her get home.

"Just bring my baby back home," Lowery said. "That's all I want. Just bring her back home."

Shae Ross was wearing a pink outfit with the word "brat" written on her shorts and shirt.

Anyone who has seen her should call the Northport Police Department at (205) 339-6600.



www.nbc13.com/news/2418229/detail.html

BREAKING NEWS: Family says police confirmed body is Heaven LaShae Ross


Heaven La Shae Ross

Sheriff's deputy David Shaw blocks the entrance to a dirt road that leads to an abandoned house near the Holt community where it is believed the body of Heaven LaShae Ross was discovered on Monday evening.

Tuscaloosanews.com | Dan Lopez
By Stephanie Taylor
Staff Writer

Published: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 9:35 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 9:35 a.m.

UPDATED 5 p.m. TUSCALOOSA | A grim discovery Monday afternoon provided some answers to the three-year-old mystery of what happened to Shae Ross.

Heaven LaShae Ross

But the mystery is far from being solved.

Police found remains of the 11-year-old in an abandoned house down a rural, dirt road in Holt Monday afternoon. She was last seen walking to her bus stop on a rainy Tuesday morning in August 2003.

The news left her family and the community that prayed for her safe return heartbroken.

“This has given us some kind of closure from not knowing anything,” said Shae’s grandmother Carol Rowell. “The only question we have now is why. Why would someone do this to her?”

Sheriff’s deputies had closed off Creek Road Tuesday while homicide and forensic investigators combed through the abandoned house. Creek Road backs up to Hurricane Creek and is off 44th Court in Holt.

Donald Pearson has lived nearby for 33 years and said that the tree-lined dirt and gravel road has always been a magnet for questionable activity.

He said that people go there to use drugs and he’s heard that prostitutes occasionally frequent the isolated road.

“It’s gotten worse in the last 10 or 15 years,” he said. “There is all kinds of stuff going on down there.”

He said that he recently walked down the road and looked inside the abandoned house. The porch had collapsed and the floors had fallen in, he said.

Carl Ledlow, 24, said he was last there about three months ago. He said he sometimes takes his guns there for target practice. He works at C & C Marine in Holt and drove down the road to see why the police were there Tuesday.

I was just in there. Half the floors were rotted out,” he said.

Ledlow lived in Willowbrook Trailer Park earlier this year and said that he had heard about Shae’s disappearance.

“I’m surprised that they found her in there,” he said. “It’s terrible.”

Shae’s mother Beth Lowery and stepfather Kevin Thompson weren’t ready to talk publicly Tuesday afternoon.

Sheriff Ted Sexton and two deputies visited the house at midnight Tuesday to let them know they had found remains that they thought were Shae. Rowell said that they had found her backpack that had her name written inside.

Friends and family members crowded the mobile home in the Willowbrook Trailer Park, offering comfort to Lowery as she shed tears and waited on phone calls from investigators with updates.

A pile of wrapped Christmas presents by the trailer’s door included gifts for Shae, who would have turned 14 in June. Lowery has bought and wrapped gifts every Christmas and birthday since her daughter disappeared three years ago.

UPDATED 1:30 p.m. TUSCALOOSA | The remains of a girl who has been missing for three years have been discovered in an abandoned house, law enforcement officials announced at a press conference Tuesday morning.





Facts

Timeline
[*]2003
[*]
Tuesday, August 19 | Last seen by family members at 7:00 a.m., Heaven Lashae Ross reportedly disappeared somewhere between her house in Willowbrook Trailer Park and a bus stop on Hunter Creek Road. Photo and information was added to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children list.

Wednesday, August 20 | The FBI joins Northport and Tuscaloosa Police and Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in search.

Thursday, August 21 | Day three of the search turns up no clues; volunteers hand out fliers; reward money is raised.

Friday, August 22 | Northport Police Chief Billy Galloway appeals to the public to come forward with information; reward money totals over $10,000.

