In 2002, smart phones, Facebook and internet TV were not part of the language. Technology has dramatically changed in 15 years and Orange police are hoping science will help them send someone to prison for the city’s most famous cold case.
Three months ago, the department sent the gathered and preserved evidence from the murder of 4-year-old Dannarriah Finley to state forensic labs for DNA testing. Detective Captain Robert Enmon said the tests usually take a year to a year and half for results.
It will be the first time for new testing since 2002. Dannarriah was kidnapped from her mother’s home on July 4, 2002. Her badly decomposed body was found four days later by pipeline inspectors on Pleasure Island in Port Arthur.
Enmon said the DNA was scientifically preserved. For years, when anniversary stories about the murder were written, police officials said they hoped technology would improve enough to target a suspect for an indictment.
Almost two years after the murder, police took evidence and their case to the Orange County district attorney, but the DA’s office said they did not have enough for a good case.
Police saved the little purple shorts Dannarriah was wearing when her body was found. She had on a sleeveless T-shirt with pink and purple flowers. It was saved, too. Detectives preserved the flowered Springmaid sheet her body had been wrapped in. They also gathered evidence and DNA from a targeted suspect.
Enmon said the case has never been closed. New investigators will periodically get the binders of notes and photographs to review. Maybe they can find something or see something that has been missed.
Now, some of the investigators would have been in school when the child disappeared.
Enmon was a patrol captain when Dannarriah was reported missing from her mother’s small house on Fourth Street on the Fourth of July. Everyone in the department worked to look for her.
On Saturday, July 6, hundreds of citizen volunteers and officers combed an area bounded by the Sabine River and 16th Street, and Green Avenue and Interstate 10.
Homeowners gave permission to search under the old houses on piers. The volunteers in 100 degree heat went through bushes, debris piles and storage sheds. The next day, the famed Equisearch program brought horse teams and helicopters to add to the search. Everyone had hope the child would be found alive.
The hopes ended on Monday morning when her body was found on the beach with an alligator swimming nearby.
Dannarriah would have turned 5 years old on July 22, 2002. Today, she would be turning 20, not much younger than some of the patrol officers with the Orange Police Department now. But all the officers, even the young ones, are familiar with the case, Enmon said.
“We would love as a department to solve this,” he said.
Social Media