It’s been a year since Codi Bigsby went missing. We’re still learning new details.
A Hampton man called police on the morning of Jan. 31, 2022, to report his 4-year-old son missing.
Cory Jamar Bigsby Jr. said he had last seen the boy, Codi, sleeping in his bed in their Buckroe Beach home at about 2 a.m. But when Bigsby woke up later that morning, he said, the toddler was gone.
There’s been no trace of Codi ever since — despite local searches by police and volunteer teams and even a police search last summer that covered ground in Maryland.
In the days after Codi was reported missing, police arrested and charged his father with felony child neglect — though the charges are not related to the boy’s disappearance. But a year on, police appear no closer to finding Codi and are still struggling to narrow the scope of their search.
Investigators, for example, still haven’t been able to determine when the child was last seen alive by anyone aside from his father. And they haven’t pinpointed a general location where the boy or his remains are likely to be.
“The frustrating piece is not to have anywhere to really direct us,” said Hampton Police spokesman Cpl. Ernest Williams. “We’re still plugging away at it. But we just don’t have anything fresh to go off of.”
An aunt told investigators she talked to Codi by phone about 13 months before he went missing — on either Thanksgiving or Christmas in 2020, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case.
As far as investigators can tell, that’s the last time anyone aside from the father talked to Codi.
Neighbors have said Codi and his three brothers — a now-6-year-old and twin 3-year-olds — hardly left the house. The children weren’t going to school and didn’t have any babysitters.
Two law enforcement sources said the boy’s mother, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, wasn’t much involved in his life. Nor were other family members.
Based on a statement Bigsby made while locked up on the other charges at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, police searched an outdoor area in Maryland, near Washington, several months ago, a law enforcement source said. But that didn’t turn up any leads on Codi’s whereabouts, either.
With a birthday earlier this month, Codi would now be 5 years old.
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Father’s criminal case
While little has developed in the search for Codi, the criminal case against his father has taken its own twists and turns.
The Hampton Police Division was openly skeptical of Cory Bigsby from the beginning, with Police Chief Mark Talbot saying in an early press conference that investigators don’t buy his story.
Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell has gone further, saying Codi is presumed dead and calling his father “the number one suspect for a probable homicide.” He said it was far-fetched that Codi would have walked out of the apartment in the middle of the night.
Bigsby, 44, was arrested on separate charges just days after reporting his son missing, based on statements he made to police while in custody.
Though he doesn’t face charges in his son’s disappearance, he now faces some 30 charges, many of them felony child neglect counts stemming from his admissions to police that he would sometimes leave Codi and his brothers alone for hours at a time. The pending charges include three counts of child abuse and two counts of failing to get medical attention for a child.
But law enforcement sources said their investigation into Bigsby regarding his son’s disappearance has been hampered because he didn’t have a traditional cellular phone plan that would allow detectives to gain access to his movements. He instead used phones that would occasionally be hooked up to free wireless services.
Over the last year, Bigsby has remained in jail even as his attorneys unsuccessfully sought bond numerous times.
His attorneys have also questioned whether statements Bigsby made while in custody were admissible. While Talbot has said his detectives “mishandled” Bigsby’s request to speak to an attorney during his time at police headquarters, a judge ultimately ruled the statements were admissible because they were made before he asked for a lawyer.
More recently, defense attorneys have brought up the issue of Bigsby’s competency to stand trial, with a judge last week ordering a second mental health evaluation on him.
Bigsby’s family has stood by him, speaking out to defend him against accusations. They’ve also held out hope that Codi could still be found alive and announced a $25,000 award for information leading to his whereabouts.
Cory’s family members contend he had nothing to do with his son’s disappearance, and say the police focus on him has been sorely misplaced. That’s set back the hunt for the person who actually abducted Codi, they say.
“It’s about the truth being told,” Cory’s uncle, the Rev. Glenn Hinnant, 65, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, told the media outside a court hearing last week. “You don’t know what happened to his son. What proof do you have that he did anything to his son?”
Hinnant said there were other possible suspects — such as registered sex offenders living in the area — that police have not investigated.
His wife — Cory’s aunt who served as a mother figure to him growing up — said she’s had a difficult time getting in touch with him in jail, with letters coming back unopened.
One of Bigsby’s attorneys, Amina Matheny-Willard, has called it a “false narrative” that he had anything to do with Codi’s disappearance. She said police have “overcharged” Bigsby by charging him with felonies for leaving his children home alone.
In cases when a child is left alone and hasn’t been injured, she said, the standard practice is to refer the case — without charges — to Child Protective Services, which then develops a “home safety plan” to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
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Searches continue
With the anniversary of Codi being reported missing, Matheny-Willard said Bigsby’s family and legal team “want to thank the community for keeping Codi in their prayers.”
“We remain hopeful and prayerful that Codi will be found alive,” she said.
Police, working with the FBI and other agencies, conducted organized searches for several weeks after Codi was reported missing, heavily focused on areas near the family’s Buckroe Beach home. But now they are looking only based on tips or other information that might come in.
On Dec. 21, a maintenance worker clearing leaves near the Kilgore Gifted Center near Andrews Boulevard came across a blanket with bones inside. Community members gathered at the site of the discovery, believing they might be Codi’s remains. But they turned out to be animal bones, police said later that afternoon.
A group that calls itself “Team Codi” and “Six Women ‘N a Notebook” has continued to conduct searches around the region. They attended a court hearing involving Cory Bigsby last week, hoping that “something would come out” about Codi’s disappearance.
“Kids just don’t just disappear off the face of the earth without a trace,” said one of those volunteers, Nancy Strickland, 54, of Virginia Beach. “That’s impossible.”
Joseph Slabinski, who runs W.A.T.E.R Team Inc. — a Newport News nonprofit that operates four boats with side sonar to look for missing people — said his group has spent several thousand man-hours searching local waterways for Codi.
They have searched Hampton Bay, Little Back River, the James River, Newmarket Creek and other waterways, Slabinski said. They also searched the marshy Poquoson Flats, a waterway and wooded area near the Boo Williams Sportsplex, and a large ditch near Naval Station Norfolk.
“Unfortunately we have no information to lead us in any direction as to where he could possibly be,” said Slabinski, who vowed not to stop searching until the boy was found.
One Saturday two weeks ago, two other civilian searchers, Bianca Wilson of Hampton and Tanisha Monroe of Virginia Beach, walked through a weeded area of Gosnold’s Hope Park, as the overcast skies dropped flakes of snow.
“We’re still trying to keep his name out there,” said Monroe, a teacher with a degree in counseling children with childhood trauma.
Williams, the Hampton Police spokesman, said police are still looking for leads that could provide clues about Codi’s whereabouts.
“Our biggest thing is that we’re open to any tips that come in,” he said. “We research every tip that comes in. We follow up on every one. And we’re hoping and praying that we get that one that really leads us to him.”
Anyone with information regarding the disappearance of Codi Bigsby is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Hampton Police at 757-727-6111.
Staff writer Ian Munro contributed to this report.
Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com
