This little girl’s first day of preschool was followed by a frantic search after her great-grandmother woke to find her missing from their Wichita, Kansas, home. Four-year-old Jaquilla Evonne Scales had gone to bed with her younger brother on September 4, 2001. By the early morning hours of September 5, she was gone, and the family’s back door was standing open.
Jaquilla lived in the 1600 block of North Volutsia Street in Sedgwick County with her mother, Eureka Scales, and her maternal great-grandmother, Mattie Mitchell, who had custody of her. She was an energetic, talkative child whose family affectionately called her “Grammy Boo” because of her bossy personality.
Her mother recalled that Jaquilla loved playing with dolls and wearing colorful barrettes in her hair. The little girl had just begun preschool, an experience that would become one of her last known activities before she disappeared.
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