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Lisa Dickinson
Missing since September 5, 1976 from Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County, California.
Classification: Endangered Missing
Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: April 25, 1967
Age at Time of Disappearance: 9 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'10"; 80 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Blonde hair; blue eyes.
Clothing: She was last seen wearing a yellow crew-neck T-shirt with Snoopy and the word "happiness" on the front, blue ton cut-off shorts and white leather three-strapped sandals
Dentals: Available
Circumstances of Disappearance
Dickinson was last seen on September 5, 1976 in Walnut Creek, California. Lisa was last seen shortly after 7 p.m. while riding her bicycle near the Pleasant Hill station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit. BART
She left the home of her parents on to find a shortcut through nearby Heather Farm Park to the Pleasant Hill BART station. The family had planned to take an excursion on BART the following day. When she failed to return home police were notified. An intensive search was mounted.
The only physical evidence turned up was the girl's abandoned bicycle, leaning against a tree at the north end of the park near the Contra Costa Canal.
Foul play is suspected.
Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Walnut Creek Police Department
925-935-6400
Agency Case Number: 769880
NCIC Number: M-409952268
Please refer to these numbers when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.
Source Information:
California Department of Justice
Daily Review 9/21/76
The Doe Network: Case File 802DFCA
LINK:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/802dfca.html
Richard
07-17-2010, 01:24 AM
bumping
Richard I did a archive search for any news on her case.
I used the parameters of her first and last name. Nothing.
I used the same as above in quotation marks then I added missing.
There is one archived pay per view that popped up with her name under the link but I didn't pay to see the article. Although she isn't listed in the synopsis the article popped up so I think she might be named in the text of the article we can't see.
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CC&s_site=contracostatimes&p_multi=CC&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10C9C99516879BD0&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
I found several articles on this website that name the man above as a POI in the disappearance of Lisa. (It looks like the archived article above is located on that website in full text).
http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/H/HUGHES_phillip_joseph_jr.php
Richard
07-20-2010, 11:18 AM
Here is a link to a Blog about Lisa Dickinson, disappearance. It contains a newspaper article and a long discussion/comment section about the case.
-------------------------------------------------
Here's a local kidnapping case you NEVER hear about. This happened 33-years ago, on September 5, 1976. 9-year-old Lisa Dickinson was taken from Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek.
Her bike was found in some bushes near the canal trail, but she hasn't been seen since.
The articles above are from the Oakland Tribune in 1976 (top), and one year after the kidnapping, in 1977 (bottom).
Here are some details about her disappearance....
Dickinson was last seen riding her bicycle in Walnut Creek, California at 7:00 p.m. on September 5, 1976.
She was en route from her home in the 100 block of Los Cerros to a nearby BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station at the time.She was supposed to return home by 8:00 p.m., but did not and has never been heard from again. Her parents reported her missing at 9:00 p.m.
Dickinson's bicycle was found in a grove of walnut trees at Heather Farms Park, near the Contra Costa Canal, three hours after she was last seen.A search of the canal turned up no clues as to her whereabouts, but witnesses said they had seen her at the park's entrance.
Dickinson is missing under suspicious circumstances and her case remains unsolved.One man was considered a suspect. He's been in prison for the past 30+ years for multiple rapes, but he has never been charged or even arrested for kidnapping Lisa.
At the time of her abduction, she was 4'10", 80-pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt with an image of the cartoon character Snoopy printed on the front, she also had on blue shorts and white sandals.
Today, Lisa Dickinson would be 42-years-old.
Anybody who might know something about her disappearance is asked to call the Walnut Creek Police Department @ 925-935-6400.
Source:
CLAYCORD.com: LISA DICKINSON, THE LITTLE GIRL ABDUCTED FROM WALNUT CREEK 33-YEARS AGO, IN THE YEAR 1976
LINK:
http://claycord.blogspot.com/2009/09/lisa-dickinson-little-girl-abducted.html
Richard
07-20-2010, 11:26 AM
The Charley Project website also has a case file on Lisa. Not much more information than here on Websleuths, but there are some news links and also a link to the California Attorney General website.
