Criminology - Mikelle Biggs

Episode Date: January 5, 2019

In this first episode of 2019, we're discussing the disappearance of 11-year-old Mikelle Biggs. Mikelle disappeared near her home in Mesa, Arizona 20 years ago. Mikelle's sister Kimber was outside with her that day that she vanished. We'll hear from Kimber in this episode about Mikelle's disappearance and how it affected their entire family. This is a story of bad things that can happen in the blink of an eye. When Kimber found her sister Mikelle's bike the wheels were still spinning. The whole city of Mesa jumped in to help look for Mikelle but she couldn't be found. Her parents are convinced that they know who took her and it was someone that, they feel, police should have looked at more closely from the beginning. You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I want to welcome everyone back to criminology. The holidays are over. More of how were your holidays? They were great. How about yours, Mike? Oh, it was awesome, man. I love the holidays. I love Christmas.

I like New Year's. My kids are still in the house. They're a lot older than yours, but they still really get a kick out of Christmas. So that's a big treat for myself and for my wife. We always like that. Yeah. No matter how old the kids are, you always want them to have fun and have a good family time. I hope all the listeners out there, too, had a great holiday.

Looking forward to the new year with them. I will say this, morph, because your kids are still pretty small. Our Christmases have transformed over the years from the kids are so excited because they have no idea what they're getting to, and I have two girls. They have over the preceding months picked out every single thing that they're getting. They went with my wife to shop for all of their Christmas gifts. So what it's become now is they're opening gifts and saying, oh, I remember when we picked that out. That's basically what Christmas is.

But they had a couple of surprises. We still get a kick out of it. Well, they're doing all the work for you then. Exactly. So we had some time off. more for refreshed. We're ready to get back to work on criminology. And we're excited, right, to get back to work. We're going to be cranking out a lot of episodes. So if anyone missed our announcement, we are going to switch from what we were doing before, which was

seasons. We were calling them seasons. We're going to be doing a new episode of criminology every week. So starting with this episode, this episode is number 42. So welcome to episode number 42. Now, our fans love the deep dives into the cases that we've done. But the problem that we always had was the downtime. You know, getting ready for one case that is going to span 8, 10, 12 in the case of Golden State Killer Morp, what, 16? 17. I didn't even forget what it is, what it was. It was like a never ending season. Oh my gosh. It, you know,

went on forever. It was great. I loved it. But I think this is the solution for that problem, right? To allow Morph and I to bring you fresh cases every week, but at the same time still fill them with the details and the accuracy which our fans have become accustomed to. Now, that's not to say that we won't do multiple episodes on one case, right? More of you and I have talked about this. There's still some really big cases out there that we may do that are going to span multiple episodes. We're not going to shy away from that.

Yeah, some of the cases that we cover are just going to be way too big to do on one single episode. One thing a lot of people have told us is that they liked the interviews we've done with experts and witnesses, investigators, family members, and so on. And we still plan on keeping those kinds of discussions coming in these episodes. It's one thing for us to tell you the details of a case, but we think it really adds something extra when we get to hear from people directly involved in the cases that we cover in some way.

Yeah, and I'll echo you more. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Some of the interviews that we've done, I say we, but you really do most of the interviews, you've done some amazing interviews with folks connecting. to some of the cases we've done, you can really get the emotion, right? Because the emotion is there. These people live through these cases that we're talking about. And speaking of cases, we've got some really great cases picked out, queued up. And that starts with today's case. But before we get into

that, let's give our Patreon supporter shoutouts. Because really, you know, without our Patreon folks, we couldn't do this as a weekly show. So I want to give a shout out. to Sam Marshall, Jamie Peralt, Michelle Jolly, Eric Sipes, Carolina Diaz Bernal, Andrew Greenwell, Misha Conine, Barbara Julian, Guy Hale, and Ryan Hargreaves. So a lot of great new support. And there's a, there's a lot more names to read off because we've been away, right? I couldn't pack them all into this one episode. But we'll catch you. up over the next couple weeks, for sure. And we really can't thank you all enough.

I have to reiterate what Mike said. Everyone out there showing the support through Patreon has been really astounding and we're thankful for it. If you'd like to support the show through a Patreon donation for as little as $2 a month, you'll get early, add-free access to every episode plus bonus material not heard on regular episodes of criminology. And you can help support the show. by visiting patreon.com slash criminology.

