True Crime with Kendall Rae - Who Took Dulce Alavez? Vanished From the Playground

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

On September 16th, 2017, 5-year-old Dulce Alavez was playing with her younger brother in a New Jersey park when she just disappeared. After searching the park for any sign of her, her mother frantically called police to report her missing daughter. After an intensive police search, they came up empty-handed. Dr. Phil Full Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLbFNkdTZkY&t=0s 360 Park Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEjjjHyB1dc&t=0s Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 This episode is sponsored by: Hatch Quince Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel. Thanks for tuning in again. So for today's case, we are going to be talking about a missing child. These cases are only so emotional to work on, but of course very important as well. And we're coming up on the year anniversary since this child has been missing. This is Dulce Maria Alivez. She was five years old when she went missing on September 16th, 2019. This is another one of those cases where there wasn't too much to work with but I was able to scrape enough together. So this is Dulce Maria Alivez. She was born on April 25th, 2014 in Bridgden City, New Jersey. So Bridgden is a fairly small community

and it's in the southern part of the state. It's very tight knit and has around 25,000 people living in it. Dulce is a very beautiful little girl. She has beautiful big brown eyes, brown hair, and she's about three feet tall. And this is her mother, Noema, Alivez, Perez. Noema had Dulce when she was very young. Dulce was five years old at the time that she went missing

and Noema was 19, so just do the math. And she also had a son named Manuel who was born two years after Dulce was born. So at the time that all of this is happening, Manuel and Dulce actually lived with their grandparents in Bridgetown and dulce actually lived with their grandparents in Bridgetown and then know I'm a lived in an apartment nearby. And so when it comes to custody, her mom and her were sharing custody of both of the kids.

So like I said, this all happens in September right around the start of school and dulce had just started kindergarten at very exciting time. So it was September 16th of last year and Dulce went to school that day like normal. So that day, Noema picked up all the kids from school and she also had her eight-year-old sister with her. It was a normal day of school. The kids were in a good mood but had a lot of energy. So she took them to a local gas station to get some ice cream and also got some lottery cards and then she decided to take them to the park so they could kind of run off their energy.

So they end up going to the Bridgerton City Park. I'll put in some pictures of the park, but if you wanna see it in 3D, there's actually a video on YouTube where you can kind of scroll around with your finger and completely see 3D view of the park. And this could be helpful for you in trying to picture this whole case playing out.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to include 3D footage in my video, but I will link below. It's definitely interesting to look at. So, they pull up to the park, and they park near the basketball court, and Dulce and her younger brother get out of the car, and they're three and five at this time, and they run over to the park by themselves to the playground. Noema stays in the car with her younger sister, and I've seen some reports that they were doing homework and some people have said that they were scratching off the lottery tickets, but either way, they stayed in the car and Dulce and her brother manual ran to the park

which is about 30 yards away from where she's parked. Now she said that she could see the park so she was watching them, but there has been a lot of criticism at her about letting the kids leave the car by themselves. I personally feel like three and five is really young to let your kids run around in a public space unless you're right with them just because unfortunately the world is not safe. And with everything I know, there's no way I would let my kids do that. And I'm sure she regrets it.

So there's no point in, you know, like rubbing it in, but yeah, definitely has been some criticism. I am so excited to talk about today's sponsor, Hatch, because Hatch is an essential item in my home. For me, for my daughter, for my husband, when we travel, we literally pack our hatches in the suitcase. I cannot sleep without mine.

My daughter can't sleep without hers. And if you've never heard of it, let me tell you more. As we get older, our responsibilities and challenges increase, causing our stress levels to rise. So prioritizing quality sleep is one of the best ways to take care of yourself. Instead of lingering on your phone before bed, make sleep your simplest self-care routine with the Hattress Store 2. Think of the Hattress Store 2 as your bedside sleep guide, your ally and rest. The innovative all-in-one dream machine is a sophisticated sound machine, light and alarm clock beautifully designed for your bedside table. And that's one thing I love about it too. It is beautiful. It looks so nice in my room. Good rest allows you to be the best version of yourself, which is why the HATRESTOR 2 was engineered to help you form healthy sleep habits for life.

