A three-year-old girl’s disappearance from a California park prompted an extensive search before investigators discovered that she had been killed by the very adults responsible for her care.
Alicia Breann Versluis was reported missing from Pomona’s Ganesha Park on May 7, 2000, by her mother, Simona Denise Demery, who claimed the toddler had wandered away while they were spending time outdoors. However, Alicia had already died, and the search soon became a homicide investigation that exposed the abuse she and her twin sister had suffered at home.
Demery and her boyfriend, Jeffery Jones, were convicted of second-degree murder in 2001, along with multiple offenses involving the mistreatment of Alicia and her sister, Ebony. Although both acknowledged during their trial that Alicia had died, they denied causing her death. Her remains have never been recovered, leaving the location of the little girl’s body unknown more than 26 years later.
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