Kennewick police haunted by missing girl

Eighty-six kids missing from Washington are listed on a national missing children's website.

The first picture that shows up -- of 8-year-old David William Adams -- also is the oldest. He has been missing from Issaquah since May 3, 1968, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Sofia Juarez's smiling face also is on that site. And even though it's been nearly nine years since the 4-year-old vanished in Kennewick, she has not been forgotten.

"We keep hope that she's still alive," said Kennewick police Sgt. Ken Lattin. "We keep hope that we'll find her."

Sofia disappeared Feb. 4, 2003 -- the day before her fifth birthday -- from her east Kennewick home after reportedly getting a dollar from her mother and following an adult in the house who was going to a nearby store.

She was reported missing around 9 p.m. after the adult returned home and Sofia wasn't with him. He said the little girl never met up with him. Other families members thought she was playing in her bedroom and they frantically searched the house and neighborhood while calling police.

"There are some dates you'll never forget -- people talk about when the president got assassinated or when the space shuttle exploded -- this is one of those days for me," Lattin said.

He remembers the entire department -- and hundreds of officers and firefighters from surrounding agencies and community volunteers -- doing a very thorough canvas of Sofia's neighborhood and knocking on doors in a three-mile radius.

Sometimes people might seesomething that can help solve a case and not realize the relevance, so officers talked to as many people as they could, Lattin said.

Sofia's disappearance was treated as an abduction from the start, and she was the subject of the state's first Amber Alert.

Her case also was featured on America's Most Wanted, and her face has appeared on the side of a NASCAR race car, in Times Square and on four semi-trucks traveling across the country.

More than a thousand people were interviewed by police, several homes were searched and police have chased tips that have poured in from around the country and in Mexico.

"Still to this day we have no solid leads," Lattin said.

Over the years, new detectives have taken the lead on the case to provide a fresh set of eyes to review the information. Detective Wes Gardner has been the lead investigator on Sofia's case for almost three years, but he hasn't gotten any closer to solving the mystery.

"This case is so frustrating," he said.

Investigators track every tip, even if it's similar to something that already has been checked out -- including the rumors or urban legends that claim Sofia was abducted by someone she knows and is living in Mexico, was taken by a stranger and killed or is being held against her will, and accidentally was hit by a van and then buried south of Kennewick near Hover Park or Jump-off Joe.

Tips still come in about Sofia, but not as many as there used to be, Gardner said.

Last year, Gardner received information from someone who found a Sofia Juarez on Facebook. The girl appeared to be the right age and was living in Long Beach, Calif. He sought help from police in Long Beach and they determined it was a different person.

Sofia will be 14 next week, and Lattin said she might be at the age now when she'll start asking more about her past or where she lived when she was younger.

Sofia is the only open missing child case on record for the police department, but the oldest missing person case is from 1978 when June Howard disappeared.

Sofia's mother, Maria, died three years ago in Sacramento from medical complications, but police say they still are in contact with Sofia's extended family and won't stop looking for the now-teenage girl.

"We're not ever going to forget about Sofia," Lattin said. "She is still important to us."

Anyone with information about Sofia can call Kennewick police at 628-0333, Tri-City Crime Stoppers at 586-8477 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.

This story was originally published January 27, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Kennewick police haunted by missing girl ."