Mikelle Biggs disappeared 25 years ago in Mesa. Will her case be solved soon?

The last memory Kimber Biggs has of her sister, Mikelle Biggs, the Mesa 11-year-old who disappeared in 1999, is of Mikelle riding a bike at the end of their quiet suburban street as dusk fell.

"She was standing on the pedals, and the sun was setting, and her hair was blowing behind her. With the sun in her hair, it looked very golden," said Kimber, 34, who was 9 at the time. "She just looked so happy. She had a big smile on her face. She was just enjoying riding the bike."

It's been 25 years since Mikelle disappeared on Jan. 2, 1999. Her disappearance set off one of the largest searches in Arizona history and became a national news story, a symbol of every parent's worst nightmare. An arrest was never made, and her body was never found.

Now, Kimber is hopeful that the Mesa Police Department could be close to solving the case and making an arrest.

A detective, Paul Sipe, who is now the lead investigator in the case, recently told Dateline that the Mesa Police Department believes Dee Lee Blalock, a former neighbor, kidnapped Mikelle during a 90-second window between the time Kimber left Mikelle riding a bike and when Kimber returned to find the bike lying on the street and Mikelle gone.

Blalock is currently behind bars serving a 187-year sentence for a brutal attack on a woman who lived in the same neighborhood. That attack was about nine months after Mikelle disappeared.

Sipe told Dateline the Mesa Police Department's official theory is that Blalock abducted Mikelle and then killed her.

“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.”

In a telephone interview, Kimber said the official theory Sipe provided to Dateline is not new. She said her family first heard the theory from police around 2009 when she was a young adult. She said her family also believes Blalock is responsible for Mikelle's disappearance. The family, however, has not shared details about the police investigation to avoid jeopardizing the case, she said.

Sipe's comments to Dateline are the first time her family has heard police state the theory publicly, she said.

"I would say I'm hopeful," said Kimber. It's the 25-year anniversary of Mikelle's disappearance, she said, and there is a new detective on the case.

"I'm definitely trying not to get my hopes up too high. I don't want to be let down," Kimber added. "But I definitely feel like, at this time, anything is possible."

Sipe told ABC15 that Blalock remains the person of interest in the case.

Darien Biggs, Mikelle's father, said the Mesa police detective's comments to Dateline about Blalock are significant.

"We were aware of it from almost the beginning, but that's the first time, to my knowledge, that the police department said anything like that," said Darien, now 60 and living in Colorado.

He believes the detective's comments about Blalock may be "another tactic" by police to get Blalock to confess.

"I hoped that Blalock would get religion and find Jesus and decide to tell us — or maybe he gets a terminal illness and makes a deathbed confession," Darien said. "So it doesn't necessarily, to me, mean that they're getting closer. It's just another way to try to maybe get him to react."

Like Kimber, Darien is tempering his expectations.

"You got to understand, it's been 25 years, and, you know, there have been thousands of leads, and some of them were major and some weren't," Darien said. "So I don't ride that roller coaster anymore. I just take it as it comes. And if this pans out, great. And if it doesn't happen, it's just one more thing."

Det. Brandi Myers, a spokesperson for the Mesa Police Department, turned down a request from The Arizona Republic for an interview with Sipe. Sipe is not answering questions about the case at this time, Myers said.

Kimber said her reason for hope, however, has more to do with a gut feeling than the comments Sipe recently made to media outlets.

"I've always firmly believed that I would get answers in my lifetime, and it just kind of feels like this is that pivotal point," Kimber said.

Mikelle Biggs' family is seeking answers and closure

The past 25 years have been agonizing not knowing what happened to Mikelle, though the family believes she is no longer alive, Kimber said. Solving the case would bring some relief and closure, she said, especially if Mikelle's body were found and could be laid to rest. The family has an empty grave site for her.

"To be able to put her there and physically go visit that grave and know that we got answers and we are seeing justice and that she is at peace, it would be like a huge weight off of all of us," Kimber said.

She said it's been frustrating that 25 years have passed and her sister's case has not been solved. But she tries not to get angry.

"It does feel kind of unfair, you know. why has my family had to wait 25 years?" Kimber said. "And if we don't get answers in the coming years, why do we have to suffer the questions and the uncertainty for so long? It's certainly very hard to deal with."

"It's one of those things where I have to not get angry about it because that is hurting myself more than anything. But it is absolutely frustrating," Kimber added.

Who was Mikelle Biggs?

Mikelle Biggs was 11 when she disappeared on Jan. 2, 1999, near her family's home near East El Moro Avenue and South Toltec in Mesa.

Her disappearance became national news. Mikelle was the oldest daughter of four children.

She had blond hair, hazel eyes and a toothy grin. She was 4 feet 8 inches and weighed 65 pounds when she disappeared.

She was an honor student at Lindbergh Elementary School in Mesa. She also played the clarinet and piano.

On the day she disappeared, Mikelle was wearing bell-bottom jeans, a red T-shirt with her school's name written across it and a necklace with charms.

Kimber said Mikelle was a typical older sister.

"She was kind of hard to live up to, and we'd butt heads a lot, but I also wanted to be just like her," Kimber said.

Mikelle was also very funny and sarcastic, Kimber said. Once, Kimber told their mother she had finished cleaning her room. Mikelle offered to check it.

Mikelle went into the room and literally drew a checkmark on the wall with her finger, Kimber said. Then Mikelle cracked up laughing.