Saturday, August 23 | The Texas-based Laura Recovery Center dispatches over 60 people to join the search; reward money surpasses $60,000

Monday, August 25 | Police continue to search Willowbrook Trailer Park with tracking dogs from Escambia County in Florida. Volunteer headquarters are set up; a candlelight vigil is held in the evening.

Tuesday, August 26 | FBI agents separate the mother, step-father, sister and brother to have them fill out questionaires

Thursday, August 28 | Beth Lowery reports that the stepfather of the missing girl passed a polygraph test given by police

Friday, August 29 | Beth Lowery reports that she has passed a police-administered polygraph test.

Saturday, August 30 | A bulletin aired on FOX television program America’s Most Wanted produces no major leads.

Monday, September 1 | Police spokesman said searchers searched several areas on Sunday; reward is $65,000 for girl’s safe return.

Friday, September 12 | Police close command center used in search for Ross.

Friday, September 19 | Police question Evin Ryland who was picked up in Texas

Friday, September 26 | Missing girl’s bedroom damaged by morning fire; it was later ruled ‘suspicious.’

Wednesday, October 1 | Disputes over money and cooperation caused volunteers to part ways with missing girl’s mother.

Sunday, October 5 | Interracial parents find little solace, blaming it on racial prejudice.

Friday, October 26 | ‘Dateline’ aired Ross story.

Sunday, November 5 | Mother and stepfather arrested in a domestic dispute and released on bond.
[*]2004
[*]
Thursday, January 1 | Police search around a shopping center on Skyland Boulevard after receiving a tip.

Thursday, August 19 | On one year anniversary of girl’s disappearance, neighbors remain skeptical of family, court records show physical violence in family.
[*]2006
[*]
Thursday, August 17 | Police link disappearance of Ross with two other abductions from trailer parks; incidents were two years apart within one week in August.

Tuesday, December 18 | Police respond to a tip and find skeletal remains in an abandoned house in Holt



http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20061219/NEWS/61219001?tc=ar

Case of missing Northport girl Heaven LaShae Ross remains unsolved


By The Associated Press
on August 24, 2013 at 2:48 PM, updated August 24, 2013 at 3:20 PM


TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Heaven LaShae Ross would have been 21 years old this year.

Alex Ross sometimes thinks of how her younger sister would have turned out as an adult. She imagines she would have been a lot like her — outgoing, fun and sometimes goofy. But she usually remembers her as the 11-year-old little sister who wrote in her diary about Halloween costumes and the boy down the street.

In a Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013 photo, Alex Ross looks through her sisters diary at her aunts home in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Heaven LaShae Ross disappeared ten years ago in the Holt community. (AP Photo/Tuscaloosa News, Dusty Compton)

"There are a lot of things I can't remember about her, though. They've been overshadowed by what happened to her," Ross said. "I can't remember her smile or her laugh. I should be able to hear that. But I tell myself that this is life, and that everything happens for a reason."

Ross, now 23, had just turned 13 when her life changed forever. The highly publicized disappearance of her sister, who was found dead three years later, caused her family years of heartache.

"It has been a rough 10 years," said Beth Lowery Thompson, the girls' mother. "A rough, rough 10 years."

It was late summer 2003 when Shae Ross disappeared during a rainy Tuesday morning walk to the bus stop at Willowbrook Trailer Park in Northport. This past Monday marked the 10-year anniversary of her disappearance.

Members of the community closely followed what's likely the most high-profile criminal case in Tuscaloosa County's history.

Volunteers searched property across the county. Individuals and businesses donated to a reward fund that quickly reached $70,000.
People who never met Shae or her family joined them in mourning the sad, but long-suspected, outcome when her remains were found under an abandoned house in Holt three years later.

"This is one of those cases that the entire community was invested in," said Northport Police Investigator Terry Carroll, who led the search for Shae. "Nobody wants to see a child hurt. It just kind of touched everybody to some degree."

It's been seven years since that grim discovery and investigators are still searching for her killer.

"I'm at peace with her death," Alex Ross said. "I've been at peace since they found her. But I want to know who did it and why."
Thompson, 44, moved to Foley less than a year after Shae's body was found.

"I didn't want to be there anymore," she said during a phone interview last week. "I couldn't be there anymore."