Your HATREST teaches your body when it's time to sleep and when it's time to rise with light and sound cues. It coaches you through meditations and mindfulness exercises that transform the time before and after sleep into restful rituals. There are so many different options for the sleep sounds they have white, pink, or brown noise if you like that. Personally, I like their nature scapes. I like to sleep to thunderstorms, and I love their thunderstorm option. There are different options. If you like to sleep terrain, there's more peaceful rain, like soothing.

There's different options for ocean. If you like that tranquil ocean, stormy sea, there are so many different options, and I love that I can control it all right from my app. And then every day, I wake up to med meditative flute and it has become such a nice part of my morning routine. And right now Hatch is offering our listeners $20 off your purchase of a Hatch restore two and free shipping at Hatch.co slash Kendall Ray.

Sleep deeply and wake gently with the restore two. Go to Hatch.co slash Kendall Ray to get $20 off and free shipping. That's Hatch. slash Kindle Ray. So Nuaima said that she was able to see the kids the whole time other than a five to ten minute period where she was not able to see them. The only area that she could not see was the swing set because there was this small hill that kind of blocked it and when she couldn't see them, she just figured that that meant that two of them were on the swings and all was good. But after those ten minutes, she got a little concerned and she and her sister decided to get out of the car and go check on the kids. And as they're walking up to the playground

they see Dolce's little brother manual crying and his ice cream is on the ground. At first they thought that's why he was crying that you know his ice cream had dropped but then they realized that Dolce was nowhere around. When they asked him where his sister was, he pointed over at these buildings near the park. This is when that 3D video is really helpful to see, but there are these two, like, utility buildings that are used to store different types of equipment to keep the park maintained, like lawn mowers and sprinkler equipment, things like that. And these buildings have a path near them that goes right to the street. There's kind of two ways to access the park, two paths. One from the way, Nauema came from the car,

and one that's over near the utility buildings. They're kind of dingy looking and scary and they're locked, but he said that she was playing around there. But the problem is, is he's only three years old, and he's not able to fully form complete sentences and truly explain what happened. He just points over to the building. So Noema walks over to the buildings and starts looking around to see if she can find Dolse. She's calling her name out and Dolse is nowhere to be found. Noema said that at first she tried not

to panic that she thought that Dolse was playing some type of game, like hide and seek. So as far as other people at the park that day, Noema said that there was a man and his sons leaving the park at the time that they arrived, but he was not there at the time that she went missing. And then there was also a group of a few girls playing basketball on the basketball court. The courts aren't right next to the park though, so they didn't have the greatest view of it. They're more close to the parking lot. So Neuema was under the impression that they pretty much had the whole park to themselves. So she was super confused. But after some time went by and she could not find Dulce, she decided't find my daughter. Okay, what was the way I found you, Sheer? We were moving her at the park, and people said that somebody, somebody, somebody's

so scared. Okay, how old is she? She's five years old. Okay, and what park are you at? She's in the bushing park. So as you can tell, she sounds very upset in the beginning of the call. She sounds pretty panicked. She's crying a little bit. And then she starts telling the dispatchers about what the girls at the basketball court

had seen. All right. You didn't see anyone else around there that she could probably have went with? No, not, not that I know. Because you didn't say no. There's just some other people that they're here that said that they saw her running. And they said that they saw two men. They saw black guys and. They saw Mexican men with two kids who say nothing saw them.

Because there's people here in the basketball court that they saw her. They said they saw her running. The girls that were at the basketball court had seen a black man in a red car with blacked out windows pull up over near those utility buildings just as Dulce was running over

to the buildings. So that is pretty scary and very likely could have been who abducted her. So police rushed to the scene, they started looking for her on foot and they also brought dogs to try to track her scent. They were even able to obtain some security footage that was around the area, but they were not able to pick up Dulce and any of the cameras, so sadly, Noema had to leave without Dulce that day. The next day, there was still no sign of Dulce, and it wasn't until then actually that night at 10 p.m. that police decided to put out the amber alert which isn't super helpful going out that much later after someone has gone missing but I mean I guess it's good. When Dulce went

missing she was wearing a yellow shirt with an elephant on it and black and white pants. Apparently there was also reports of a Hispanic man being in the area so they actually included that in the amber alert. They said it was a Hispanic man who was pretty skinny and around five-seven. 30 to 35 years old had acne all over his face, was wearing orange shoes, red pants, a black shirt, and a white baseball cap. No, Emma said that she was really worried and also confused because she felt like Dulce wouldn't have run up to strangers. She said that she had really drilled it into her not to talk to people she didn't know and gave her the whole stranger danger to feel plenty of times.

