Cold Case Of 5-Year-Old Abducted, Found Dead On Army Base Reopened

A murder case involving a 5-year-old girl in Monterey County, California, has been reopened, four decades after the child was found dead on a former Army base.

The victim, Anne-Sang Thi Pham, was abducted on her way to kindergarten class in the Monterey County city of Seaside on the morning of Jan. 21, 1982, Monterey Herald reported.

The child had insisted on walking by herself to the nearby Highland Elementary School while her mother stayed home. Her family lived only a few blocks away from her school, police said in a news release.

Pham never arrived at school. Army investigators found her body in the brush two days later at Fort Ord, a U.S. Army post that was eventually closed in 1994. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death, an autopsy revealed.

The case eventually went cold after years of investigation by multiple agencies, but 40 years later, Seaside police are now working with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office's cold case task force to solve the case after new leads surfaced, according to the news release.

"Whoever is responsible for this is an absolute monster," acting Seaside Police Chief Nicholas Borges was quoted as saying by People. "Most monsters don't change their ways. What keeps me up at night is knowing that there are other potential victims out there. Every second that goes by there is someone else out there that can be a potential victim."

Borges said that they have sent any available evidence to labs for potential DNA testing.

Very little information has been released at the moment, but the police chief said there is "quite a bit of evidence" and they are "working with a variety of different DNA vendors."

The cold case task force received a $500,000 grant to investigate unsolved cases, including Pham's, according to the Monterey Herald.

Borges and Deputy District Attorney Matthew L’Heureux, who is heading the cold case task force, did not say whether a suspect or person of interest has been identified, the outlet noted.

L’Heureux said Pham's living siblings were notified that the case has been reopened. The victim's parents are both deceased.

Authorities hoped that renewed attention on the case will bring in new leads.

"We really do need the public's help because somebody saw something," Borges told People. "We know for a fact, somebody had to have seen something that didn't look right, and all it takes is one person to read an article, see a news clipping, see her picture and say, 'Oh my goodness, I remember this.'"

Anyone with information related to the case can contact Sergeant Matthew Doza of the Seaside Police Department at (831) 899-6751, Borges at (831) 899-6892 or L’Heureux at 831-755-5267. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call (831) 899-6282.