Mikelle Biggs

Case background and investigation

Mikelle Biggs was 11 years old when she disappeared from her neighborhood in Mesa, Arizona, on Saturday, January 2, 1999. According to ABC15 and other Phoenix-area outlets, she was riding a bicycle near the intersection of Toltec and El Moro Avenue, close to her home, and was waiting for an ice cream truck that the children had heard in the area. FOX 10 Phoenix reported that the bicycle belonged to her younger sister.

Her sister Kimber, then nine, was the last person known to have seen her. Kimber has told reporters that she went into the house briefly and that when she came back Mikelle was gone and the bicycle was lying in the road with a wheel still turning. ABC15 reported that the bicycle and two quarters were the only items found at the scene, and that investigators believe whatever happened took about 90 seconds. Published accounts differ on the time, placing it between about 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Arizona's Family reported that police arrived within hours, closed off the street and organised searches, with helicopters and volunteers distributing posters. Mikelle was not found. ABC15 reported that the Mesa Police Department has received thousands of tips over the years, many of them false.

In March 2018, a dollar bill carrying a handwritten message with Mikelle's name was found in Wisconsin and passed to police. FOX 10 Phoenix reported that investigators looked into it and concluded it was not a credible lead. Around the 20th anniversary, Mesa police told the station that the disappearance remained an open case with no strong new leads.

In coverage marking 25 years, ABC15 reported that Detective Paul Sipe had become the lead investigator and that he described Dee Blalock, a man with sex-offence convictions who lived in the neighborhood in 1999, as the person of interest in the case. According to ABC15, Blalock has never been charged in connection with Mikelle's disappearance; he is in prison for unrelated violent crimes committed some months after she vanished. No arrest has been made in the case, and being named by police as a person of interest is not a finding of responsibility.

Kimber Biggs has continued to publicise the case, and in 2024 Arizona's Family reported that the family was working with a filmmaker on a documentary. In May 2026 the same outlet reported that the case was still open after 27 years and that Mesa police were asking anyone with information to contact the department's Homicide Unit.