All right, Morph. Now we have all of that out of the way. It's time to dive into this episode of criminology. And it's a missing person's case. And it's a heartbreaking missing person's case. It's the case of 11-year-old Mikkel Biggs, who disappeared 19 years ago this week from Mesa, Arizona. It's a little background about McKell.

She was the oldest of four children. At the time of her disappearance, she was a sixth grade honor roll student. She loved school. She loved art and music. She played the clarinet and she played the piano. This was an amazing young girl. McKell was a really bright and talented child. She even created and designed a board game to give to her family as a present on Christmas

day in 1998. McKell's case would unite the Mesa community. But the lack of. clues and evidence would frustrate Mesa police who were determined to find her. Mike, you mentioned this is a heartbreaking case, and it really is. But it's also really scary because McKell vanished in the blink of an eye. Her sister, Kimber, who was just nine years old at the time, found the bike that McKell had been riding, and one of the tires was literally still spinning, but McKell was nowhere to be found. And we'll hear from Kimber throughout this

episode to discuss her sister's case and just how it impacted her and her entire family. So let's talk a little bit about where this case takes place. I mentioned Mesa, Arizona. Mesa is a pretty big city, east of Phoenix, Arizona. In 1999, Mesa had a population of about 368,000 people. The average high temperature in Mesa's 86 degrees. This is the desert. And, you know, during some of the summer months, it can easily reach over 100 degrees. You talk about Mesa, you talk about Phoenix, but really, Arizona as a whole. It's a very popular place for people to retire because of the warm temperatures. One of the added bonuses of living in Mesa is that its rank as one of the safest places to live in the U.S.

And for families like the Biggs family, that was an important benefit. Darren and Tracy Biggs wanted a safe place where their children could grow up. In 1999, the Biggs children consisted of 11-year-old McKell, 9-year-old Kimber, 4-year-old Nathan, and 9-month-old Linnell. And Darren and Tracy thought they had found the safe ideal at place to raise their children on the 1800 block of El Morrow Avenue. But on Saturday, January 2, 1999, that safe feeling that the Biggs family had was shattered. That Saturday was a typical one for the Biggs family. It was a clear day, temperature in the mid-60s, which, more, for me and you, January 2nd, mid-60s, that's something that we don't see where we live.

Yeah, here in the Northeast in January, we're not going to see many days with temperatures in the 60s. We're happy if it's above freezing. But in this area of the country, it definitely wasn't unusual to have those kind of the temperatures. Now, Tracy Biggs had some relatives over to visit. This included her cousin Lynn, Lynn's husband Duncan, and their son Taylor. And while the adults spent time talking and catching up, Kimber and McKell were getting restless. Kimber asked McKell to stay inside and play with her dolls, but McKell wanted to go outside and take advantage of the nice weather. And once McKell heard the

sound of the ice cream truck in the distance, that was it. She was determined to head outside. So she asked her mom if she could go outside, and she also asked her if she could have some money to get some ice cream. Her mom said yes to both and gave McKell two quarters. Once McKell got the 50 cents from her mom, she headed outside and hopped on Kimber's bike, and she took off toward the sound of the ice cream truck. She stopped at the corner of Toltec Street and El Morrow Avenue, within view of the Biggs home. It was around 6 p.m. This location was only about four houses down from her home.

McKell and Kimber were not allowed to turn the corner and go out of sight of their house. McKell sat there near the sidewalk waiting for the ice cream man, and there were other kids playing outside too. Meanwhile, Kimber decided that she didn't want to be in the house without her sister, so she grabbed the family dog and leashed it and took it for a walk. It only took Kimber a minute. to catch up with her older sister, and the two of them played outside with some of the other neighborhood children. But while they played, the sound of the ice cream truck faded. Apparently,

the girls had missed it. As they played, the street lights came on. And that was the point in time when many of the kids that were outside playing headed home. Now, as sisters sometimes do, mckell and Kimber started to bicker a little bit. Kimber was mad that McKell was riding her bike. She didn't understand why McKell hadn't ridden her own bike. But McKell told Kimber that she was walking the dog and couldn't ride the bike anyway. Now, in addition to the street lights coming on, the temperature started to drop as well. And Kimber started to get cold.

