UPDATE: On Wednesday, the Maryland State Police announced on Facebook that a body had been discovered in Cecil County, Maryland, as part of the investigation into Nola Dinkins’ homicide. They are still waiting for a positive ID.
Police in Delaware have canceled an Amber Alert for a missing 3-year-old girl and are now investigating the case as a homicide.
During a press conference broadcast by Washington, D.C.-area Fox affiliate WTTG on Wednesday, New Castle County Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Andrea Botterbusch provided an update on Nola Dinkins’ Amber Alert issued on Tuesday. Dinkins’ mother, whose name has not been released, lied to police about her daughter’s abduction on Tuesday night when she reported her missing at around 7:15 p.m.
Less than 24 hours after the Amber Alert was issued for the young girl, police announced it had been canceled.
Botterbusch stated in a new release that Nola’s mother initially told police that she had pulled over on the side of the road in front of an apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. The mother allegedly told police that as she tried to calm Nola, an unidentified white male approached them in their vehicle and threatened her with a firearm. She told police that the man took her daughter in a dark-colored SUV driven by a white woman and fled.
Investigators from the New Castle County Division of Police Criminal Investigations Unit, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, searched for Nola all night. Police eventually determined that the mother’s account of the kidnapping was “false” and that the case was “being treated as a homicide investigation by the Maryland State Police.”
Nola Dinkins and her mother are Maryland residents.
Botterbusch did not take questions during her press conference on Wednesday, and she did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s inquiry about what evidence led them to investigate the case as a homicide. Law&Crime also contacted the Maryland State Police for additional information, but did not receive an immediate response.
Police did not identify a suspect or provide additional information about what evidence, if any, they discovered.
