On August 19, 2003, 11-year-old Heaven LaShae Ross left her Northport, Alabama home in Willowbrook Trailer Park, walked 50 yards to her school bus stop on Hunter Creek Road, and vanished into thin air.
About the Case
At 7:00 a.m. Heaven, nicknamed Shae, left her home and headed to the bus stop. Her 13-year-old sister, Alex, had left five minutes before. The bus would arrive at the stop at around 7:25 a.m.
After a loud clap of thunder, Shae’s stepfather, 33-year-old Kevin Thompson, drove to the bus stop to take the girls to school. He left the house at 7:01 a.m. – one minute after Shae left. When he arrived, only Shae’s sister was waiting.
A neighbor reported seeing her walk by, but another neighbor, two trailers down, did not. This means that Shae disappeared between those two trailers.
Thompson headed back to their mobile home and called the police.
A massive search began but to no avail.
Three years later, in December of 2006, skeletal remains were found in an abandoned house down a rural dirt road in Holt, a Tuscaloosa community about eight miles from Shae’s home, and later identified as belonging to Heaven LaShae Ross.
No one has ever been arrested for her murder, and her manner of death was ruled undetermined.
Police thought maybe Shae’s murder was tied to the murder of Shannon Paulk and the abduction of Teresa Dean. All three girls were 11 years old, kidnapped in August within days of each other, and lived in trailer parks. Shannon disappeared on August 16, 2001, and Teresa disappeared on August 15, 1999.
However, once Shae’s body had been found, authorities did not believe the cases were connected.
Five weeks after Shae went missing, a fire broke out in her home. It had been confined to one side of her bedroom. The State Marshal ruled the fire as suspicious.
No one has ever been arrested in Shae’s murder, and the case remains unsolved.