"She said, 'I checked the room.' She thought it was the funniest thing in the world. That was very much her sense of humor," Kimber said.

Kimber said she and Mikelle were also opposites. While Kimber was messy, Mikelle was clean and organized. They shared a room, and sometimes they drove each other crazy.

"She could not stand my toys always on the floor and not picking up my clothes or not making my bed. She just used to get on to me all the time about how I needed to be more clean and organized. It drove me crazy. I couldn't stand how much of a neat freak she was compared to me," Kimber said.

Kimber now looks back on those memories fondly.

"Man, I aspire to be as much of a neat freak as she was then. I wish my house was as clean as she kept her bedroom at 11 years old," Kimber said.

How did Mikelle Biggs disappear?

Mikelle and Kimber played with Christmas toys on the afternoon of Mikelle's disappearance. Mikelle had returned home a few hours earlier from a sleepover.

Mikelle got bored and wanted to go outside and play, but Kimber didn't. Mikelle borrowed Kimber's pink bike and was riding around with other kids in the neighborhood. Their mother told Kimber that Mikelle had heard the ice cream truck coming and had asked for money. Kimber decided to go outside and join Mikelle. Kimber brought their dog along.

"I remember being annoyed that she was riding my bike," Kimber said. "I'm pretty sure she had her own bike. Either mine was new, and she really liked it, or hers needed to be pumped up or something, so she just rode my bike without asking."

When it started getting darker and colder, Kimber began whining that she wanted to go inside. But Mikelle didn't want to go in.

"I think she had given up that the ice cream truck was going to come. I think she was just enjoying riding the bike," Kimber said.

Kimber told Mikelle she was going inside and told Mikelle she had to go home, too.

"She said something to the effect, 'No, I don't,'" Kimber said.

Kimber remembers walking home. When she looked back, Mikelle was riding in big loops where El Moro ends at Toltec because she wasn't supposed to leave their street.

"She didn't go down Toltec. She stayed on El Moro," Kimber said.

When Kimber got home, their mother told Kimber to go back outside and tell Mikelle to come home because it was getting dark. Kimber shouted Mikelle's name but heard no response.

She went back out and found the bike on its side on the road with the wheels still spinning. The two quarters their mother had given Mikelle for ice cream were found nearby on the pavement.

The girl's disappearance prompted a massive search by neighbors and police. Police conducted door-to-door searches, and volunteers passed out fliers with Mikelle's photo from Lindbergh Elementary School.

Who is Dee Lee Blalock?

Dee Blalock lived two blocks from the Biggses.

He was convicted in October 2000 on multiple charges for the sexual assault and kidnapping of a woman who lived near the Biggs house. The attack happened in September 1999, nearly nine months after Mikelle disappeared. In an ambulance on the way to the hospital, the woman accused Blalock of abducting Mikelle.

Police later questioned Blalock, who had earlier convictions in three states for sexual assault, kidnapping and child molestation. He told police he was home in his garage tinkering with a broken lawn mower while watching the Arizona Cardinals on TV, an alibi confirmed by his wife at the time. Police searched his home but found nothing. They also obtained a warrant to search a trailer in his backyard, but when police returned, the trailer was gone.

Sipe, the Mesa detective, told Dateline that shortly after Blalock went to prison, his now ex-wife and former sister-in-law told police 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,” Sipe told Dateline.

Kimber told The Republic in 2017 that her parents believed Mikelle was inside the trailer.

Blalock agreed to meet Mikelle's parents, Tracy and Darien, face to face in prison. During the meeting, Darien said, he and Tracy asked Blalock several times through the glass while on phones if he had taken Mikelle. Each time Blalock said no, Darien said.

"He denied it flat out every which way that I asked him," Darien said. But he still came away from the meeting with the feeling that Blalock took Mikelle, he said.

ABC15 found a video the outlet shot of a man who appears to be Blalock attending a block watch event 10 days after Mikelle disappeared.

In the video, the man says, "If you're my neighbor and I see that you're living next to me, and I see something suspicious going on ... I guarantee you I'd be calling 911," ABC15 reported.

Blalock, 67, was sentenced to 187 years in prison for the September 1999 attack, according to court records. Blalock remains in prison, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections. His projected release date is July 7, 2175.

Kimber Biggs' advice to police, from the victim family perspective

Kimber now lives in Gilbert. She has an 11-year-old son.

In October, she started a job with the National Criminal Justice Training Center at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin.

As part of her job, she travels around the country to give a one-hour presentation on the victim family perspective to law enforcement officers and first responders participating in a three-day training course on child abduction cases.

"I start the course off giving my presentation, what it was like working with law enforcement, what it was like growing up with a missing sibling, long-term effects on me and my family, and how I feel law enforcement can improve when working with victims," Kimber said.

She advises law enforcement officers and first responders to do everything they can to explain to children what is happening and reassure them that they are safe.

"You know, just break it down for a little 9-year-old to understand" and reassure them that they are safe and the people they care about are safe, Kimber said.

In the presentation, she describes her own experience of being questioned by police away from her parents. She felt scared trying to answer questions, she says, while sitting on a curb, alone, amid the chaos of police officers and cars, flashing lights, media and people everywhere.

"I don't remember at what point I heard the word 'kidnapping' or 'kidnapped.' That is not something that was even in my vocabulary at that time," Kimber said. "I was like shell shocked. I had just learned how dangerous the world was ... and I just didn't feel safe."

Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8312.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mikelle Biggs disappeared 25 years ago. Will her case be solved soon?