38 years later, a look into the Christina White disappearance
ASOTIN, WA — This week marks 38 years since a 12-year-old girl vanished from Asotin, without a trace, but this cold case is still very much active. On April 28th 1979, Christina White disappeared. Her family, the community, and law enforcement searched, but to date have never found any answers why a young vibrant girl suddenly went missing, but there’s a detective who won't let this case be forgotten.
The Asotin County Fair rolls into town at the end of April every year, drawing hundreds of folks to the quiet, and typically calm town of Asotin. But this is also a time of year that brings back a specific memory. The memory of a mystery, of a girl who seemingly vanished into thin air.
" At that time... things like that didn't happen around here."
Detective Jackie Nichols with the Asotin County Sheriff's Office has spent years now trying to piece together the mystery that unfolded on April 28th 1979, on the streets of Asotin.
Detective Nichols said, "That was the day Christina White. She was 12-years-old, went missing and she's never been found."
Now 38 years later Detective Nichols refuses to let Christina's memory fade, "I have her picture up there just to kind of always remind me because it is a cold case, it's easy to let those cases get pushed aside, and I just don't want them to be forgotten."
In the morning hours of April 28th, Christina white went to watch the parade that celebrated the arrival of the Asotin County Fair. Soon after she went to help a friend. "She had planned to go with a friend to help with a horse up at the fairgrounds." Said Detective Nichols.
But Christina said she wasn't feeling well, having suffered heat stroke in the past and it was hot that day, so she went back to her friend's house. Detective Nichols said, "So she had called her mom and said she wasn't feeling well, and asked her mom to come get her."
Her mom said she could not pick her up and told her to walk five blocks to the corner where she would watch for her form two blocks away up near their home. Christina never made it to that corner, she disappeared.
Sometime between when she hung up the phone, and the minutes it would take to get to that street corner, she vanished.
There are no answers, but there are clues, and those clues point to a possible connection with murders across the river... in Lewiston.
Detective Nichols said, "They realized perhaps this person was responsible not only for the three people in Lewiston but also Christina white's disappearance."
"It was Christina White's mother... that told us the suspects name,” said Gloria Bobertz.
That is only the beginning. Detective Nichols believes, Christina White's disappearance may be connected to two murders, and a disappearance that happened a few years later.
Part two of... “Where is Christina White?” is coming up tomorrow.
