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Femtalities
Dulce Maria Alavez — Missing for Two Years With No Suspects
Have you seen this child?
Last week marked the second anniversary of the evening 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez went missing from a Bridgeton, New Jersey playground. In the months after Dulce’s disappearance, the community around her continued to search the woods around the park for her. Two years later, they are no closer to finding Dulce or answers to what happened to her on that day — but they’ve not given up hope.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about September 16, 2019 — the day this nightmare began. Dulce’s mother purchased ice cream and a lottery ticket at a local store with her family. What might have been her lucky day instead turned out to be anything but that. Surveillance footage retrieved by police shows Dulce in that location with her 19-year-old mother, Noema Alavez Perez; her 3-year-old brother; and Perez’s 8-year-old sister.
Afterward, around 4 p.m., they arrived in nearby Bridgeton Park. Dulce and her brother went to play on the swings while their mother sat in a car only 30 yards away helping her younger sister with her homework and scratching off a lottery ticket. Though the swings where the children played weren’t far away, there was a small hill between the car and the swing set, putting them out of the view of Dulce’s mother.
At some point between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Dulce vanished. Her mother found Dulce’s brother alone and in tears, unable to find his sister. After looking for Dulce and not being able to locate her, Perez called her own brother to bring his dog and help look for Dulce. She next called 911.
Though one can hardly blame her for thinking her daughter had just wandered away and was somewhere in the park, the time lost between when Dulce disappeared and when police were brought onto the scene may have been precious time lost.
