MONROE — Three years after she disappeared, Nevaeh Buchanan remains a 5-year-old girl in the minds of the people she left behind.
With candles cupped against the wind, friends and family gathered Sunday night to observe the three-year anniversary of the heartbreaking series of events beginning with the little girl’s disappearance from the North Macomb Street neighborhood to the finding of her body 11 days later next to the River Raisin.
About 50 people came together for the vigil that was held in St. Mary’s Park, within walking distance of the Charlotte Arms apartments where Nevaeh lived with her mother, Jennifer Buchanan, and her grandmother, Sherry Buchanan.
As they lit the candles they were asked to say “bring the persons responsible into the light.”
The Rev. Dale Hayford of Cross Walk Community Church of Monroe remembered hundreds of people showing up to search for Nevaeh.
He said he believes authorities know or believe they know who the killer is, based on recent public comments by Monroe County Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield. The sheriff said the public is not in danger, leading to speculation the suspect or suspects are already in custody or dead.
No law enforcement officials attended the vigil. Sheriff Crutchfield did not return requests from The Blade for comment.
Pastor Hayford prayed that the perpetrator would be seized with guilt and confess his crime and ask forgiveness.
“Hopefully the person has been found. Or the people,” Pastor Hayford said. “Hopefully there’ll be some news down the road here.”
Nevaeh’s great-grandmother, JoAnn Combs, of Sylvania, doubts the killer is that kind of person.
“Anybody that could do what they did to Nevaeh has no conscience so they are not going to turn themselves in,” Ms. Combs said.
Sherry Buchanan said she and Nevaeh used to come to the park where the anniversary vigil was held.
“This was her place to play. She’d say let’s go see General Armstrong Custer,” the grandmother said. “She was my little tomboy. It was all trucks and cars.”
Sherry Buchanan said she and Jennifer talk about Nevaeh all the time. Neither Sherry nor Jennifer live at Charlotte Arms anymore. Jennifer is living with a friend in Monroe and is finishing work on her GED.
“She’s doing good,” said Sherry Buchanan who now lives with one of her sisters, Cathy Dewilde, in Monroe.
Jennifer did not attend the vigil for personal reasons, said Sherry Buchanan who brought with her two homemade decorated cards made by Austin Baker, 11, who played with Nevaeh.
“He made both of them. They were on the grave site. I went over and picked them up because I didn’t want the rain tomorrow to ruin them,” she said.
Austin’s 17-year-old sister Angela Kuhn said “he talks about her still. Tells how he misses her and stuff.”
Sherry Buchanan said she hasn’t spoken to Sheriff Crutchfield and said she hasn’t been given any specific information about a possible suspect.
“Right now I would say it’s going poor they are not doing enough,” she said. “They should have had this done two or three months down the road instead of three years.”
She expressed appreciation for the turnout. “It helps knowing the community is still with me,” she said.
Nevaeh’s paternal grandmother, Carla Nash, also thanked the group.
Nevaeh disappeared on May 24, 2009. No known witnesses were able to identify the person who presumably took her or the vehicle in which she presumably was taken away.
Police, neighbors, friends, family members, and strangers searched ditches, fields, and ponds for Nevaeh; notices about the missing girl were tacked up, emailed, and broadcast far and wide.
The search ended June 4, 2009, when fishermen found her body encased in concrete by the river.
Two men described as “persons of interest” were arrested and sent back to prison on unrelated crimes. George Kennedy and Roy Lee Smith remain locked up in Michigan prisons on parole violations.
Kennedy, 42, a convicted sex offender who had been in a relationship with Nevaeh’s mother, has a maximum discharge date of Feb. 1, 2014.
Smith, 51, also a convicted sex offender and an acquaintance of Jennifer Buchanan, has a maximum discharge date of 2035.
Yet there have been no other arrests.
The FBI and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office have been tight-lipped about what they may have uncovered while combing through tips and developing leads.
Risa Smith, vice president of Justice for Nevaeh, said the organization continues to be active in keeping alive the memory of the child and the investigation of Nevaeh’s killer.
Justice for Nevaeh holds four annual events including Christmas, Easter, Halloween parties, and it has a reward fund of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest, and conviction, of the person who killed the girl.
She reminded people that the group would be conducting its monthly distribution of reward posters on Wednesday at the Moose Lodge in Monroe. She urged people to think back to that day when the girl disappeared and try to remember additional details.
Although people are saying they have no specific information, they are hopeful law enforcement authorities have a good suspect.
“Lots of people speculate who it is,” Ms. Smith said. “As far as who knows … God, Nevaeh, and hopefully, law enforcement,” to which Ms. Nash added, “and the person who did it.”
First Published May 28, 2012, 4:30 a.m.
