When Karla Rodriguez vanished in 1999, Las Vegas police weren’t notified for more than 12 hours. The 7-year-old girl often wandered the streets of her central Las Vegas neighborhood without supervision, and relatives assumed she was safe, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
Karla was last seen the evening of Oct. 20, 1999, and as far as the Metropolitan Police Department is aware, no one has seen her since.
The brown-haired girl with a gap-toothed smile disappeared from her neighborhood in the shadow of the Stratosphere, near St. Louis Avenue and Maryland Parkway, after she was last seen alone, playing in the area with her bike. The unsolved case remains open, 20 years later. Six months ago, cold case homicide Detectives Dan Long and Terri Miller took it over and are looking at it with fresh eyes. “Any tip, no matter how small, is welcome,” Long said, sitting at Metro headquarters on Wednesday with other law enforcement officials who have worked together to find Karla.