She said that her daughter was very cautious and that she wouldn't have just run up to some random stranger and definitely would not have voluntarily left with them. And she had always told Dulce that if someone was abducting her or hurting her or anything like that, to just scream as loud as you can and hopefully someone will help you. So that same day, a ton of strangers came out to help look for Dolse. The park was pretty big over a thousand acres, so there was quite a bit of land for people to search. And of course they weren't just searching for Dolse. They're combing the ground to see if they can find any clues, you know, a

wrapper, a piece of gum, a cigarette butt, anything like that that possibly even had some DNA could crack the case. On September 18th, there was a vigil held at Bridgden City Park to continue to help raise awareness. Father, I pray even now, Ocodd, that whoever has her Ocodd, that they will feel conviction Ocodd from on hydrocodd, and that they will send conviction, oh God. From on, Ohio, God. And that they will send this baby's home, oh God. In the name of Jesus, God let them not rest, oh God. Until justice is served, let them not be easy, oh God.

In the name of Jesus, oh God, God, your angels have authority. Your angels have control, oh God. The enemy has no power. He has no authority. He has no dominion over this baby. He has no dominion over our community, oh God. You touch each and every one of our hearts, I pray that you allow Dosa to fill our love even from hero, God. Even from Christian New Jersey where the community stands is one, I pray, oh God, that you allow her to feel our love for her real kind?

And there were also flyers put up all over town. Most people that live in this area know about Dulce. There's been a real community outreach to the family. On September 19th, the family went on to the media and made a public plea for help. What is the ruego que nos da you living? Please, if you have any information, help us find our grant my my granddaughter. Do not be afraid of the police. They also

announced that they were offering a $20,000 reward for anyone that could give information about who the suspect was. And since there is a large population of undocumented immigrants in this area, they decided to make it so that anyone who did come forward with information would be protected from being reported to ICE. But even after

that, no one came forward with information and there were really no leads for police to work with. Now, pretty much right off the bat, people in the community and people online were very suspicious of the whole situation and suspicious of Neuema. Something else sounds too much, it just sounds suspect. Something sounds suspicious. Something's notTruite. It just sounds suspect. Something sounds suspicious. Something's not right. There's no red van and there's no man. Who is it?

Mm-hmm. Find some kind of resolution to this product because this is a real serious problem. So where did they get the story about the red van? Me as a mother, I'm not gonna let my three year old and a five year old out on my site that four. I feel like everyone out there has had that moment when you go into your closet

and even though you may have a lot of clothes, you just feel like you have nothing to wear. Over time, I've bought a lot of pieces that aren't the best quality and it starts to show. But then I found Quince and I have finally given my closet the upgrade that we both desperately need. Quince creates timeless classics that never go out of style. You'll have them in your closet forever,

which makes putting together that outfit way easier. Quince has all those capsule wardrobe must have, like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50, suede and leather jackets, and silk blouses and dresses. And here's the kicker. All quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And by partnering directly with top factories, quince cuts out the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And what's great is that quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. And I love that. And obviously you can't see it because this is a

podcast, but I'm actually wearing a piece from Quince today. It's a 100% European linen long sleeve shirt and I got it for 39 bucks. And the quality is just amazing. It comes in so many different colors. I love how universal their pieces are. So take the drama out of planning an outfit and upgrade your closet with Quince today.

Go to quince.com slash TCKR for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash TCKR to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash TCKR. A lot of people thought it was pretty suspicious that she would let them just run off at such a young age and also people have been very critical of her emotions. You know, it's really hard to say with something like this. Of course, you really never want to judge someone on their emotions. Noema has been accused of not showing enough emotion. That she doesn't seem panicked or sad or acting like how a mother should.

Which of course, there's no textbook of how someone is supposed to act when someone goes missing. Obviously we all reacted grief differently and some people can go into shock when someone's missing. But her lack of emotions have definitely made people question her and it is something you have to consider. I understand you can't determine guilt that way, but it definitely can be considered. I mean, there is a whole branch of the FBI dedicated to behavior analysis for a reason. It is important, but I believe people too quickly have jumped on Noema, assuming that she somehow did it. Online, there has been a lot of talk about how she possibly sold her daughter into human trafficking or something like that. And of course, I have no idea.