LINK:
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/d/dickinson_lisa.html
Marilynilpa
07-20-2010, 12:24 PM
Lisa took a shortcut through a park - I believe it's referred to as the canal trail, and her bike was found among some walnut trees. Do you know (1) was this a very heavily used trail and (2) is/was it heavily wooded?
Did LE suspect that Lisa had fallen into the canal?
It's surprising there wasn't more coverage of this.
Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr. sounds like a really bad guy. I noticed that some of the women he possibly killed were in their teens, while there were a couple of 9 year olds. Although it's very possible he could have killed them all, a 9 year old usually tends to attract a different type of killer than teenaged women. It's possible we have more than one perp here.
Just a thought.
Marilynilpa
07-20-2010, 01:26 PM
A quick check of newspaperarchive.com turned up 29 articles about Lisa from 9/7/76 to 9/2/77. This is a brief synopsis of what I could gather from these articles.
We know that Lisa was taken from the Heather Farm Park. Apparently the canal was in the process of being fenced and locked, but you could still gain access over a small bridge and through a fenced-off new subdivision to the north of the park.
There is a discrepancy about her bicycle. One article says it was found tossed in a walnut grove, another says it was leaning up against a tree. [To me that is an important distinction - if it was propped up, Lisa might have done that herself when she stopped to talk to someone. If it was tossed into a grove of trees, the perp might have done that to keep it from being found right away.]
Lisa was an only child.
Her parents (through her uncle) appealed to the public for any information about Lisa, offering a reward of $20,000 for her safe return or $3,000 for information as to where her body could be found. They asked the kidnapper to draw them a map and mail it to them. Obviously nothing came of this appeal.
In an article dated 9/2/77, Louis R. Fesquez is mentioned as being the prime suspect. At that time he was in prison sentenced to 27 years to life for crimes involving four young women in Contra Costa County. He was found guilty on 9 of 20 charges against him.
12/1/76 article - Fesquez was caught after a police chase. He had a 12 year old girl with him at the time - he'd kidnapped her a day earlier and raped her 5-6 times. At the time he abducted her, she was walking from her home to the county fairgrounds to feed her quarter horse that was stabled there.
Fesquez also alleged tried to entice two other girls into his car in to separate incidents.
Fesquez had an extensive record regarding sex crimes.
Now here is an interesting follow-up - a 12/10/76 article claims Lisa was possibly taken by someone on a motorcycle, and asked for any information from women/girls regarding a man identifying himself as a policeman, possibly a narcotics officer, showing a badge and/or handcuffs.
With that article coming on the heels of the arrest of Fesquez, I can't help but wonder if his M.O. was to approach young girls/women claiming to be an officer and asking them for help. Perhaps his victims even agreed to get on his motorcycle ostensibly to go to the police station for some purpose. (I am thinking of Ted Bundy - he used that ploy to get a woman into his car, claiming he was an officer and needed her to accompany him to the police station. She was the only known Bundy victim to escape alive). Three witnesses claim they saw a young girl matching Lisa's description ride off with a man on a motorcycle. She was wearing a helmet.
After this article, I can find nothing else about Fesquez in the archives. I'll do an internet search for him.
A quick check of Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr. turned up nothing - I'll do an internet search on him too.
Marilynilpa
07-20-2010, 03:27 PM
This is about a man who committed at least one crime LE had attributed to Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr.:
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY / DNA links girl's 1978 slaying to convict who died in 2002 / Authorities have now tied 8 killings to ex-handyman
http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-09-30/bay-area/17391914_1_stray-kitten-sheriff-s-office-dna (http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-09-30/bay-area/17391914_1_stray-kitten-sheriff-s-office-dna)
You might have to cut and paste this into your browser, because when I click on the link it doesn't seem to work.:waitasec:
Marilynilpa
07-22-2010, 04:46 PM
I couldn't find anything on Phillip Joseph Hughes, Jr. in connection with this missing child.
amber1
07-22-2010, 04:55 PM
I wrote a blog on Lisa:
http://deaniepeters-missingangels.blogspot.com/2009/11/lisa-dickinson-9-year-old-missing-33.html
You might need to copy and paste it in your browser.
