Her mother, Rosalba Loayza, spoke no English, and her father was in Guaymás, Mexíco. After coming home from Elvira Elementary she spent the afternoon cleaning her room and playing Nintendo, which, according to her mother, was her favorite thing to do after school. Wearing a faded purple T-shirt with white lettering and a pair of floral pastal colored shorts, she went out roller skating with Alejandra and her friends in the courtyard of the apartment. She also wore two gold rings, one with her first initial and the other with a red stone. At about 6:00 pm, Karen brought her skates home and then went out to play again. Her mother called her for dinner 6:30 pm. Karen didn't answer. Mer mother went out to the courtyard to look for her. NShe was gone. None of the other children still playing in the courtyard had seen anything. There were no signs of a struggle, no one had heard a scream or seen a stranger in the area.
Karen's mother called the police. Later, police and scores of volunteers combed the area and Karen's family held vigils, praying for her return home. Detectives questioned known child molesters and pedophiles in the area, and found no leads. For the first few weeks after she was abducted the local media gave extensive coverage to the story. Her apartment was flooded with investigators, family and even psychics. But by late March, Tucson's newspapers, the Daily Star and the Citizen had dropped the story. Karen's mother said, "The first few weeks, they were always talking about her on TV. In the beginning they came often and now they don't."
Police traveled to México to interview Karen's father and quickly cleared him. During further investigations they found no leads, they checked hundreds of tips and rumors. Some said that they'd seen Karen alive, others that she was dead. None of the tips led to anything.
FBI agent Tom Bashman from the Tuscon office remembered that were also three other little girls from the Southside of Tuscon who'd been abducted and molested between July 1993 and May 1994. In these earlier abductions the perpetrator had allowed the girls to escape, and they subsequently described the man to police. But, on December 14, 1999 another little Hispanic girl from the Southside, six year old Esther Galaz, was kidnapped.
A day after little Esther was abducted, her body was found in a drainage ditch near her home. She's been raped and beaten to death. The FBI believes these four abductions to be related to Karen's disappearance. The suspect, Hispanic, 35-40 years old, 5 foot 8, 170 lbs., appears on the left. It has been a couple of years since reporters have written a story about Karen's disappearance. Her mother scraped together a $2500 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person or persons responsible for Karen's disappearance. In one corner of her living room she keeps votive candles lit. Statues of San Jude and San Antonio watch over the picture of her little girl. The phone has stopped ringing but she is caught between hope for the call that will say that Karen has been found alive and well, and terror of the call that will tell her that her bones have been found discarded in some desert ravine. "There is only waiting, waiting," she said. Her apartment is kept darkened now, in part to save on utilities, in part to shut out the world. Karen's sister Alejandra is terrified that she to will be taken.
Alejandra used to play outside with Karen, but now she stays inside the little bedroom she used to share with her sister. She refuses to go as far as the candy machine a few steps from her door, even afraid to leave with her auntie. "Take my hand and don't let go," Rosalba says the little girl tells her aunt. "They're going to steal me."
As of December 6, 1999 the police have not arrested the perpetrator. The FBI continues to investigate cases of serial rape and murder of little Hispanic girls in the Southwestern United States.
Contacts
Anyone having information should call: 1-800-FIND-KID (1-800-346-3543) or Tucson (AZ) PD (520) 882-7463.Karen's right front tooth is larger than her other teeth.
Sources.
Very little information is available about Karen Rosalba Grajeda. What little information I found was included in a series of articles that appeared May, 1996 in El Independiente, a South Tucson, Ariz. based bilingual newspaper that is published once a month, and is produced by a class at the University of Arizona Journalism Dept. Song "Once Upon a Time" Copyright 1999 by Alberto Cortazar