It's possible that she could have done that. That does happen, sadly. I mean, it's a sick world. There have been people that have sold their children. Dr. Phil did an episode on this case and I can't show any of the clips because Dr. Phil will claim my ass and probably remove the video in about two seconds.

But he interviews Neuma and he straight up asks her if she had any involvement. Did you sell your daughter? And she said no of course not and you know shut that down. But what was interesting is even Dr. Phil brought up that she was one of the most emotionally flat parents of a victim that he had ever come across. But I don't know a lot of people have mixed opinions on Dr. Phil anyway. I don't know she wants to come back home because she doesn't she doesn't like being far away from her family Instead of being on social media right in negative comments come out here and let's go look for her There's definitely not enough evidence to say no I might have had anything to do with this

And I would never want to accuse someone of that But of course you got to look at all possibilities. Police also thought it could be someone that they know personally. In most abduction cases, it ends up being someone that the child knew or someone that the parent knew that does the abduction. So they asked me, why am I, you know, do you think that there's anyone within the family that would want to take her? And she said no. They asked if she had any enemies, you know, if there's anyone that would want to hurt her. And the only one that she could come up with was this guy who had pursued her.

And she wasn't interested in him kind of turned him down. And that he was upset that she turned him down. But there's no other reason to believe it was him. There's no evidence. There's no information about him. So, you know, take that for what you will. At one one point there was a lot of talk online about No, Emma eating pizza during one of the searches because there's been many searches and this is like the day after Dolce went missing and people I guess came up to her and we're like why are you eating pizza when your daughter is missing? And I guess this is the first time that she had eaten in a full 24 hours since Dolce had first went missing. So she was like really lightheaded, and at this time she was five months pregnant. So she was just taking care of herself.

I mean, I'm sure someone around her was like, you need to eat. On September 20th, the reward was raised to $25,000, and the next day, the 21st, it was raised to $35,000. When they were making the announcement about this, they actually had a bunch of frozen dolls out all of Dulce's favorite toys I guess she really loves frozen Hey cool

So several weeks passed and there were no signs of Dulce There were no leads in the case. It was like she just vanished on October 9th Police came out with a sketch of a man that they're interested in speaking with and they haven't been super clear about Why they think it was this guy. I'm not sure if that's just off of witness statements or what. Also, on that same day, they ended up bringing the reward

up to $52,000 for any information on this guy. They also started putting billboards up around the area to help spread awareness about the case. Eventually, November came and there was still no signs, no leads. And the community had a vigil on November 16th. So let's talk about possible theories here. So Noama believes that her daughter was taken

by whoever was driving that red van. It's possible that someone was just lurking around in that area, you know, sadly predators will hang out around parks where they know there's gonna be kids and just watch. So maybe someone was just waiting, saw the kids, and decided to take their shot. A lot of people have brought up, well, why wouldn't they have taken both kids? Well, because it, first of all, it's harder to take two kids, but second

of all, they could have specifically wanted a little girl. I mean, I'm not exactly sure, but it definitely makes sense for them to just take one. Especially if this was just one person. I mean, there's reports of a Hispanic man and a black man there. So I'm not sure if there's actually two men or if there's just one person, but still, it would be hard to take two kids. But what's weird is they would have had to like

put their hand over her mouth or something or maybe they had something in their car that they were able to lure her into the car way quietly. But like I said earlier, her mom taught her to scream if someone was doing something to you. So the girls that were over at the basketball courts said that they couldn't hear anything.

They didn't hear anyone screaming. So some people think that maybe she went with this person on her own free will. Was it someone that she knew? There was the theory that her biological father took her for a period of time. His name is Edgar Perez. Apparently when Dulce was born, he wasn't very interested in being a dad and actually didn't believe that Dulce was his daughter. However, later on, he had decided that she looks like him and was definitely his daughter. When she was about

one or two, he had expressed interest in possibly getting custody of her, but he never followed through. So he never had custody of her. But it wasn't something that they were fighting over. It's not like, no, Emma was stopping him from getting custody or anything like that. And no, Emma actually thought that he had been deported because he hadn't been in the picture for a while. But the FBI ended up finding him falling up and determined that he had nothing to do with this. And of course, there is a theory that no, Emma had something to do with this. And these rumors are mostly fueled by her lack of emotion, like I said, especially after she went on Dr. Phil in December of 2019. She just got a lot of backlash about how flat she was emotionally. A lot of people think Noema seems very suspicious