So disappointed at the lack of info on this case though, poor girl.
forthelost
07-25-2010, 03:14 PM
http://www.forthelost.org/calikids/LDickinson.doc
buffetoflies
07-31-2010, 04:09 PM
Richard I did a archive search for any news on her case.
I used the parameters of her first and last name. Nothing.
I used the same as above in quotation marks then I added missing.
There is one archived pay per view that popped up with her name under the link but I didn't pay to see the article. Although she isn't listed in the synopsis the article popped up so I think she might be named in the text of the article we can't see.
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CC&s_site=contracostatimes&p_multi=CC&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10C9C99516879BD0&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
I found several articles on this website that name the man above as a POI in the disappearance of Lisa. (It looks like the archived article above is located on that website in full text).
http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/H/HUGHES_phillip_joseph_jr.php
All that pay per view article said is:
"But, while Hughes has been cleared in some cases, he remains a person of interest in seven others : (one of which is Lisa Dickinson): Lisa Dickinson, 9, disappeared Sept. 5, 1976 while riding her bike from her home on Los Cerros Avenue in Walnut Creek toward Heather Farms Park. Her bike was found leaning against a tree inside the park, but the girl has never been found."
amber1
08-03-2010, 10:46 AM
I am glaf they at least have a suspect in such an old case. I'd love to see this little girl brought home, as I know she still has family searching after all these years.
kellay
01-30-2011, 05:49 PM
My mother says Lisa was her best friend when she was in elementary school. They went home from school together, played together, and my mother even had a bear she named Lisa right before she went missing. She was very sad to learn that they still have not found Lisa. They were both only children and their birthdays are only days apart. Walnut Creek is not an unsafe neighborhood. In fact its one of the safer towns of Contra Costa. My mother does say she remembers my grandmother telling her not to play by the canal. And after Lisa's disappearance my mother says her and her friends were not allowed to go out by themselves. I've seen someone note that it seems unusual that she was out on her bike that late in the evening. Its actually not that peculiar in the 1970s, especially since it would still be light out in September and the heat would have died down by 7pm. It typically stays warm here through October. It does seem odd that her mother would have let her go to the BART station on her own. The BART stations have never been quite safe. I've heard of young women often last being seen at local BART stations. Even I have been offered a ride by a stranger at one. Another thing, if I remember correctly, is that Heather Farm Park is quite far from the BART station.
flightlevel
08-15-2011, 11:59 PM
Walnut Creek only 25 mins from Antioch CA home of Phillip Garrido. This disappearance occured just a couple months before he kidnapped Kathrine Calloway in 1976. Just can't help but think that he is connected to at least some of the many missing girls in the general San Francisco area. Many, many young girls and teens over the years have just vanished from this area. Someone in that area has to at least be responsible for some of the missing girls. What are the odds that these abductions could all just be random? Wish I had the link but somewhere on one of these boards a list was compiled of all the girls missing from the SF area. I am amazed at the number and close locations of many of the young girls. Lisa Dickinson and Gayle Marks are two strange cases.:banghead:
Richard
09-18-2011, 11:06 PM
September 5th marked the 35th anniversary of the disappearance of Lisa Dickinson.
Has anyone seen any recent news articles or feature stories on her case?
cornfed
10-18-2011, 03:39 AM
Richard-
Nothing recent on Lisa. I will say that I believe that Hughes is responsible. I'm not ruling out anything, but Hughes is in CDC for three murders. One of those was of Leticia Fagot, three houses down from Lisa's home, just a year prior. Although he went to the Fagot's house because his wife had suggested Leticia as a victim (they worked at the same bank), I believe that he was very familiar with the neighborhood from younger days.
There are circumstances which lead me to believe that Hughes is responsible for at least four other unsolved murders in the central CoCo County, probably more. Four I am certain of. Three based on publicized information, and one that I have not seen anything written on.
Kellay-
What motivated me to write on this thread is that it may happen in the not-too-distant future that I am able to devote a considerable amount of time to the research and investigation of this case. Should that come to pass, I would very much like to speak with you mother. I hope you continue to follow this thread in the coming months.
amber1
03-12-2012, 02:23 PM
Thank you for that post Cornfed!
scriptgirl
09-02-2012, 06:53 AM
Are her folks still alive?
amber1
09-03-2012, 11:56 AM
I still can't believe her case didn't receive more attention. Usually any case involving a child who was obviously abducted by a stranger receives national attention, hers seemed to have not, and there isn't much information out there on her case either.
