Twenty-five years ago today, 11-year-old Mikelle Biggs vanished from Mesa, Arizona.
Mikelle’s mother, Tracy Biggs, described her daughter as a “very kind and loving — very sweet” child. “She enjoyed art,” Tracy said. “She was very, very good at art and wanted to be a Disney animator from — from the time she was about 4 years old.” Tracy told Dateline that Mikelle took classes from a young age to help her fulfill that dream — calling it a “huge part of her life.”
Tracy said Mikelle was on the quiet, shy side — though that didn’t stop her from joining in activities. “She also loved to read. Big, big bookworm, and she belonged to the book club,” Tracy told said. “She was in band and played the clarinet. She loved to sing. And, of course, you know, play with her friends and family.”
Tracy told Dateline that Mikelle was also a part of her school’s Future Scientists and Engineers of America Club. “She was in the school presidency,” she added. “So, she enjoyed that type of stuff.”
Tracy told Dateline she and the children’s father, Darien Biggs, made sure to always keep those memories of Mikelle alive in the family. “We were pretty adamant that it would be perfectly OK to mention her name in general conversation at any point in time,” she said. “And I think that that was helpful in both the healing and being able to communicate and help each other.”
And now, after 25 years, her family still thinks of Mikelle — and of the day she disappeared.
The Disappearance of Mikelle Biggs
It was January 2, 1999, around 6 p.m.
11-year-old Mikelle Biggs and her 9-year-old sister Kimber were playing outside their family’s home with a few other kids from their Mesa neighborhood.
Tracy Biggs was on the front porch swing with her cousin watching the children play. The women then decided to go inside. About five minutes later, her youngest daughter, Kimber, walked inside. “[Kimber] came in and made a comment about, ‘The ice cream man hadn’t shown up,’” Tracy told Dateline.
Tracy remembered telling Kimber the ice cream man would come another time, and then asking her to go back outside and tell Mikelle to come back in the house. “And so, she went out the door and then she came back a couple of minutes later and said she couldn’t find Mikelle anywhere,” Tracy said.
Kimber, now in her thirties, told Dateline that instead of Mikelle, she found her sister’s purple bicycle lying on the pavement.
One of the wheels was still turning.
A few quarters were on the ground next to the bicycle — Mikelle’s ice cream money, according to Kimber. But the 11-year-old was nowhere to be found. Kimber and Tracy checked a neighbor’s house for any sign of Mikelle, but no one seemed to have any idea where she was. “And I said, ‘Something feels very wrong here,’” Tracy told Dateline. “So, I went back into the house and called the cops.”
Tracy said that before calling the police, she contacted one of her friends who also lived in the neighborhood. “[My friend] called our church — people in our church — to, you know, to get people looking for her,” she told Dateline. “So, by the time the cops arrived, there were probably 50 or 60 people that were out looking for [Mikelle] in our neighborhood.”
Mesa Police Department Detective Paul Sipe — the lead investigator currently assigned to Mikelle’s case — told Dateline that when investigators arrived at the home, they did an initial search of the house for signs that Mikelle may have been hiding inside. “And I was like, ‘She’s not here,’” Tracy said. “‘She wouldn’t hide. She’s 11 years old.’”
According to Det. Sipe, police quickly eliminated the possibility that Mikelle was hiding or that she had run away. “[Investigators] determined relatively quickly that it was a suspicious missing juvenile,” he told Dateline. “The nature of it was suspicious. So they started getting resources and detectives into the scene shortly after their — police arrival.”
Mikelle's father, Darien Biggs, received a page to call home as the scene unfolded. When he called the house, Tracy, his then-wife, told him that their daughter had gone missing. Darien told Dateline that the words initially didn’t make any sense to him. He headed home after hearing the news and said that when he arrived at his house, there was already a large police presence in the neighborhood as the initial searches for Mikelle began.
Detective Sipe told Dateline that the initial searches involved door-to-door interviews, on-foot searches, and helicopter flyovers. This marked the beginning of “if not the largest, probably one of the largest” missing persons cases in Arizona history, according to the detective.
The family told Dateline that it was chaotic in the days after Mikelle disappeared, but Kimber said she found it heartwarming that so many people would come and help look for her sister.
The Biggs family is still looking for answers 25 years later.
The Theory
About a 90-second window exists between the time that Kimber left her sister playing outside and when she returned and found Mikelle’s purple bicycle on the pavement. The Mesa Police Department believes that one of the neighbors, a man named Dee Lee Blalock, kidnapped Mikelle during that window.
Detective Sipe told Dateline that when police initially arrived at the scene, they interviewed known sex offenders in the surrounding area. According to the detective, Blalock was “classified as the most serious level” of sex offender at the time of Mikelle’s disappearance. Blalock’s wife at the time and her sister provided an alibi, telling investigators that Blalock had been with them inside his home all day.
