Friday, July 19, 2002 - Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Las Vegas disappearance unsolved
By J.M. KALIL REVIEW-JOURNAL

Las Vegas police continue to investigate the disappearance of Karla Rodriguez, a 7-year-old girl who vanished from her southeast valley neighborhood nearly three years ago. The Metropolitan Police Department's missing persons unit recently has circulated a computer-enhanced photograph of Karla to show what she would look like now. The girl's photo also has been publicized in home mailers and on bottled water.

"We still get sightings every once in awhile," said Detective Roberto Juarez, who is assigned to the case. "We follow up on them, but they never pan out." Juarez said the most recent tip was about seven months ago, when a girl sighted in a small New Mexico town was thought to be Karla. "We checked it out and there was a real striking resemblance," Juarez said. But the girl was not Karla. Karla was last seen on Oct. 20, 1999, walking to Park Elementary School, 931 Franklin Ave., near Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue.

Last year, the Virginia-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children audited Las Vegas police's investigation and found every avenue of inquiry has been explored. Though the center has said that cases involving minority children garner less media coverage than those involving white children, Karla's disappearance dominated local news for months. "Locally, this was huge in the media," Juarez said.
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