Alabama police on Tuesday arrested the father of a girl whose remains were found in a trailer park in 2012, charging him with murder and accusing his wife of failing to report a missing child, according to police.
Opelika, Alabama police responded to reports of skeletal remains found in a trailer park on January 28, 2012, after a person found a skull in a residential yard and multiple other bones just a few feet down the road. forest.
Alabama police have arrested the father of Baby Jane Doe, whose remains were found in a trailer park in 2012.
(Opelika Police Department)
An additional search of the area turned up a child-sized pink shirt and a small lock of curly hair, police said. The remains were shipped to Quantico, Virginia, where the FBI conducted a medical examination of the remains at the FBI laboratory.
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The report found that the remains were of a black female, probably between the ages of 4 and 7, who became known as the Baby Jane Doe.
An autopsy of the remains found there were more than 15 fractures to the girl’s arms, legs, shoulders, ribs and skull, caused by blunt force trauma. The injuries showed evidence of healing, leading the medical examiner to believe that the injuries occurred before the girl died.
Police said the previously unknown girl, Baby Jane Doe, whose remains were found in an Alabama trailer park in 2012, was identified by the girl’s mother, Sherry Wiggins, as Amore Joveah Wiggins.
(Opelika Police Department)
The medical examiner also said Jane Doe appeared to be malnourished and blind in her left eye due to a fractured eye socket, according to police.
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The medical examiner determined Jane Doe’s cause of death to be a homicide, which occurred between the summer of 2010 and 2011.
Detectives reviewed 15,000 Alabama Department of Public Health case files and investigated thousands of leads related to the remains of the Jane Doe, the Opelika Police Department said in a news release. Police attempted to put together a DNA profile but were unsuccessful due to the condition of the remains.
Several advances in DNA testing since then have allowed DNA to be successfully extracted from the Jane Doe’s scalp and hair in January 2022, leading to the creation of a full genealogy profile, which has been uploaded to a database of DNA.
Dr. Barbara Rae-Venter reviewed the profile, in conjunction with the Firebird Forensics Group, and led to the identification of next of kin and further investigative leads.
Jane Doe’s father was identified in October 2022 as 50-year-old Lamar Vickerstaff Jr.
Police charged Lamar Vickerstaff Jr. with murder and Ruth Vickerstaff with failing to report a missing child.
(Opelika Police Department)
Police said Vickerstaff was born and raised in Opelika before joining the US Navy, which took him to Norfolk, Virginia, Honolulu, Hawaii and Jacksonville, Florida.
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After identifying Vickerstaff as the father of the Jane Doe, detectives visited him at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, where he is currently stationed.
Detectives notified Vickerstaff of her daughter’s death, police said, though she did not provide investigators with any additional information about her daughter’s identity.
Detectives also met with Ruth Vickerstaff, Lamar Vickerstaff’s wife since May 2006. Ruth told detectives she did not know Vickerstaff’s daughter or who the mother might be, according to police.
Dr. Rae-Venter reviewed several potential matches as to who the Jane Doe’s mother could be and detectives narrowed it down to 37-year-old Sherry Wiggins, who confirmed that she was the biological mother.
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Wiggins told detectives that she is originally from Norfolk, Virginia and gave birth to Amore Joveah Wiggins in January 2006.
Wiggins also provided detectives with documentation showing that the Vickerstaffs were given custody of Amore in 2009, and that Wiggins paid child support to Lamar Vickerstaff since 2009.
Investigators called pediatric schools and clinics in the states where the Vickerstaffs lived and found that Amore was never enrolled in school. He was also not reported as a missing person.
Lamar and Ruth Vickerstaff were finally arrested on January 17 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Lamar has been charged with murder, while Ruth was charged with failing to report a missing child. Both are being held in Jacksonville pending extradition to Lee County, Alabama.
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Detectives are asking anyone with information about the case to call 334-705-5220 or the secret witness hotline at 334-745-8665.
