Background: New Castle County Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Andrea Botterbusch speaks to the media about the canceled Amber Alert for Nola Dinkins (WTTG). Inset: Nola Dinkins (New Castle County Police Department).
UPDATE: The Maryland State Police stated in a Facebook post on Wednesday that a body has been recovered in Maryland’s Cecil County in connection with the investigation into the homicide of Nola Dinkins. They are still waiting for a positive identification.
Police in Delaware announced that they canceled an Amber Alert for a missing 3-year-old girl and have now begun investigating the case as a homicide.
During a press conference on Wednesday, carried by Washington, D.C.-area Fox affiliate WTTG, New Castle County Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Andrea Botterbusch provided an update to the Amber Alert issued on Tuesday for 3-year-old Nola Dinkins. According to police, Dinkins’ mother — whose name was not released to the public — lied about her daughter being abducted on Tuesday night when she reported the girl missing at around 7:15 p.m.
Less than 24 hours after the Amber Alert was issued for the little girl, police announced it was canceled.
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In a new release, Botterbusch stated that Nola’s mother initially told police that she had pulled over to the side of the road in front of an apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. The mother allegedly told police that as she attempted to calm Nola down, an unidentified white male approached them in their vehicle and threatened the mother with a gun. She claimed to police that the man took her daughter in a dark-colored SUV that was being driven by a white female and fled.
Investigators with the New Castle County Division of Police Criminal Investigations Unit, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, searched for Nola throughout the night. Eventually, police said they came to the conclusion that the mother’s story about the kidnapping was “false” and that the case was “being treated as a homicide investigation by the Maryland State Police.”
Nola Dinkins and her mother are Maryland residents.
Botterbusch did not take questions during her press conference on Wednesday and did not respond immediately to an inquiry from Law&Crime about what evidence led them to begin investigating the case as a homicide. Law&Crime also reached out to the Maryland State Police for further information but did not receive an immediate response.
Police did not name a suspect or share further information about what, if any, evidence they found.
