SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Five years after a toddler vanished and her mother was found slain, San Francisco police Thursday offered a $100,000 reward in hopes of finding the child, who would now be grade-school age.
Police also released a forensic artist’s sketch of what Arianna Fitts may look like as a 7-year-old girl.
Arianna was 2 years old when she was last seen in Oakland in February 2016. The body of her mother was found on April 8 of that year, buried in a shallow hole in San Francisco’s McLaren Park.
Nicole Fitts, 32, who went by Nikki, was a single mother of two who lived in San Francisco and worked at a Best Buy store. She was last seen alive on April 1, 2016, when she received a phone call to go meet her daughter’s baby-sitter, authorities said.
Arianna was last seen while in the care of the baby-sitter and her husband. San Francisco police didn’t say if the couple is suspected in the case. An email to the San Francisco Police Department seeking comment Thursday was not immediately answered.
The department first offered the $100,000 reward a year ago.
FBI agents have been helping police in the investigation and believe witnesses or persons of interest may be living in the Los Angeles area, authorities said.
“Try to remember every detail you can, no matter how insignificant you think it may be. If you remember something, please contact us even if you previously talked with us,” the FBI said in a statement.
It said “new leads” have been developed and that its agents and San Francisco police investigators will be reaching out to people again in the coming months. It didn’t release details.
“We want to take the opportunity today to assure the public, and those who knew Nicole and Arianna, that we will continue to investigate this matter as long as it takes to find out what happened,” said Craig Fair, FBI special agent in charge of the San Francisco bureau.
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This story corrects the spelling of Arianna Fitts’ first name in the third paragraph.
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