Missing Girl Spotted in Northern Florida

A segment about the disappearance of 7-year-old Leticia Hernandez on a national broadcast of “America’s Most Wanted” has resulted in a confirmed sighting of the little girl with her two abductors, police reported Wednesday.

But, because the sighting occurred two days before the Feb. 4 broadcast, the witness, a gas station attendant, took no action at the time--another frustrating twist in a case that has had investigators looking all across the nation.

The latest sighting of the Oceanside girl was on Feb. 2 at a service station in Panama City, Fla., off State Highway 98 and was confirmed Monday by FBI agents, said Bob George, spokesman for the Oceanside Police Department. In addition, he said, investigators still are checking out several other sightings in the Panama City area that also were called in as a result of the TV broadcast.

“Everything fits right down the line,” George said of the descriptions given by the gas station attendant. He said that the car also matched one seen at previous sightings--a mid-size, faded maroon Buick with a tan interior. The car is believed to be a 1975 Buick Skylark. Based on the previous sightings, the license plates may be KK960, KK966 or KR966, or a combination of those numbers and letters.

The little girl the attendant saw was missing her two front teeth, like Leticia, George said, but her hair was braided into two pigtails instead of one, he said. She was wearing a T-shirt with a design printed on the front. He did not know what kind of design.

Seven-year-old Leticia has been missing from her family’s Bush Street apartment since Dec. 16.

“I don’t know what to think,” said her mother, also named Leticia Hernandez, of the latest sighting.

“I don’t know if it’s her. It’s very strange that people see her, and see her, and see her, and no one stops them,” she said. “Some of them (the sightings) must be false alarms.”

But in this case, police said, the man did not realize who the little girl or the adults were until he saw the television segment two days later.

Since her disappearance, Leticia has been seen mostly at highway rest stops in California, near the Arizona-New Mexico border and in Texas. The last two reported sightings were in a shopping center in Mobile, Ala., on Jan. 19 and at a convenience store in Durango, Colo., on Jan. 23.

The Colorado sighting was the only one that failed to fit into a pattern of eastward travel through the southern United States. But Bill Krunglevich, spokesman for the Oceanside Police Department, said police are not discounting the validity of the Colorado sighting.

“Based on the information we had at the time, we have nothing to dispute, (the Durango sighting),” he said.

“We could conjecture that they drove from Colorado to Florida. . . . It’s not an astronomical distance,” he said. “What they’ve been doing hasn’t made any sense. They’ve been dropping in and out of sight since she disappeared.”

Nonetheless, after law enforcement work was moved for the most part to the Colorado area, the efforts now are being concentrated in the northern Florida and southern Georgia area, Krunglevich said.

“We are still behind the people by about two weeks,” he said. “We’re hoping to get fresher leads.”

Leticia has been seen with a white man who is between 30 and 35 years old. He is about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs about 230 pounds. He is clean-shaven, with shoulder-length blond hair that is thinning at the top. The woman is also white, and may be in her mid-30s. She is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 130 pounds. Her hair is bleached blond and collar-length.

Leticia has brown eyes and brown hair. She is about 4 feet tall and weighs about 60 pounds.