The love of a sister fuels the search for a 12-year-old’s killer twenty-five years later.
On the evening of August 13th, 1997, Georgia Moses and an unnamed friend were out, enjoying their time together when Georgia receives a page. She calls the number back before telling her friend that they needed to head around to the gas station on the corner of Dutton Ave and Sebastopol Rd. At around 10 pm, Georgia got into the car of an unidentified male, not telling her friend any details before the car drove away.
Georgia’s friend would later describe the man as 25–30 years old, African-American, 6'2" to 6'4" and around 200lbs, he had closely cropped black hair with a slight moustache. The car was described as a small, white four-door.
Over a week after Georgia was last seen a body of a young girl was found off Highway 101. A CalTrans worker was fixing the guard rail when he spotted her, no clothes were found at the scene and an autopsy would reveal she had been dead a week.
The same day that the body had been discovered Child Protective Services went for a home visit where Georiga’s mother lived with her boyfriend and Georgia’s seven-year-old sister, Angel. CPS was called out after getting reports that a paedophile lived in the house and that it was the boyfriend. Angel was the one to tell the CPS worker that Georgia was missing, telling them that she never missed one of her daily visits.
August 22nd a missing person’s report was filed for Georgia Moses.
Three days later and a tip to officials gets sent through that Georgia had been missing for the past two weeks, sending through a description of the girl as well. Authorities issue a flyer with the description, sending it to local law enforcement agencies. The lead detective working on the Jane Doe found off Highway 101 recognized the description connected with the flyer of Georgia.
August 26th Jane Doe was identified as Georgia Moses and officials put out a statement to announce just that. They would reveal that Georgia had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
It wouldn’t be until September that the police would release a sketch of the man last seen with Georgia as well as raising the reward to $15,000. This came after masses of outcry that the case wasn’t getting enough attention. Within the same month, a large memorial was held for Georgia.
Still another month would pass by with nothing new. October 24th came and a second vigil was held for Georgia at the Community Baptist Church. Over 200 people went to pay their respects to the life taken far too soon.
Georgia was finally laid over ten months after being found on June 17th, 1998. Still, it seemed that the case was dragging along without that much information or leads.
September 6th 1998, a memorial garden and statue were put in the place where Georgia was first discovered. It started out as flowers that locals would leave behind for the girl.
Time would fly by but it seemed that case had frozen in time. It wouldn’t be long before it was August 25th 2006 when a group home for children was opened and dedicated to Georgia. Another six years later and Georgia’s memorial site would be moved to a new permanent spot at Petaluma City Hall.
It was in 2020 that sisterly love and a need for justice pushed Angel to start a Facebook page dedicated to bringing new attention to her big sister’s case. Online Angel would meet Maria Martin, together these two would be the main people pushing to get Georgia’s name back into the public eye. In October 2020, Maria and Angel met in person and Maria started to be considered as the family’s advocate. A month later the pair would hold a vigil for Georgia as tips started slowly coming to their email and social media pages.
For what would have been Georgia’s 36th birthday, a memorial walk of around thirty in attendance was held. They all wore yellow and chanted “justice has no expiration date.”. January 21st 2021, two weeks after the memorial walk, Sonoma County plea for the public’s help on its Facebook page.
April 19th 2022 an updated flyer was released with a $25,000 reward for any information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the individual(s) responsible for the murder of Georgia Moses.
Comments
Post a Comment