Nonprofit group joins search for missing NJ girl Dulce María Alavez

A nonprofit private investigator group has joined the search for a missing New Jersey girl who mysteriously vanished from a park more than three years ago. 

Dulce María Alavez, then 5 years old, disappeared from a park in Bridgeton, New Jersey, on September 16, 2019. Despite massive manhunts yielding no results, investigators say they believe the girl may still be alive.

Authorities believe Dulce was abducted as she played with her 3-year-old brother and her 8-year-old niece. Her mother, Noema Alavez Pérez, had been watching the kids from a car when the suspected kidnapper struck.

Each child had an ice cream in hand as they ran toward the playground, Alavez Pérez told NBC10. About 10 minutes later, the mother saw the 3-year-old boy upset and crying, his ice cream on the ground and his sister nowhere to be found.

The boy pointed behind some buildings saying his sister went that way, Alavez Pérez said, adding that she initially thought the girl was playing hide-and-seek. However, Dulce never turned up despite massive multi-agency and community-led searches.

Investigators think Dulce may have been taken by a man who had been near the park on the day of her disappearance, and they believe he may have driven off in a red van. They described him as a light-skinned, possibly Hispanic man standing between 5-feet-6 and 5-feet-8 with a thin build and acne on his face.

The search for the girl has not ceased and has spanned from western states all the way to Mexico, where the FBI said Dulce’s father resides and has cooperated with authorities.

Now, more than three years since her disappearance, the Florida-based nonprofit, Anti-Predator Project is joining the effort to find her. 

“We’re going to rebuild this case from day one, from the ground up and we’re going to look at it with fresh eyes from different angles and see if there’s something that maybe somebody missed,” Trent Steele, the founder of the organization, told NBC10. 

Steele said the decade-old group specializes in human and sex trafficking, cyber predators, forceful abductions and missing children cases. 

“We tend to get calls from people that don’t really have anywhere else to turn. They have looked everywhere else. They can’t get answers,” Steele said. 

The FBI, Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Bridgeton Police Department have all been part of the search for Dulce. Steele told NBC10 his group hasn’t spoken to law enforcement about their involvement yet. 

“That’s on our agenda to get done here in the next couple of weeks,” Steele said. 

Steele said his group always proceeds with caution and without jeopardizing any investigation or outcome. 

“Ask them, ‘Listen, is there something we can do to assist you? Is there a gap that you don’t have filled?’” Steele said. 

Steele told NBC10 he wasn’t sure if cyber exports or technology will help solve the case. 

“This is not a case where Dulce was behind a computer talking to strange men,” Steele said. “This is a little girl who went to the park to play. Chances are the answers are going to lie somewhere near that park. The answers are going to lie in the city or in that neighborhood.” 

Steele also mentioned that just last month, his group helped find a woman who had been missing for a decade. 

“We recently had a case where we were able to get a young lady home that had been missing for ten years from Mexico,” he said. 

Steele added that the group’s members aren’t magicians and don’t make any promises. He also said his team is creative and searches for gaps in current investigations however. 

“What we do promise is this. Our team is going to move heaven and earth and do everything we can to get you answers,” he said. “There’s no child on this planet that just disappears. No individual that just disappears. There’s always somebody who knows something.” 

Bridgeton Police confirmed with NBC10 on Wednesday that they plan to meet with the Anti-Predator Project. 

Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McCrae also told NBC10, “we thank any effort to keep Dulce’s disappearance in the public conversation.” 

Alavez Pérez, meanwhile, has not given up hope that she’ll find her daughter. 

“There’s some days that they’re harder than other days but I try to be strong for Dulce and even my other kids,” she said. 

She is also welcoming of anyone who is offering to help. 

“It’s been way too long since I don’t know nothing about Dulce,” she said. “I want to know what happened to her. And I want her home and to me it makes me happy because they’re bringing more people to help in this case.”

Anyone with information on Dulce’s whereabouts is asked to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (843-5678), the Bridgeton Police Department at 1-856-451-0033, or the FBI at 1-800-225-5324. Anonymous tips can also be submitted online to the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office.