On the evening of Sunday, May 24, 2009, five-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan of Monroe, MI was playing outside on her scooter without parental supervision. A little girl came to the door to tell Nevaeh’s mother, Jennifer Buchanan, that Nevaeh was riding her scooter in the road. Jennifer went outside to tell Nevaeh to stay on the sidewalk, but just that quick, Nevaeh had vanished. A massive search got underway with no success. Roy Smith and George Kennedy, two sex offenders with ties to Jennifer Buchanan, were arrested almost immediately for being associated with a child, which was a violation of their probation.

Another person of interest, James Easter, was brought in for questioning on May 30th. He started burning things in his backyard within five minutes of returning home from the questioning, but was later cleared as a person of interest. He may have been cleared, but I still wonder why somebody would start burning things within five minutes of returning home from a police interview at five o’clock in the morning.

Nevaeh’s family held out hope that she was still alive during the eleven days she was missing, but on June 4th, fishermen Lowell Kirk and his stepson Guy Bickley discovered Nevaeh’s body buried by the Raisin River, covered by cement. An empty beer can and a cigarette butt found near the body were sent to the crime lab for testing. An autopsy showed that Nevaeh suffocated after inhaling dirt.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s office has been very tight-lipped about the case.
Monroe County Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield said he hasn’t shared many details of the investigation because the perpetrator is still out there and he doesn’t want the perpetrator to know what they know. George Kennedy and Roy Smith are still behind bars, so I wonder if the statement about the perpetrator still being out there means that Kennedy and Smith have been ruled out as suspects.

Officials have told Jennifer Buchanan that Nevaeh’s body showed no signs of sexual assault, so that leads me to wonder what the killer’s motive was. Most of us thought for sure that Nevaeh had been killed by some pervert who sexually assaulted her. If that wasn’t the case, could a possible motive have been revenge for an unpaid drug debt? I can’t comprehend why somebody would just snatch a child and bury them alive without some kind of motive.

There are still many unanswered questions in this case. Why was Nevaeh killed? Did the beer can or cigarette butt have the killer’s DNA on it? Have George Kennedy and Roy Smith been ruled out as suspects? Does the sheriff’s office have a person of interest that they haven’t revealed? These questions will likely go unanswered until an arrest has been made in this case.

The Sheriff is still asking for tips in the case. They have set up a Nevaeh Buchanan Task Force and are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the abduction and murder of Nevaeh Buchanan. Anyone with information is asked to call the Task Force at (734) 457-6713.