She told McKell that it was time to go. back home, get inside out of the cold, but McKell said she didn't want to. I was mad because I knew that it was time to come in. We knew that when the streetlights came on and there was no one outside that we had to come inside. That was like the neighborhood rule. That was curfew. And so after we kind of, you know, went back and forth about it, I decided I was going

inside and, you know, of course, was going to tattletail on her for not listening and coming inside. Kimber walked with her dog across the street heading for her house. When she looked back, Mikkel was riding in circles in the quiet street. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no sign of anyone nearby. It only took Kimber a matter of seconds to reach her door and head inside. Once she got inside, as she was about to unleash the dog, her mom asked Kimber where McKell was. When Kimber told her mom that McKell was still outside riding the bike, her mom told her to go outside and tell Mikal that it was time to come inside. Kimber hadn't been in the house more than 30 seconds when she turned around and headed back out the front door taking the dog with her to go get McKell. Kimber was irritated

and she really didn't want to go. After all, she had headed home in the first place because it was cold, because it was getting dark, and now she had to go back out to get her sister. But she did what her mom told her to do and went to get McKell. Kimber walked to the end of her driveway and looked out to the area of the road where she had last seen McKell riding in circles on her bike, but she didn't see her sister. Kimber thought that her older sister had most likely went around the corner and that she might get in trouble. Kimber called out to McKell, but she didn't get a reply. She began walking towards the area of the street where she had last seen McKell. It was now dusk, but not pitch black. Kimber felt like the sky was more blue than black.

the blend of the sky and the lights made for a creepy setting for young Kimber. The fact she didn't hear or see her older sister made her feel uneasy. Kimber walked further down the street, but it didn't take long for her to find something that really caused her to be alarmed. It was a little bit foggy and it was very cold and I looked and I saw something in the road and as I walked towards it, I got a very eerie feeling. And I didn't know what that was, you know, being nine years old. but I decided to walk towards it, and I realized it was my bike in the road with the back tire still spinning. And the emotions I felt were, I mean, all over the place. I was very mad that she left my bike in the road, but I was confused.

It didn't make sense. You know, that wasn't like her to leave my bike in the road. And if she had left my bike in the road, where was she? And so I kind of, you know, half expected her to jump out from around the corner, like she was teasing me and she was going to scare me and picked up my bike and I kind of stood there and I looked around and I yelled and I told her she was going to be in trouble and I'm telling on you

for leaving my bike on the road and this isn't funny and she didn't answer and I thought it was weird and I was frustrated but in like the back of my mind I knew something wasn't right and so I walked back home with the bike and the dog and I went in through like the side gate and I put my bike away and let the dog out. And I went inside and I told my mom,

McKell left my bike and the road, and I don't know where she went. And my mom was like, that's kind of weird. And she told me to check the neighbor's house. The Millers were a family. You know, they had a daughter our age and we played with them often. So again, I go outside very irritated. And I walked down to the Miller's house.

And the Millers were three houses down. So theirs was like the last house before. the tea in the road where McKell was riding. And I walked down there and I said, you know, hey, is McKell here? And they were like, no, she was just out riding her bike. You know, we're having dinner. I said, well, she left my bike in the road and I can't find her. And, you know, their mom sent one of their sons outside to look.

And he came out and he seemed concerned and he was looking around. And I was confused. I wasn't sure what we were looking for. You know, I assumed McKell was hiding or, you know, at another friend's house, and I didn't know what his plan was, but he came out and apparently that's when he found her ice cream money, the quarters on the sidewalk or on the road or something. And that's when he realized something was wrong.

And he said, go home and tell your mom, we can't find Mikkel. That's when I went home and I walked in and I said, we can't find her. And my mom's face just, I mean, I just remember her face dropped. She went completely pale. And more if you have to imagine that sinking feeling that Tracy Biggs experienced when she realized that something was wrong. I think for any of us that are parents, we've all experienced that feeling, whether you're

in a store, you're out in public somewhere and you turn around and your child is gone. But thankfully, in most of those cases, you know, after a second, you see your child. They reappear and you get that instant feeling of relief. But it comes after what is a really scary sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, no matter how long it lasts. But sadly, that wasn't going to be the case for Tracy. You heard Kimber say that when she found the bike, the wheel was still spinning. So we have to be talking. about a matter of seconds since that bike was dropped. Yeah, and as a parent myself, I know you're the same way.

