Heaven Missing

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Heaven has been missing since August 19, 2003.

On the afternoon of December 18, 2006, the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office was alerted to an abandoned house in Holt, Ala. Deputies arrived at the house and found the place falling apart. They picked through the home and discovered human skeletal remains. Police say they quickly uncovered clues that suggested  the remains belonged to Heaven Ross. Heaven had been abducted from the nearby town, three years earlier.

On Aug. 19, 2003 --a hot and a humid Tuesday morning-- 11-year-old Heaven LaShea Ross hugged and kissed her mother, Beth Lowery, as she left their home at the Willowbrook Trailer Park in Northport, Ala. Shea, as her close friends and family called her, was anxious to join her older sister at the bus stop, which was less than 100 yards from their home.

But little Heaven never reached her destination.

Beth and her husband, Kevin Thompson, notified police after the little girl disappeared and volunteers, helicopters and the Northport Police Department's canine units began an immediate search of the neighborhood and the surrounding area.

Police say a neighbor, who lived a few doors down from Heaven's home, saw her walk by. And another neighbor, close to the bus stop, says she didn't see the child at all. 

Yet, somewhere between their two houses, Heaven disappeared.

Bad News Comes In Threes

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Heaven was last seen wearing a BRATZ t-shirt similar to the one pictured here.

A few days after Heaven's disappearance, lead investigator Terry Carroll of the Northport Police Department received a call from Det. Robert Furlong of the Prattville, Ala. Police Department. Det. Sgt. Furlong was working on the case of Shannon Paulk, an 11 year-old girl who went missing on August 16, 2001 from her trailer park home -- almost exactly two years before Heaven. They found Shannon's body two months later in a nearby wildlife refuge.

After comparing notes, the two detectives found some striking similarities between their cases. Both Heaven and Shannon were 11 years old, youngest daughters, from suburban trailer parks outside major cities, and lived near wildlife refuges and active construction sites. Despite the laundry list of similarities, they couldn't determine if there was a direct connection because Heaven was still missing. 

Three years passed, and the cases cooled down. Then in January of this year, Investigator Carroll got another call from Det. Furlong.  He told Carroll that he was flipping through a law enforcement magazine when he found a bulletin for a missing 11-year-old girl from Twiggs County, Ga. If this girl was from a trailer park, they could have another connection. The two detectives set up a meeting with Sheriff Darren Mitchum and Lt. Robert Rodgers from the Twiggs County Sheriff's Department.

Teresa Dean went missing from her trailer park home on August 15, 1999 -- almost exactly two years before Shannon, and four years before Heaven. Teresa lived in a suburb of Macon, near a wildlife refuge and construction sites. She was a small girl with slight learning disabilities and a lisp. The day she went missing, Teresa went to her neighbor's house to look at some puppies. Her neighbor told her that if she caught a puppy, she could take it home, so Teresa headed back home to get her brother to help her. She never made it home, and hasn't been seen since.

During their meeting, investigators found that Teresa also shared many of the same characteristics that Shannon and Heaven had in common.

A Common Bond

Cops believe there are too many similarities to ignore -- all girls were 11 years-old, from trailer parks, youngest daughters, very outgoing and social, lived in suburbs, and had wilderness refuges and active construction sites near them. Possibly the most chilling similarity is the fact that all the girls disappeared within days of each other exactly two years apart.

Investigators fear that if these cases are related, they could be hunting a serial child killer. The concern is that he might be an anniversary killer -- someone who only hunts during a certain time of year. If this is the case, this killer strikes in August every two years. While no girls went missing in August of 2005, the detectives fear he could have changed locations and stuck somewhere else, or been put in prison for another crime. While jail-time might keep him from killing now, it won't stop him from killing again when he gets out.

Since police found what they believe to be Heaven's body, Teresa is the only one of the three girls still unaccounted for. This makes it more difficult for cops to determine if a connection between the three cases actually exists. Regardless, there is someone out there who is responsible for Heavens death, and cops in Northport and Tuscaloosa won't rest until that person is brought to justice.

Heaven LaShae Ross's Body Found