Case of missing A.C. tot still open

PLEASANTVILLE, N.J. - Following a week spent clearing trees and debris, extensive digging, and the use of cadaver dogs, investigators yesterday announced that nothing was found in a wooded lot here that could be connected to the disappearance of a toddler from her Atlantic City porch 22 years ago.

The sister and aunt of Bonita Sanders - who was three days shy of turning 2 when she vanished - left a curbside meeting yesterday afternoon tearfully clutching each other after Atlantic County Prosecutor Theodore Housel apparently informed them that the search for the child's remains was unsuccessful.

In a news conference shortly afterward, Housel would not say if investigators planned to move to another site or whether there were other leads. The case remains open, he said, and will be treated as a missing-person investigation unless there is the discovery of remains or other evidence that suggests a homicide.

"At the conclusion of the day, the scene will be closed and it will remain off-limits until it can be returned to a proper and safe state," Housel said of the excavation site off Route 9 between Wellington and Brighton Avenues.

Housel said considerable taxpayer money was spent to have dozens of personnel from the Prosecutor's Office as well as the local police, state police and FBI staff on the scene. The location was guarded 24 hours a day since the search began on Feb. 20, he said.

"But we think it was money well spent, because this is an important case, even though it is 22 years old," he said.

"This is about a missing child. I have children of my own, and as a parent I know that people want answers."

The prosecutor said investigators had obtained information that the child's remains "were not deeply planted." They sifted over the entire lot, he said, but concentrated on one area.

A state police forensic anthropologist had indicated that, given the time that has passed and the child's age, it was unlikely that any remains except for "one particular part of the body" could be found, Housel said.

It also is possible that the body was moved by the perpetrator or that "scavenging carnivores" carried off the remains, he said.

It was the latest disappointment in a case that has haunted Bonita's family since Sept. 14, 1986.

The child's mother, also named Bonita Sanders, told police that she had left her daughter strapped into a stroller and sucking a frozen pop on the front porch of her Baltic Avenue home while she was inside cooking dinner. When she checked about an hour later, Bonita was gone, she said.

Housel would not comment specifically on the lead that brought investigators to the 1.6-acre lot, though he called it "reliable and credible to believe" the area might have contained the remains.

Investigators would like to talk to Bonita Sanders, because she may have information about the case, Housel said. He would not reveal an address for the woman, who was seen by a family member on Feb. 11.

"We've attempted to locate her without success," the prosecutor said.

Speculation that the mother may have had something to do with the child's disappearance has been rampant among family members, according to Abdul Salaam, father of the missing girl.

Salaam, a cook from Atlantic City, was in prison when the baby disappeared. The child and her older sister, Tameika, also Salaam's daughter, were living with their mother. Salaam and Sanders never married and were not a couple when the toddler disappeared. The woman had a new boyfriend and was about to have another baby.

When she gave birth to a son in Atlantic City Medical Center about six weeks later, Sanders did so under an assumed name. She eventually abandoned the infant in a bus station bathroom and served five months in the county jail after pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a child.

Salaam said investigators told him that an old friend recently came forward with information that implicated Bonita Sanders in the disappearance of her daughter. He said he was informed that the friend and other acquaintances, including a relative of the mother's, also could be involved.

Salaam could not be reached for comment yesterday. He has said that he has never given up hope that his daughter will be found.

Salaam said he stayed in contact with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and, in 2005, was interviewed about Bonita's case on the Fox program America's Most Wanted.

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