You can't imagine that feeling of dread when something like this happens. And most of the time, it's harmless. They went around the corner. They hid someplace, and you've got that instant relief when you see them. But in her situation, in Tracy's situation, this is just something that's unbelievably scary for her, I'm sure. And Tracy immediately began to panic, but her cousin Lynn stepped in and tried to calm her down. She told Tracy to call the police, and she gathered Kimber and her younger siblings, and took them up to another room to keep them away from what was certainly turning into a scary

and chaotic scene. Tracy called police to report her daughter, McKell, missing at about 6.15 p.m. As soon as she hung up with them, she paged her husband Darren, who was out. And when he called home, Tracy told him that their oldest daughter was missing, and he immediately headed home. At that same time, Lynn's husband Duncan raced out in his truck to search nearby streets, hoping to find any sign of McKell. But he had no luck and returned back to the Biggs home. It didn't take long for police to arrive at the Big's home. And, you know, one thing we hear about in so many of these cases from years ago when a child went missing is that police immediately assumed

in a lot of cases that they were runaways. Fortunately, in this case, the Mesa PD immediately treated this case as an abduction. And that's extremely important because in this kind of situation when there's a missing child, every second counts. It couldn't have been more than an hour. And there were dozens of police cars and cameras and people with flyers and people with ribbons, yellow ribbons, and the front yard was completely full,

and it was complete chaos so quickly. Police took a description of McKell, what she was wearing, and they sent it out over the radio. McKell was described as being four foot eight, weighing 65 pounds with hazel eyes and blonde hair. She was wearing bell-bottom jeans and a red shirt with her school's name, Lindbergh, written across it. The police really pulled out all the stops, and they lit the neighborhood up. They had several officers patrolling the streets in that area, and also going door to door. And I think they deserve some credit, Mike, because they immediately asked neighbors and residents if they could come in and look around their homes. And just about all of the residents allowed

officers into their homes, with one notable exception. One man in particular refused to allow police to enter his home. And you have to think, Mike, that if you're the one person in the neighborhood that doesn't let the cops in, that's going to make you look awfully suspicious. Well, I'm thinking of my own neighborhood, right? A lot of houses up and down just my street. Let's say there's 30, 40 houses. If 39 of those houses are willing to let the police in, they come to my house.

And I say, you know what? No, I'm not having. in it, I don't think there's any doubt. That's going to put me on the police radar. Now, it doesn't mean I had anything to do with it. I could just be exercising my rights by not allowing the police in. But like you said, Morve, it's going to put you on the radar. It's going to make you look suspicious. And whatever the reason this man had for not letting police in, he was later ruled out as having anything to do with McKell's disappearance. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

While neighbors and residents help police comb the streets looking for any sign of McKell, the Biggs family huddled together in their home, worried and afraid. Police had Kimber reenact her movements and steps. They wanted to figure out how much time an abductor had to take McKell and get away without being seen. They estimated 90 seconds from the time that I was out of sight from her to the time that I came back out to the end of the driveway. They did, you know, walk through so the police had me retrace my steps with the dog,

taking up the bike, everything, and they estimated that it was less than 90 seconds that she was alone. It's aggravating and insane to me that 90 seconds can make such an impact. 90 seconds. That's all it took for someone to take McKell and get away without being seen, and that is frightening. It really is scary if you think about it. You could turn around for 90 seconds and have a conversation with someone. 90 seconds goes by really, darn fast. And more if you have to really feel for Tracy and Darren Biggs. They have a missing daughter. But at the same time, they also have three other young children to take care of. This is a very difficult situation to handle all the way around. To me, it's unimaginable. But even

nine-year-old Kimber, after finding herself involved in this tragic situation, tried to explain things to her little brother, Nathan. I know that I was overwhelmed and I knew something was wrong. My little brother was crying and I tried to comfort him and I tried to tell him, you know, what was going on. I didn't want to scare him, but I think I told him, you know, a bad person took McKell. And that's kind of the last thing I remember other than eventually going to bed at some point. And I was crying myself to sleep. Despite the efforts by police and volunteers that first night, they didn't find McKell. By the next day, the FBI was brought in to assist in the search.

