Police Think Missing 4-Year-Old Girl Is Dead; Foster Parents Are Suspects

San Bernardino police said Thursday that they believe a 4-year-old girl missing since late July is dead, and they disclosed that her foster mother and father, a policeman, are considered suspects.

A search for the body of Alicia Armstrong will be conducted in several places tonight with the assistance of police dogs, said police spokeswoman Anita Mendoza.

Mendoza said that detectives have found and analyzed enough evidence to consider motorcycle Officer Craig Armstrong, a six-year San Bernardino police veteran, and his wife, Tammy, a Loma Linda nurse, suspects in what police are calling a kidnaping and possible murder. Police refused to disclose the nature of the evidence.

A local task force, assisted by FBI agents, began searching for Alicia shortly after her foster father told police that she disappeared during a family shopping trip at the Inland Center Mall on July 28.

Armstrong, 29, said he lost sight of Alicia when he momentarily turned his back to attend to her younger sister.

The case was initially considered a kidnaping. But last week, authorities searched the Armstrongs’ Colton home and a mountain cabin owned by Tammy Armstrong’s parents in the town of Fawnskin, near Big Bear Lake.

Armstrong was placed on paid administrative leave by the department a week ago. At the time, officials insisted that the couple were not suspects.

The Armstrongs were in the process of adopting Alicia and her 18-month-old sister when the child was reported missing. The girls had been living with the couple since July 7, according to authorities. Child welfare officials refused to say whether Alicia’s sister had been removed from the home.