October 03, 2019
Source/Bridgeton Police Department
Dulce Maria Alavez, 5, went missing at Bridgeton City Park in Cumberland County, New Jersey on Sept. 16, 2019.
Two-and-a-half weeks have passed since 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez disappeared from Bridgeton City Park in Cumberland County.
As the investigation and search continues, authorities have released audio of the 911 call made by her mother, Noema Alavez Perez.
The Sept. 16 phone call adds a few details to the scene that had been described the day the girl went missing after she and her 3-year-old brother exited Alavez Perez's car to go the playground while Alavez Perez remained in in the vehicle with another young relative.
“I can’t find my daughter,” Alavez Perez told the dispatcher. “We were up there at the park and people say that somebody probably took her.”
The girl's younger brother returned to the car in tears and told his mother that Dulce had disappeared behind a building. Both siblings had been carrying ice cream when they left the car, and the 911 call makes clear that the two children were confronted at the playground.
“They said somebody threw (my son's) ice cream on the floor and my daughter just ran away,” Alavez Perez said in the 911 call, describing what others at the park told her when she went to look for Dulce.
Investigators believe an unknown man may have led Alavez into a red van with tinted windows around 4:20 p.m. that afternoon. The man has been described as a light skin, possibly Hispanic male, between 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8 with a thin build, no facial hair and acne on his face. Police said he was wearing orange sneakers, red pants and a black shirt.
Authorities are offering a $35,000 reward for information on the girl's whereabouts. Alavez has been placed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list of kidnapped and missing children.
“We need anyone with information to step forward. Under the attorney general’s immigrant trust directive, you are safe reaching out to the police without fear of any immigration consequences," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphey said Thursday. "This is about finding Dulce safe and sound, period.”
