ATLANTA — People around the world are trying to help East Point Police identify a teenage girl whose body was found on Feb. 12.
Police said she’d been beaten to death.
Her killer is unknown.
Now there is a new sketch of the girl generating more tips, including from parents who are desperate to find their own missing daughters, police said.
It is a story of heartbreak, and of hope for answers.
Police found the body of the teen abandoned, outside a vacant house on Ben Hill Road in East Point. They believe she was around 14 to 17 years old. She was Black, 5-feet 2-inches tall, about 100 pounds, with short, dark hair that was recently dyed blonde. Her body was half-naked. The medical examiner later said she died from blunt force trauma.
There was no identification with her body.
Investigators said a retired FBI agent, a forensic sketch artist--working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children--offered to draw a second sketch of her to go along with a previous one the GBI drew. East Point Police sent the retired agent photos of the teen's remains, in order to have another depiction of how she would have appeared alive.
"They’re both great sketches," said East Point Police Captain Allyn Glover on Tuesday. "Maybe one will jog somebody’s memory where the other one didn’t, or vice versa. These are very noticeable freckles, birthmarks, on the face. So that’s going to help us to find her, I honestly believe that. Some family member is going to notice that."
Captain Glover said hundreds of people have been trying to help--including loved ones of missing, teenaged girls--offering East Point Police tips and photos of missing teens they think might match the appearance of the girl in the sketches.
Detectives are watching closely to see if any of the tips and photos are coming from people who could possibly be the teen’s family and friends.
"It’s been breathtaking, to me, of how many tips we've gotten," Glover said. "It's been humbling, all the tips that we’ve gotten from all over the world. I’m talking Germany, United Kingdom, people all over the world have taken to social media to do searches, search Google, search all of the social media, for anything that matches our child victim that we have."
He said detectives are working to narrow down the tips and photos.
“When I say hundreds of them, I’m not kidding,” Glover said. “There’s been many, many tips we’ve gotten, pictures of young ladies. We have to investigate each tip thoroughly, methodically. And we do have a few that closely resemble the teen, that we’re having to follow up a little bit more on.”
Glover said detectives have been working with law enforcement agencies in other states to examine their missing-person files, "to make sure we're leaving no stone unturned."
Detectives are simultaneously investigating her homicide. Glover said it's been more challenging than most homicide investigations because they don’t have the IDs of the victim and of her family and friends, and they don’t have a crime scene to analyze.
"It's possible, in this case, that she was brought to this location" on Ben Hill Road by whomever killed her, Glover said.
“So it’s very challenging. It’s absolutely nothing that our detectives can’t handle. We will identify her, we will work this case to a conclusion, and we hope to bring closure to the family as soon as possible," he said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children posts countless photos of missing children and teens on its website and Facebook page, young people who have been missing for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, and longer.
Now, NCMEC is also trying to help reunite the unidentified teen with her family and friends from the few clues detectives have:
A distinctive, yellow metal necklace she was wearing, bearing a white stone pendant with the numerals 2005; could that be the year she was born?
The lime green beaded anklet she was wearing, with six letters, WIXKED, in all caps, marked on block-style beads.
The orange tank top with white trim she was wearing.
And her distinctive freckles.
“Not one of our detectives, in our detectives division, don’t have kids,” Glover said. “We all have children of our own. I can honestly tell you that people in our detectives division have lost sleep over this case," trying to find out who she was and who killed her, as if she'd been their daughter.
"We can only imagine, there’s a family without a daughter, without a sister, without a family member, out there, and we’re not going to stop until we find out what happened and bring some closure to this," he said.
Anyone with information about the case can call East Point Police at 404-761-2177, or email police@eastpointcity.org.