YAVAPAI COUNTY, Ariz. – A little girl who was discovered dead in the desert of Arizona in 1960 and referred to as “Little Miss Nobody” finally has a name, according to officials.
Law enforcement investigators utilized advanced technology in DNA evidence and facial reconstruction to solve the mystery that has lasted for nearly 62 years. The slain girl has been identified as Sharon Lee Gallegos who was 4-years-old when she died, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office announced at a Tuesday press conference.
On July 21, 1960, little Sharon was kidnapped while playing with other children behind her grandmother’s home in Alamogordo, New Mexico, reported KSBW.
Sharon’s decomposed body was located 10 days later in Congress, Arizona, which is more than 500 miles from her grandmother’s house.
At the time, police thought she could be Sharon, but officials estimated the remains to be that of a seven-year-old. Moreover, the footprint and clothing comparison did not match, so local and federal officials pursued other leads, investigators intimate with the case said.
“Footprint comparisons are not obviously how we do things now, but that was probably the best technology they had available to them at the time,” Yavapai County Lt. Tom Boelts said.
Sharon Lee Gallegos went missing on July 21, 1960, while playing behind her grandmother’s residence in New Mexico. (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System)
Investigators re-opened the case in 2014. They relied on old newspaper reports for much of their research, sheriff’s officials said.
They exhumed the girl’s remains in 2015 from beneath a tombstone that read, “Little Miss Nobody.” However, DNA testing was not advanced enough to generate any new leads, New York Post reported.
Sometime later, investigators publicized a 3D facial reconstruction. They received a tip that led them back to little Sharon from New Mexico.
In 2021, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Othram, a Texas-based laboratory that works exclusively with law enforcement, to see if advanced DNA testing could help solve the mystery of “Little Miss Nobody.”
Othram received the case in December 2021 and returned the identity to authorities in February 2022, Dr. Kristen Mittelman, Othram’s Chief Business Development Officer said, KSBW reported.
“In 1960, people had no idea that DNA would even be a technology — they wouldn’t even know what to call it, it didn’t exist,” Sheriff David Rhodes of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office said.
“But somehow, someway they did enough investigation to preserve, to document, to memorialize all the things that needed to occur, so that someday we could get to this point.”
Determining the girl’s identity was the cumulative effort of volunteers, advocates and investigators. It was the oldest case that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had ever helped solve, according to officials.
Nevertheless, the investigation continues as many other questions remain unanswered.
“We still have work to do in this case,” Boelts said. “We would still like to identify the people who took her. We would still like to answer the questions what happened in those 10 days from the time she was taken to the time she was found. So we are still working.”