in this interview. And I definitely want you to make up your own mind on that So be sure to check out those interviews. I'll link them below like I said I can't include them for copyright reasons, but they're interesting Basically, she just gives Dr. Phil a very short one-wordy answers She seems kind of disinterested and almost bored during the interview also in her interview She talked about how she was given a polygraph test But was never given the results of that. She just didn't come across as a mom who was incredibly worried about her child. And I mean I hate to judge a mother who's missing their child but I

will say the interview came off is really weird to me as well. I mean most parents of missing children are desperate. They are very emotional and animated and serious about finding their kids. But Noema doesn't seem that way. But again, it's really hard to judge. So I want to hear your opinions on that and I'm not saying that she's guilty. Of course, everyone's innocent until actually proving guilty with real evidence, not just on their behavior, but it's odd. That's all I'll say. At one point police ended up taking two cell phones from Noemah to search. I guess she had two phones. I don't know why, but they gave one of them back to her, which many people have said. Probably means that there was nothing suspicious

on at least one of them, but we don't know about that other phone. So in January of 2020, a video came out online by a psychic talking about Dulce. She said specifically to check the school that Dulce attended and the wooded area behind the school. She went to Bucks Hadam Road School and lots of people including the police actually went out to this area because of what the psychic said and tried to look in that area but nothing was found. In February, the reward was bumped up to $75,000 and that is where it stands today.

Then in March of 2020, there was an interesting update. Three strange letters that reference Dulce were sent to Ohio. Actually, it was two letters and a postcard, and they were sent to a public library and this racetrack area in Austin Town. And this is in the eastern part of Ohio, pretty close to the Pennsylvania border. And the postcard says a couple different things, including look for Dulce, Alivez, age five, kidnapped from Bridgetown, New Jersey. Look website for story photos, Dr. Phil.

And it says 76 truck stop dead and street entrance woods. Please look. And so the police actually took those letters seriously and searched in that area. And this is off of Youngstown 76 Auto Truck Plaza on Interstate 80. I guess about 10 police officers went out there and they searched over 30 to 40 acres in that area.

They even brought in dogs, they brought in drones, they used infrared technology to search, but unfortunately, again, nothing was found. The postcard had been sent to that racetrack that I said, and it was also connected to a casino. And the postcard actually had a returns up code from back in Mexico, but the rest of the return address was ineligible.

And it also wasn't postmarked, but they do believe that it was delivered by the US Postal Service to the casino. And then there was a letter sent to the library and the letter was like two pages. It was handwritten and strangely enough it was actually postmarked from Cleveland. Cleveland is about 70 miles away from Austin town. No, the letters are not public so the contents of them are not out there but apparently most of it was not legible anyway. They were actually only able to make out a few words in the letter. They were able to find the words Alaska, Mexico, border, 1776, Civil War, New England town, and kids' homes orphanage. After these first two letters

were found, a third letter came in, and it was actually discovered in a mailbox of an ice cream shop. It was an ice cream shop in Weather's Field Township, which is a few miles away from the library and the casino in Austin Town. The owner of the shop found the letter, thought it was really strange and took it into the police. Now all through these letters were handwritten, and it seemed to be written by the same person.

But as far as what has been released to the public, nothing has really come out of these letters so far. Back in May, authorities did say that the FBI is trying to get a hold of Dulce's father again. I'm not sure why they were doing that or if they have, I wasn't able to find any more information on that. But as of now, please say that they think it's most likely

that Dulce was kidnapped. It seems like that is what happened either way. Now, you may be someone who believes that no Emma had something to do with that, and that's possible, but there's really no strong evidence for that. And if that's not the case, I would feel really bad for a mom

who's already lost their child to be accused of doing something they didn't, but of course at the same time, it does happen. So I wanna know your opinions on that. I wanna know what you think here. The family does have a GoFundMe page if you would like to help donate so that they can get a private investigator. They just can't afford it. So I will link that down below. If you have any information that could lead to solving this case or to finding Dulce, please get that information to the right people. I

will have phone numbers and stuff for you to do that in the description box. Of course, the family is trying to raise much awareness about this case as possible, so please share some information and a picture of don't say on your social media, especially if you live in that area. That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify

and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you wanna watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. you