Richard
09-06-2012, 12:12 AM
Today marks the 36th anniversary of Lisa's disappearance.
scriptgirl
09-06-2012, 11:17 AM
Back then, it seems if the cops couldn't deem you a runaway, they weren't interested.
amber1
09-13-2012, 01:19 PM
Thinking of Lisa. I am still wondering how a young girl who was obviously abducted off her bike did not get more media attention, seems like her case was shoved to the side.
scriptgirl
09-19-2012, 08:49 PM
That seems to have been the norm for a lot of cases involving missing women, teens and kids in the 70s until the mid 80s. There wasn't a huge outcry and a lot of **** was swept under the rug.
carbuff
09-19-2012, 09:10 PM
That seems to have been the norm for a lot of cases involving missing women, teens and kids in the 70s until the mid 80s. There wasn't a huge outcry and a lot of **** was swept under the rug.
Maybe there's some of that, but there's also a big element of...I don't want to say helplessness, but of resignation. The internet didn't exist, cell phones didn't exist, even the big national television networks were mostly local. You didn't have any way to send out an Amber Alert. Teletype notices or phone calls to other police departments was about it, one at a time. You couldn't sit at a keyboard calling up articles from an archive; you had to sit in a library going through one newspaper at a time looking at physical clippings and hoping you'd stumble across something.
One thing that meant is that once you'd searched the canals and ponds and walnut grove, and checked out everybody you could think of who might have been involved, and followed up leads that didn't pan out -- you didn't really have anything left to do except wait to see if something turned up. You could try to disseminate the information, but it would take weeks, most likely. Occasionally something would go national, but not nearly the way it does today.
This case seems to have had quite a lot of attention, really.
scriptgirl
09-20-2012, 11:52 AM
It still needs more attention. Has anyone contacted local LE about this case? Where is that bike?
amber1
09-20-2012, 03:51 PM
bump! Is this case still active?
JillyNJ
04-14-2013, 12:37 AM
I know its a shot in the dark, but I cant help but to see the resemblance to Blairstown Princess Doe. This poor baby must have been terrified in her last hours alive OR last hours as a free, innocent little girl.
scriptgirl
04-14-2013, 12:07 PM
I'm not sure I see the connection. Where is Blairstown?
JillyNJ
04-15-2013, 12:32 AM
I'm not sure I see the connection. Where is Blairstown?
Its in NJ. Here is a link to a website dedicated to her with lots of info.
http://www.princessdoe.org/
Richard
10-02-2013, 11:39 AM
Bumping this case up. It has been 37 years since Lisa went missing.
----------------------------------------------
Lisa Dickinson, age 9, Missing since September 5, 1976 from Walnut Creek, CA
Lisa Dickinson
Missing since September 5, 1976
from Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County, California.
Classification: Endangered Missing
Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: April 25, 1967
Age at Time of Disappearance: 9 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'10"; 80 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Blonde hair; blue eyes.
Clothing: She was last seen wearing a yellow crew-neck T-shirt with Snoopy and the word "Happiness" on the front, blue cutoff shorts and white leather, three-strapped sandals
Dentals: Available
Circumstances of Disappearance
Dickinson was last seen on September 5, 1976 in Walnut Creek, California. Lisa was last seen shortly after 19.00, while riding her bicycle near the Pleasant Hill station of the Bay- Area Rapid Transit.
She left the home of her parents to find a shortcut through nearby Heather Farm Park to the Pleasant Hill BART station. The family had planned to take an excursion on BART the following day. When she failed to return home police were notified. An intensive search was mounted.
The only physical evidence turned up was the girl's abandoned bicycle, leaning against a tree at the north end of the park near the Contra Costa Canal.
Foul play is suspected.
Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Walnut Creek Police Department
925-935-6400
Agency Case Number: 769880
NCIC Number: M-409952268
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.
Source Information:
California Department of Justice
Daily Review 9/21/76
The Doe Network: Case File 802DFCA
LINK:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/802dfca.html
1117 Haven Street
3213 Baker Drive
