Questions remain in death of 13-year-old; family asks for help
Uriah A. Kiser
A grieving mother made a public appeal from her home Monday, asking her daughter’s killer to come forward.
Her plea came after police set up a checkpoint near the Central Library in Manassas Monday afternoon, where Alexis Glover, 13, was last seen around noon on Wednesday.
“If you picked her up just give a call and let us know what’s going on,” said Freedia Glover.
Alexis’ body was found Friday eight miles — as the crow flies — away from the library.
She was submerged in at least two feet of water in a creek near Asdee Lane and Greatbridge Road in Woodbridge.
Police are not calling her death a murder, but are considering it a “suspicious death,” said Erika Hernandez, Prince William police spokeswoman.
The Glover family is asking anyone with information about their daughter’s death to call authorities or local media outlets, hoping to “bring closure” to the case, said Glover.
At the police checkpoint on Mathis Avenue, Hernandez said there is a “desperate need for information” in the case.
They passed out fliers around noon yesterday to drivers in the area, soliciting information about her disappearance.
“We’re doing it around the same time frame when she was last seen, when people would have been traveling up there,” said Prince William County police Maj. Ray Colgan.
Police are putting a lot of resources into the investigation. Detectives worked through the weekend tracking down leads.
“We had a large contingent of staff here from 7 a.m. to midnight each night,” he said.
This wasn’t the first time Glover asked the public for help concerning her daughter.
When she went missing from Central Library in Manassas around noon on Wednesday, she said her daughter suffered from severe autism and sickle cell anemia, and asked residents to help find her.
That prompted search teams to scour the area where Alexis was last seen.
Police are still investigating whether or not Alexis was killed before she was taken to the creek, or if she was killed at the creek where she was found, near a golf course community.
If Alexis walked the nearly 11 miles — by road— to where she was found, she would have had to walk along the Prince William Parkway, as traveling on foot through the woods would have been very difficult, police said.
The case is another heart-wrencher in a string of random crimes to hit the area. On Dec. 19, a mother and son were shot dead in their Dale City home, the victims of a burglary gone wrong.
On Jan. 6, a 79-year-old woman was beaten and sexually assaulted by a man who knocked on her door off the Prince William Parkway.
“It’s been a tough month for these guys,” Colgan said of the county’s violent crime detectives.
The only case yet to be solved is the death of Alexis.
Police said they’re getting a lot of phone calls about the girl’s disappearance and death, and they want more.
“I’d tell people, don’t forget about this girl,” Colgan said. “What may seem minor to one person might be key in the case. It doesn’t take anything to make a phone call. If you think you may have seen something, or you know something, give us call.”
Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.