And once again, I think we have to give credit to the Mesa PD. Because in so many of the cases we hear about, police are slow to react and get moving in cases like this. It really seems as if police did everything that they could do early on. And they weren't reluctant to ask for help, bringing in the FBI and outside agencies to help in the search. While the police and FBI were doing their job, to try to find McKell, neighbors were looking for her as well. On their own, they organized a search

party and went out looking in nearby Orange Groves, Cotton Fields, and canals searching for any sign of her. One set of neighbors helped to print and distribute 12,000 flyers by Sunday night. This was less than 24 hours after McKell vanished. By Monday night, over 50,000 flyers had been circulated around Mesa. This blows me away. This is an unbelievable example of a neighborhood coming together, extremely motivated to help the Biggs family however they could. But just like the police, the citizens searching for McKell came up empty as well.

Before the end of the weekend, law enforcement had seemingly used everything at their disposal to find McKell, including bloodhounds and help. helicopters, but there was just absolutely no sign of her whatsoever. As the investigation in Mkel's disappearance continued, police identified three different sex offenders that lived in the area and questioned them, but police felt confident that none of those men were involved in taking Mekyll. Later, they would talk to at least 20 sex offenders, but nothing tied any of them to McKell, and this was very frustrating for the Mesa Police Department.

They had no witnesses and no physical evidence. It was going to be an uphill battle for them. Then the police caught a break when two separate witnesses came forward to tell them that on the night of McKell's disappearance, they had seen a copper-colored jeep leave the area quickly, and this was around the time that McKell had vanished. However, police later identified the driver of this copper jeep and ruled him out as a suspect.

It was a frustrating dead end for police. Police received another tip that led them to do an extensive search at a local Motorola plant. But nothing was found there that was connected to McKell. And it turned out that the tip itself was a hoax. Up to this point, as we said, the Mesa community had rallied to help police. But then in this instance, someone had deliberately wasted their valuable time and resources, time and resources that could have taken them away from real leads.

One promising lead did come in. Police learned that just a month before McKell went missing, a young girl just two miles away had been approached by a man who tried to grope her. The girl fought the man off, started to scream, and the man ran off. This little girl helped police create a sketch of the attacker, but they were never able to identify him. Within a week of McKell's disappearance, her story made national news. The reality that a child could vanish within 90 seconds within sight of her home without leaving a clue or a shred of evidence and no eye witnesses was frightening. The topic of stranger danger was being discussed nationwide.

The irony was that McKell knew about stranger danger and would have tried to avoid an escape from a stranger that was trying to kidnap her, which is what makes her disappearance and lack of any clues all the more frustrating. The search for McCall Biggs would be the most extensive search in Arizona history. In the wake of McKell's disappearance, children didn't play alone in Mesa, and few went out after dark. Yellow ribbons lined many streets in Mesa, a beacon of hope that McKell would be found one day. Now, Morif, one thing we have to talk about is that police looked at members of McHale's own family to rule them out.

They have to, right? Very typical in investigations like this, some of the family members were asked to take lie detector tests, including McKell's own father, Darren. But police were able to verify an account for Darren Biggs' whereabouts at the time his daughter went missing. At a certain point in the investigation, it seemed as if the Biggs family,

people that McKell knew, and many sex offenders in the area had been ruled out. In the aftermath of McKell vanishing, Kimber, understandably, went through a very tough time. After all, she was the last person to see McKell. And if you think about it, this could have easily been Kimber instead of McKell, or they both could have vanished.

I never really thought that it could have been me. I'm more, I felt guilty. You know, I was the one that left her alone. And, you know, that really took a toll on me for many, many years. It took me into adulthood to realize that, it's not my fault, it's the person who took her. You know, there is no one else to blame except for the person responsible. And it's still hard on me now, you know, to think what if I hadn't left?

And, you know, I talked to my mom about it a few days after she was taken. And my mom, you know, was like, this is absolutely not your fault. How could you have known you're a child? It could have been both of you. And, you know, I didn't really say much about. it. You know, I didn't know how to talk about it, I guess, and I kind of just let it go. I didn't say much more to my parents about it. And so they kind of thought I was okay because I wouldn't discuss it. And I think I even saw like a therapist or psychologist or something at some point not long after it happened. And I just remember being frustrated and I told the therapist, you know, you're wasting your time talking to me. We need to find McKell. And, you know, the therapist was like, wow, okay.