She said has photos and belongings of her youngest child around her new home. Shae's photo is the first thing she sees when she wakes up, and the last thing she sees before going to bed.
.
"I have dreaded this year. I did not want to see this year come," Thompson said of the anniversary.

This year has turned out to be more difficult than Thompson expected. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer about six weeks ago and is recovering after a full hysterectomy. The 21-year relationship with her husband Kevin Thompson ended around the same time. And she's still mourning the recent deaths of her stepfather and an 18-day old grandson.

Thompson's cancer diagnosis made clear that she may never know what happened to her daughter.

"I don't want to be another Patsy Ramsey," she said. Ramsey died in 2006 with the 1996 murder of her daughter JonBenet still unsolved. "I don't want to die without knowing what happened to my kid."

Alex had left the trailer at 6:50 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 19, 2003, just a few minutes before her younger sister. Shae left around 6:55 a.m. Their stepfather Kevin Thompson heard a thunder clap and decided to drive the girls to school and left at 7:01. Shae somehow disappeared during that narrow window.

"I took a lot of blame for it when it first happened." said Alex, who also goes by her first name Jamie. "What if I had just waited for her? And why did they grab her? Why didn't they grab me, too?"

Police response to the missing child report Thompson filed that morning became more serious when Shae didn't show up once school hours had passed.

An AMBER alert was never issued because police had no evidence that Shae was in danger.

A team of law enforcement agents, including some from every agency in the county and the FBI, descended on the trailer park and went door-to-door. They reviewed video from a nearby Steve's Grill & Billiards, which yielded no clues. The response from the community was swift and massive.

On the third day of her disappearance, Winn-Dixie donated yellow ribbons that teams of searchers pinned to their shirts. Buddy's Food Mart immediate offered a $5,000 reward. Olive Garden sent food, Kmart sent snacks and Kinko's, Office Max and Kwik Copy ran off 33,000 missing fliers with ink jets donated by Home Depot.

Law enforcement agents saturated the neighborhood and worked at a command center set up at Northport police headquarters. Members of local, Birmingham and national media camped out with family and friends under tents at the trailer park, waiting for any kind of update. Search teams from out-of-state showed up, but no leads ever surfaced.

Thousands of tips were called in, many of them outlandish. A truck driver saw a wolf on U.S. Highway 82 and suggested that Shae had been attacked. A psychic said that a childless woman had taken Shae because of her mild-mannered disposition. One man said that he could find Shae by using a device that would track her aura.

"We checked out every lead," said Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office Division Chief Loyd Baker. "You never know if someone is giving you a good lead under a guise because they don't want to incriminate themselves or someone else."

The relationship between the family and volunteers disintegrated as the case dragged on without a resolution. Lowery accused the head of a volunteer group of stealing $500 donated by a church and police were called to the volunteer center to resolve a shouting match that erupted between family members and volunteers. Many volunteers withdrew their support after a September 2003 fire in Shae's room that destroyed most of her belongings. The fire was ruled suspicious. Some members of law enforcement, volunteers and the public suspected that Shae's parents knew more than they let on. Lowery said at the time that the scrutiny of her family was likely because she and Thompson were an interracial couple, and because they lived in a trailer park.

Alex Ross said that the attention directed at her family, along with losing her sister, was difficult for her as a teenager.

"I feel like I wasn't able to be a teenager," she said. "I'd be allowed to go to the mall or maybe two hours. I couldn't do anything."

Ross said that she experiences occasional anxiety that she blames on what happened to her sister. She doesn't like to be in a home with the door unlocked and sometimes overreacts when she hears strange sounds in her house.

She suspects that would stop if investigators are ever able to make an arrest in the case.

"I feel sorry for whoever did this. There's no way that whoever did this hasn't thought about it every day for 10 years, unless he or she is a real cold-hearted person," she said. She's thought about it a lot, but has no theories about who killed Shae.

"I honestly don't know. It could have been someone with a hatred for our family," she said, "or just a sick bastard."

Beth Thompson said that it's painful to think about her little girl who didn't have a chance to grow up.