According to court documents obtained by Dateline, in October of 1999, Blalock was charged with seven felonies for the physical and sexual assault of a neighbor. He is currently serving a 187.5 year prison sentence in the case.
Detective Sipe told Dateline that after Blalock was charged in that case, the Mesa Police Department once again began looking at him as a possible suspect in Mikelle’s case.
Shortly after Blalock went to prison, his now ex-wife and former sister-in-law revealed to police that they had lied about being with him on the evening of Mikelle’s disappearance. “They recanted those [original] statements and said that he had been gone sometime between the hours of 5:30 to about 7:30 at night,” Det. Sipe told Dateline.
The detective gave Dateline the Mesa Police Department’s official theory regarding Mikelle’s disappearance. “He’d been drinking beer in his garage watching the football game. He left his house shortly before the kidnapping, observed her alone because her sister had walked back into the house — so it was kind of a crime of opportunity,” Sipe told Dateline. “After he kidnapped her and left the neighborhood, we believe that he attempted to sexually assault her — or sexually assaulted her — and then, subsequently, killed her.”
According to Det. Sipe, Blalock has denied having any involvement in Mikelle’s disappearance multiple times over the years.
Darien and Tracy Biggs both told Dateline that they also believe Blalock was the person who kidnapped their daughter. They said that they were able to speak with him in prison. “[Blalock] told us that he didn’t — he didn’t take Mikelle, he had nothing to do with her, he doesn’t know anything about her. You know, so he totally denied everything,” Tracy said. “It just felt like he — he was just lying. Like everything he said was a lie.”
Tracy also said that Blalock told them something else about himself. “He kept telling us that he has a split personality and that he can’t be held responsible for what his other personalities do,” Tracy said. “He was crying, the — ‘Poor me. I’ve been accused of all these crimes and I never committed a single one of them.’” Detective Sipe told Dateline that he is unaware if Blalock has ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
A Quarter Century of Heartbreak
Tracy Biggs told Dateline that their family used to go to Big Sur, California on Mikelle’s birthday every year. “That’s what she wanted to do,” she told Dateline. “So that was her big family birthday every year, was ‘Go to Big Sur.’” The Biggs family continued that tradition for a few years after her disappearance, but it soon became too difficult for them — especially Darien. “So we quit going,” Tracy said.
Now on Mikelle’s birthday each year, as well as the anniversary of her disappearance, Tracy said she likes to get purple flowers. “Purple was her favorite color,” she said. She also buys and lights a purple candle on both of those days.
Five years after Mikelle’s disappearance, the Biggs family held a funeral service for her, accepting the likelihood that she is dead. “I believe we had spiritual closure,” Tracy told Dateline.
Tracy said she thinks about her daughter often. “Her memory is very much alive,” she said. “I do have moments that, all of a sudden, it just hits me. Or I — I kind of feel — I feel like she’s near and feel that presence.”
In 2018 — 19 years after Mikelle was last seen — there was a possible lead out of Wisconsin. It was a dollar bill with a message that read: “My name is Mikel Biggs kidnapped from Mesa, AZ I’m Alive.”
Authorities investigated the dollar bill, but quickly discounted it. The family told them they didn’t feel it was Mikelle’s handwriting, and “the name was misspelled,” Det. Sipe told Dateline. “She was old enough to spell her name correctly.”
And now, 25 years after Mikelle’s disappearance, the family is still looking for closure — and justice. “We still would like to find her body and have closure that way,” Tracy Biggs told Dateline. “We would like to find out who did it and make sure that they are accounted, you know, for their crime, and off the streets and can never hurt anybody else.”
Mikelle’s younger sister, Kimber, runs the Facebook account "Justice for Mikelle Biggs" where she shares information about coverage of Mikelle’s case and advocates for justice for her sister.
Since her sister’s disappearance, Kimber has become an advocate for other missing persons cases. At the end of 2023, Kimber was hired by the National Criminal Justice Training Center to give a presentation as part of a course aimed at teaching investigators how to properly handle victims’ families in missing persons cases.
She told Dateline that she felt like she was meant to become an advocate for missing people and their families. “I had many people thank me for what I do and give heartwarming feedback. I like to let them know I am eager to hear what could be improved to better help them, but every time they insisted it was perfect as is, which is both mind blowing and dignifying,” she wrote on Facebook after the event. “I am grateful, optimistic, and extremely motivated to continue in this, and beyond, to see what this world has in store for me.”
Tracy said that the family still holds Mikelle close to their hearts. “She’s still part of our family — always will be,” she told Dateline. “We love her and we care for her no matter what.”
At the time of her disappearance, 11-year-old Mikelle was 4’8’’ and 65 lbs. She has brown hair and hazel eyes. She would be 36 years old today. According to the Mikelle Biggs page on the Mesa Police Department website, “she was last seen wearing a red shirt with a white stripe across the chest and blue jeans with designs on the sides.”
Anyone with information about Mikelle’s disappearance is asked to contact the Mesa Police Department at (480) 644-2324.