So I kind of just held it in. And, you know, for a while I felt like, yeah, it could have been both of us. But I just had that protective sister feeling that, you know, if it was both of us, then maybe I could have done something about it. Maybe whoever took her wouldn't have been able to handle both of us. Or maybe if I was out there with the dog, they wouldn't have approached us. just because the dog was out there. And, you know, just many possibilities went through my head.

But it was all, you know, guilt-ridden theories. Not so much that I felt that it could have been me, but obviously it easily could have been. Sometimes out of nowhere, the littlest things will remind me. And it's always kind of, you know, on my mind, in the back of my mind. But certain things will make it feel very real in the moment. and it's almost like deja vu. I will be with my son, you know, if I hear an ice cream truck or certain things that remind me of

McKell or of my childhood. And I will remember it as if I'm reliving that day. And as you heard Kimber talk about, there's no doubt that her parents experienced a tremendous amount of pain. But they also had very different ways of dealing with that pain. They had very different ways of dealing with it. My mom, I don't truly know what she went through, but she would go sit in McKell's room. And she wanted to be around McKell's things.

And, you know, she wanted to talk about her and, you know, keep it close, basically, because she couldn't not do that. And my dad, it was the opposite for him. It was so hard on him that he couldn't go sit in her room. and he had to close her bedroom door. It was, they definitely dealt with it in very different ways. I guess both of them just, it's kind of hard to describe, internalize things differently.

It seemed as if there was no real place to go for investigators. The few leads they had turned into dead ends, and as time passed, McCell's case threatened to silently fade from memory. But the local news outlets in and around Mesa took a keen interest in this case, and they wouldn't allow it to slowly fade away. They interviewed groups of people in the Mesa community who were starting up neighborhood watches. One of the people they spoke to was quite vocal.

If you're my neighbor and I see that you're living next to me and I see something suspicious going on, I guarantee you, I'll be calling 911. That voice you just heard belonged to a man who was a Mesa resident named D. Blaylock. D. Blaylock lived with his wife and kids just two. blocks away from the spot where McKell was abducted. He was one of the residents that allowed police to search his home the night McKell vanished. He had also shown up at multiple candlelight vigils held from McKell. He had been cooperated with the police, and according to

the audio you just heard, claimed that he was willing to help protect the neighborhood. But almost eight months after McKell vanished, he would be involved in a shocking crime that would place him high on the suspects list in the McKell Biggs case. And for the first time, the Mesa Police Department that had apparently done a great job in the search for McKell would come under fire by many people for not looking closer at D. Blaylock when McKell first went missing. On September 27, 1999, a woman named Susan Quinnett was in her Mesa home on the 1800 block of East Florian Avenue when she encountered an intruder. A man was standing in front of her exposing himself. But this man was no strange.

It was Dee Blaylock. He lived just a few houses down from Susan Quinet. When Susan asked Dee what he was doing, he responded by grabbing her by the arm and forcing her to the ground. Then he severely beat Susan pummeling and kicking her face so badly that one of her eyes was completely swollen shut. He also tried to snap her neck and actually succeeded. and breaking it in one spot. Susan passed out during the attack. Blaylock, thinking that Susan was

dead, set her house on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime. But somehow Susan Quinnett regained consciousness and was able to get to the phone to call 911. Police and ammunices responded. And while she was being taken to the hospital, Susan Quinnett told the EMTs that it was was Dee Blaylock that had attacked her. But then she told them something else. She said, look at De Blaylock in the McKell Biggs case. As we mentioned, people in that neighborhood knew De Blaylock. He wasn't a stranger. He was known as a loudmouth who drank too much, but he'd never been in any serious trouble as far as they knew. He did odd jobs and landscaping, as well as participated in the neighborhood watch. Police later learned that Blaylock had made unwanted

and advances towards Susan Quinnett prior to attacking her. They arrested him for the attack and charged him with burglary, aggravated assault, kidnap, and sexual assault. The Mesa community was shocked to learn about the attack and who was responsible. Once Word got around, it didn't take long for people to start digging into Blaylock's background, and that's where some really troubling things came to light about him. It turned out that Blaylock had a criminal history. He had spent time in prison for offenses in three separate states for some very serious crimes. These crimes included kidnapping, assault, aggravated robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, but perhaps most troubling of all was a charge of sexual assault of a child and failure to

register as a sex offender. So when the truth about Blaylock's background came out, his neighbors and the entire community were outraged. They couldn't understand why they hadn't been told about his background. Police knew that Blaylock was a sex offender, but under Arizona law at that time, Blaylock's crimes couldn't be disclosed to residents of the Mesa community. It's probably not shocking to find out. This didn't sit well with them. And the police caught a lot of heat about this. Blaylock's attack on Susan Quinette put him at the top of the suspect list in McKell's case. Darren Biggs was angry that police didn't question Blaylock harder on the night she vanished.