"I love her. I miss her. I miss her so much. I've missed knowing what she would have been like. I've missed raising her, teaching her," she said. "Sometimes this is all too much to bear."

Shae was a tomboy who wasn't afraid to get muddy playing in the nearby creek. She played trombone and dressed as a cheerleader for Halloween. Her diary is full of entries about how much she loved her sister. She only wrote in it for a few months, but several of the blank pages she intended to fill are numbered in her messy 10-year-old script.

Paige Battle, the girls' first cousin, was 11 when Shae disappeared.

"Now I have kids of my own," said Battle, now 21. "Any little thing that might happen triggers it back up."

She worries about her kids when they're not in sight. She has butterfly tattoos in honor of Shae, who decorated her room with them.
"I think if we actually knew who did this, our family would feel better. It's been hard," she said. "It's torn our family apart."

Frances Taylor, Shae and Alex's aunt, believes that someone knows.

"Secrets get told," she said.

Investigators have never said how Shae was killed. Her family doesn't even know.

Baker, who worked the case when he was commander of the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit, said that investigators have interviewed three people who, for whatever reason, falsely confessed to the crime.

"That's information that only we know and the killer knows," Baker said.

Authorities were called to a rural dirt road in the Holt area on the afternoon of Dec. 19, 2006. A man walking his dog found her skeletal remains after his dog ran into a crawl space of an abandoned house off 44th Court that backed up to Hurricane Creek, just eight miles from Willbrook Trailer Park. An early theory was that a homeless person had died while seeking shelter.

Baker knew it was Shae as soon as he saw the yellow and black Athletech backpack he had sought for more than three years.

"I knew exactly who it was," he said.

Other possible evidence was recovered from the scene, but he won't say what. He did say that no DNA evidence was recovered because she had been exposed for so long.

"We have collected some trace evidence from around that body that we have not been able to match to any source," Baker said. "Maybe we'll be able to as technology improves." Hair and fibers are examples of trace evidence.

Members of the media, including a crew from "America's Most Wanted," were allowed to walk through the house after investigators had processed the scene. Broken glass, trash and damp, stained carpets covered the floors. The porch had collapsed and floors inside had fallen in. The house sat in a clearing overlooking Hurricane Creek and was known by people in the area as a spot for drug activity and prostitution. It's not clear whether Shae was killed at the house or if her body was taken there later, he said. The house has since been destroyed by an unintentional fire, he said.

Investigator Carroll, who headed the case as Northport's juvenile division officer, went on to work in the homicide unit and continued to investigate the missing person-turned homicide case. This is the case that will stay with him forever, he said.
"There are a lot of us who feel that way," he said.

Carroll went to Washington, D.C., along with investigators from Prattville and Twiggs County, Ga., to discuss the case with investigators with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A theory had been floated that the three cases could be connected due to remarkable similarities.

All three girls were 11 years old. All were abducted from trailer parks near U.S. Highway 82. And all three disappeared two years apart — 1999, 2001 and 2003 — and within one week in the month of August.

The federal investigators said there was not enough evidence to determine whether the cases were connected.

"They did say 'you're not going to find out what happened until you find out how she got out of that trailer park'," Carroll said.

The investigators who know every witness statement by heart and every detail about every piece of evidence agree about a lot. But they disagree about some aspects of the case, including who did it and when. Baker and Carroll declined to elaborate, but said that differing opinions can be beneficial to an investigation.

Like the family and the rest of the community, they're hopeful that one day they'll get the information they need to crack the case.
"This was a case that affected the whole community," Baker said. "It was a hard case for the community to come to terms with."

Beth Thompson thinks that she will better be able to come to terms with what happened if someone is held accountable.

"All I want is justice for Shae. She didn't ask for this. None of us asked for this," she said. "I ask that whoever knows who did this do please have a conscience, so we can put this to rest. This is a lot for a family to deal with. Be considerate enough to please give us a little peace of mind."


http://blog.al.com/tuscaloosa/2013/08/case_of_missing_ala_girl_heave.html