Around three weeks after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children created a forensic image of what a deceased boy probably looked like before authorities found his remains in Georgia, a retired teacher spotted him on the news. She said she may have had the child in one of her classes.
Atlanta’s FOX 5 reports that an unidentified boy’s remains were found behind a small Dekalb County cemetery in 1999, and despite strenuous efforts to identify him, he remains unknown.
A retired educator told her daughter that the boy greatly resembled a former student in one of her classes. She said the little boy left school one day and never came back to class.
The teacher’s daughter, speaking on her behalf, reached out to FOX 5, and the outlet put her in touch with Angeline Hartmann, who has been discussing the case on her podcast, “Inside Crime with Angeline Hartmann.”
“I was just watching the news and I saw it pop up… and I said I wonder if that was the same little boy my mom was talking about,” the daughter said, explaining she didn’t want to be named at this time.
Hartmann said the former teacher never forgot about the little boy who “stopped showing up to school” suddenly.
“I’m not trying to get these people in trouble… it’s just that that little boy looked like the little boy that I knew,” the retired teacher explained to Hartmann.
“It was something about him that was kind of sad… he was a sweet little boy… but I admired him because he always dressed nice. And those Timberlands had just come out at that time.”
***Can you identify this missing boy found in Dekalb County Georgia??by Claire HelmTuesday, February 26th 2019-A…
Posted by National Center For Missing and Endangered, Inc. on Tuesday, February 26, 2019
According to NCMEC, the child’s remains were found with Timberland boots, along with red denim jeans and an oversized navy and blue plaid hood. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner said that the boy, who appeared to be between the ages of 4 and 8, was “carefully placed” in a cemetery off of Clifton Springs Road. Authorities found the remains in February 1999 and said he had probably died around three to six months before his remains were located.
“It was sad to think about this young child just out in the open like that and it was an unusual location. In the south, small cemeteries can be found in some obscure places,” Hartmann told NCMEC. “This cemetery was just a little triangle, in the middle of a neighborhood. You really wouldn’t know it was there unless you were familiar with the area.”
Anyone with any information is urged to contact the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office at 404-508-3500 or NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST.
[Feature Photo: NCMEC]