Remember, his home was two-tenths of a mile from where she was last seen on her bike. Although Blaylock allowed police to search his home the night McKell vanished, they didn't search his truck, nor did they search a trailer that Blaylock usually kept attached to his truck. That trailer was in Blaylock's backyard on the night McKellon. went missing. Although police had been given permission to enter the Blaylock home that night, they required a search warrant to search his trailer. They came back at some point later with a search warrant, and the trailer had been moved to the storage facility. Darren Biggs in hindsight felt that McKell's body may have been stashed in that trailer the night of the abduction.

Now later on, as police are looking into De Blaylock, they questioned his wife. She claimed that her husband had been at home out working in the garage at the time of McKell's disappearance. But she did add that she couldn't see him. She was inside the house. He was in the garage. When police questioned Dee, he admitted that he knew who McKell was prior to her abduction because she used to go to a home across the street from his for piano lessons. Despite all of the circumstantial evidence against D. Blaylock, police didn't have enough evidence to arrest him for McKell's abduction. There was no witness that saw him take McKell, and there was no physical evidence linking him to her abduction. Despite not having enough to link Blaylock to Michael's case,

there was more than enough against him to convict him in the attack on Susan Quinnett. Blaylock was eventually convicted of the crimes related to his attack on Quinnett and sentenced to 187 years in prison. Once he was in prison, Darren and Tracy Biggs were so desperate for answers that they started corresponding with Dee Blaylock. They were willing to try anything to find out the truth about McKell. He agreed to meet with a couple, and they visited him in prison. When they visited Blaylock in prison, Darren Biggs didn't pull any punches. He flat out told D. Blaylock that he suspected him of killing his oldest daughter. McKell. Now, Blaylock denied it, but more if you've got to picture this conversation between

two distraught parents and a man that they believe had something to do with their daughter's disappearance. The only thing separating them was a sheet of bulletproof glass. But time and time again, during this conversation, the Biggs tried to get D. Blaylock to admit that he abducted. McKell. But he repeatedly denied it. When the visit finally ended and Darren and Tracy Biggs left the prison, they were convinced that they had just met face to face with the man who abducted and killed their daughter. Darren Biggs was later quoted to saying, I sat three feet away from the guy who killed my daughter and I couldn't do a thing about it. And again, Morph, imagine the feeling of helplessness and frustration that McKell's parents felt.

Because there's no doubt. They are convinced this is the man that is responsible for taking their daughter away from them. As a parent, I don't know how you feel, Mike, but every bit of me would want to just jump across through that glass somehow and get a hold of that guy. Yeah. I think, and all the parents listening will share that same feeling. there's nothing that you wouldn't do for your kids. And there's nothing that you probably wouldn't do to someone if they hurt or tried to hurt your kids.

It's just so instinctual in a parent. Now, for the most part, Kimber agrees with her parents that De Blaylock abducted and murdered McKell. But she's also not 100% convinced. I wouldn't say I've done like, you know, actual detective work. I have, you know, spoken with a detective on the case and I have, you know, asked my dad, you know, he has the best memory of it. You know, he was the forefront of her case for, you know, 15 years. And there was a lot of things that I didn't know.

Obviously, they weren't going to tell me all the, you know, nitty, gritty details as a child. So I've talked to him to, you know, clear things up to understand. understand things and know more details and such. I believe, you know, and I've spoken on the page and in my blog that Deep Laylock is responsible and, you know, my parents believe that. They've spoken to him. They met him. They feel he is responsible.

