A 62-Year Mystery Solved: Identification of the Child Remains of Sharon Lee Gallegos (Little Miss Nobody) Using Innovative Technologies, Interagency Collaboration, and Investigative Determination

Sunday, October 15, 2023

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST

Location: Room: 1B

Submitter & Moderator(s)

Donia Slack

NamUs Executive Program Manager
RTI International
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States

Speaker(s)

DD

Dustin Driscoll

NamUs Regional Program Specialist
RTI International
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States
David Mittelman, PhD

Chief Executive Officer
Othram, Inc.
The Woodlands, Texas, United States
MP

Michael Perry

Detective
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, Arizona
Yavapai, Arizona, United States
Nancy La Vigne

Director
U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (NIJ)

In July 1960, the body of “Little Miss Nobody” was discovered in Yavapai County, Arizona. Just10 days earlier, four-year-old Sharon Lee Gallegos was abducted in front of her family in New Mexico. Limitations made it impossible to connect the two cases, and leads went cold. Decades later, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office partnered with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and Othram to identify this little girl. This multiagency panel will discuss the use of purpose-built databases, novel technologies, and forensic genetic genealogy that returned a name to a murdered child. This remarkable success showcases the power of technology and how it can bring resolution to the most challenging cases.