Feb. 28, 1983 in St Louis

26 years ago two men went into an abandoned building at 5635 Clemens Avenue scavenging for copper. Amid filth and debris, the two men stumbled on the body of a girl about 9 years old (African American). She had been murdered, raped and decapitated. Her hands were tied behind her back with a red-and-white nylon rope. She was wearing only a dirty yellow orlon sweater with the label cut out. She had two layers of red nail polish on her fingernails.

The girl had medium-to-dark skin, was about 4 feet 10 inches and weighed about 70 pounds. Her body showed no signs of previous abuse - no bruises, scars or broken bones, and she appeared to be well-nourished. Because there was no blood at the scene, police suspect Jane Doe was murdered and decapitated somewhere else and dumped into the basement of the building.

The child's body lay in the city morgue for several months. Jane Doe was finally buried Dec. 2, 1983, in a pauper's grave on the southern side of Washington Park Cemetery. Four mud-covered gravediggers carried her small, white casket adorned with a single spray of pink, white and yellow flowers. The ceremony lasted five minutes. Months later, a group of schoolchildren raised money to buy Jane Doe a tombstone.

The first African-American head of homicide, Leroy Adkins, now 71, was a year on the job at the time of Jane Doe's murder. Wanting to dispel the belief among many of the city's black residents that the police department cared more about white victims than black ones, Adkins immersed himself in the case. He organized meetings in the black community, urging residents to help. He wrote letters to the St. Louis American, Ebony and Jet magazines.

Adkins' tired eyes reflect the frustration and resignation that come from this infuriating case. The nightmares are gone, but harrowing memories linger. Jane Doe, he says, enters his mind when he's reading the paper, watching television, in the quiet-time moments before sleep.

His wife, Glenda, knows the case nearly as well as her husband. For years she's been the sounding board for her husband's unanswered questions.

"There's just so much wonderment in this story," she says. "You wonder how no one can be missing a child of that age. Where is the family? What about her schoolmates? Her friends? How could no one report her as missing?"

Adji Desir

Six-year-old Adji Desir was last seen when he went outside to play with friends in Immokalee's Farmworker's Village. His grandmother went to check on him and couldn't find him. Children who were outside with Adji when he went missing say they just noticed at one point that he was gone.

Investigators say the boy is developmentally disabled and functions on a two-year-old level. He has a very limited vocabulary. He knows his name, but cannot speak it. Adji also understands Creole, but cannot speak it.

DOB: Oct 22, 2002
Age Now: 6
Sex: Male
Race: Black
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 3'0" (91 cm)
Weight: 45 lbs (20 kg)
Missing From: Immokalee, FL

Unsolved Homicides

Danydia Betty-Jacqueline Thompson

Nee-Nee left her grandmother's home on the morning of April 30 to walk four blocks to school with two young cousins. Police said that the two cousins separated from her sometime before 8 a.m. and that Nee-Nee was seen just inside the playground of Marlboro Elementary School when she was called by name by a man.

She was seen leaving the area of the school with the man, and later another witness spotted her riding on the man's shoulders a few blocks away.

Her body was found 8 days later. Medical examiners for the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas ruled the cause of death as homicidal violence.

The Suspect:
Age: 25 to 26 years old,
Hgt: about 5' 10"
Wgt: 150 lbs.
Hair: short afro about 3" in length
Complexion: dark
Other: slender nose and a thick mustache that reached the corners of his mouth.

Chanel Petro-Nixon

A studious and popular Brooklyn teenager left her apartment to walk down the street to meet a friend, and then pick up an application for a summer job. She never showed up to meet her friend or get the application, and four days later, her body was found strangled and stuffed into a garbage bag.

Friends and family call Chanel Petro-Nixon the "perfect" kid. She got straight A's, went to church every Sunday, and lit up a room with her smile.

The question detectives now have is, who would want to see her dead?

Murder , Brooklyn , NY ; Jun 18, 2006
The reward is now up to $34,000.
If you know anything about the case, call our Hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV. You can remain anonymous.