186. Looks Like A Minute And A Half Is A Lifetime - The Erasing Of Mikelle Biggs

January 2, 1999 was an average day in sleepy suburban Mesa Arizona when, as dusk was falling, 11 year-old Mikelle Biggs and her sister Kimber thought they heard the sound of an ice cream truck coming up the street as they were playing outside their house.  Mikelle ran into the house and convinced her mother – who was just starting dinner, to give her some quarters so she and Kimber could buy a treat.  Racing back outside, Mikelle borrowed Kimber’s brand new pink bicycle – which Kimber had just gotten for Christmas only 8 days prior.  Seeing her sister riding up the street on her bike, Kimber decided to go back into the house to get a jacket.  It took her all of 90 seconds to return to the front yard where she would run to catch up with Mikelle.  But instead of seeing her sister riding farther up the street, what Kimber saw instead was her empty bike, lying on its side in the middle of the street, pointed back in the direction of their house – the front wheel still spinning.  In 90 seconds – Mikelle Biggs went from a bright, beautiful young girl riding to catch an ice cream truck in the fading winter light – to a memory.  She has never been seen again.  While there is a likely culprit who has been identified – now in prison for a different, horrific crime - he has never been charged and has denied having anything to do with Mikelle’s disappearance.  In this moving episode, Melissa describes the police investigation, the family’s exhausting quest for answers, the haunting image of that gleaming new pink bicycle lying still, its front wheel still turning from the impetus of Mikelle’s force – and how all these years later, those 90 seconds live forever in the heart and soul of a little sister who wonders – what if she had not gone to get that jacket?