I do not have that without a doubt feeling that they got from actually talking to him. I've never spoken to him. it makes sense to me, but I haven't come to that conclusion for myself 100%. I've talked about when the time is right, you know, working with the detectives or, you know, in the right situation going and talking to him and seeing if I can get that confirmation for myself. On the fifth anniversary of Mikkel's abduction in January 2004, the big, family held a memorial service in which they buried an empty casket. In their hearts, they knew and accepted that McKell was dead. While that may have given them some sort of peace, it didn't give

them answers. It makes you pause and wonder if God forbid something like this happened to your child, is it better to have a body and know the details of what happened to them, or to not have a body at all, but also not have a clue what happened. Neither scenario is one that any parent ever wants to find themselves in. Kimber had some parting advice that she wanted to share with our listeners. It is terrifying to think about, but something that I really want to leave the listeners with is that my dad has tried to instill in me is be smart, not scared. You know, just be aware of your surroundings, be smart about what you're doing, who you're with, who your children are with, who you trust. You know, it doesn't do you a lot of good to live your life scared.

and while being a helicopter mom to a tea, I try not to be scared. And I'm just very aware of things. And that's kind of something that people have asked me about is how I go about my life, not being terrified all the time. And it's a daily battle. I have anxiety. But it's very important to me to not let this, you know, terrible and terrifying thing completely, you know, destroy my life, you know, for my son's sake,

I'm not going to make him scared of the world. As is all too common in these kinds of cases, the heartache and the unanswered questions put a real strain on the Big's marriage. Darren and Tracy divorced and they both moved away from Mesa. Their surviving children are all adults now. McKell's case has been cold for years. Her remains were never found, and there were really no new leads that came in. But that changed in 2018, almost 20 years after McKell vanished. On March 14th of 2018, a person in the town of Nina, Wisconsin, 1,800 miles northeast of

Mesa, Arizona, noticed that a dollar bill they had in their possession contained some writing on When they took a closer look, they realized that there was a note scrolled on it that read, My name is McKell Biggs, kidnapped from Mesa, Arizona. I'm alive. The person contacted their local police department, who then reached out to the Mesa Arizona Police Department. The writing appeared to have been written by a child. However, McKell's name was spelled incorrectly. The dollar bill was printed in 2009. If the writing was really McKell's, it would mean that she was alive in 2009 and would have been at least 30 years old when she wrote it. And it also would mean that she forgot to spell her name. Now, while police initially got a boost from this tip, they soon realized

that it was likely a hoax. They also realized it could be hard to track the movements of a single dollar bill that had been passed around by countless people in who knows how many different locations. But even so, the Mesa PD took this bill into evidence where it now sits with the bike and the quarters that McKell Biggs left behind when she disappeared 20 years ago. So, Morph, that is the case of McKell Biggs. And it's a scary case. I think you mentioned it early in the episode. It's scary, you know, especially as a parent to, you know, think about or research, talk about these types of cases where a young child disappears, especially so close to home. Yeah, for the Biggs family, I think that they did everything right. They didn't let their

kids out late. They kept them with inside of their home. They were together. So it seems like they did everything right yet in that 90-second period, their lives were changed by something that they had no control over. And I don't know how you feel, Mike, about covering the cases of dealing with children, it's obviously a rough and tough subject to cover. But I think personally that those are the kind of cases, the hard ones that need to be covered because these cases, especially involving victims like children, they need attention. Yeah, I think especially when you're talking about what remains an unsolved case. I mean, these are the type of cases that, like you said, they need to be talked about.

is there a chance that somebody could listen to this? It could jog their memory? Who knows? I think that, you know, maybe the chances are slim, but it doesn't matter what the chances are. There's a chance, right? That's the key. Yeah, and I think at the very least, maybe some of our listeners out in that area can spread the word on social media that, hey, this case is still unsolved and it's now 20 years old. If anyone out there wants to share your take on the case with us, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you're thinking. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 661-77 crime. We may play your voicemail in the air. And we wanted to thank Kimber Biggs for discussing McKell's case with us. Please be sure to check out her Facebook page that she's set up for

McKell. It's called Justice for McCall Biggs. And if anyone out there has information about McKell Biggs case, please contact the Mesa PD at 480-644-2211. If you haven't done so already, please take a minute, go out, leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to the podcast and make sure you're subscribed. So you don't miss a minute of criminology. And if you'd like to say hi on social media, we're always around. You can find us on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod and on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast.

You can also find the Facebook discussion group by searching for Criminology Podcast, discussion and fans. All right, Morth, that is it for our first episode of 2019. But like we said in the beginning, we're going to be back every week. No breaks. So until next week, this is Mike. And this is Morph. And we'll catch you on next week's episode of Criminology.