Family listens to psychic who says girl was raped, killed, buried behind school

BRIDGETON — A woman who says that she can speak with the dead says a missing 5-year-old girl whose whereabouts have eluded authorities for months was raped, strangled and buried behind her elementary school.

How does she know? The psychic says she heard it from the spirit of little Dulce Maria Alavez herself.

"The girl told me — Dulce Maria told me that she is buried behind the school she attended," the woman says in Spanish on the 16-minute video that she uploaded Wednesday to her Marcy Spiritual Guide channel on YouTube.

This is not the first time that a self-described psychic has offered help in the search for the girl, who investigators believe may have been abducted on Sept. 16.

Perhaps an indication of their desperation, Dulce's family is taking this video message seriously.

Family spokeswoman Jackie Rodriguez said volunteers on Sunday will search the woods behind Buckshutem Road School where Dulce had just started kindergarten this year.

Rodriguez said the psychic's message has captured the attention of the local community.

"She came out of nowhere. We had another psychic who drove six hours to meet the family twice, but the Mexican community has really engaged into this," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said she has struggled to get volunteers to look on weekends but that changed once the psychic posted her video.

"Its crazy how people waited four months to go look and now look for a dead person," she said.

The video includes drawings that the psychic says Dulce's spirit made, showing where she was taken.

The woman in the video says the abductor had staked out Dulce for some time and that he tricked her into going into his truck by calling her by her name and telling her that her mother had sent him to get her.

The woman says Dulce told her that she was raped in the man's truck and then raped again after he choked her to death.

The woman says Dulce was buried in a shallow grave because tree roots prevented the killer from digging deeper.

"That poor girl cannot rest," the psychic says in Spanish, adding that she has tried to counsel Dulce's spirit to go to heaven by teaching her to pray to her guardian angel.

She says she told authorities about her paranormal communications but says that a massive organized search of the woods will be needed rather than the cursory look conducted by investigators.

"The family had nothing to do with this, especially her mother," she says at one point, referring to suspicions some people have shared online.

Before she vanished, Dulce was playing with her 3-year-old brother at Bridgeton City Park while their mother tended to her own younger sister.

The last reported sighting of the girl came from a young witness who told police that she was seen walking with a man toward a red van at Bridgeton City Park.

A combined $75,000 reward has been raised by several law enforcement agencies, businesses and TV host Dr. Phil McGraw, who interviewed Dulce's mother, Noema Alavez Perez, in December.

No significant evidence has been developed to indicate where Dulce may be but the case remains under investigation by the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office, State Police, Bridgeton police and the FBI.

Meanwhile, Perez is expected to deliver her third child, a girl, "any day now," according to Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said Dulce's mother was "very hurt and sad" because Mayor Albert Kelly has not followed through on promises to bring attention to Dulce.

Kelly said he would hang a banner with Dulce's picture at City Hall, put up a sign in Bridgeton Park and mention Dulce in his weekly column on the city website.

"I can understand their disappointment. The signage for our city to display is arriving tomorrow that will include banners, decals and bumper stickers," Kelly said. "I have been awaiting these items and was promised that they will arrive on the 31st. The signage is arriving from California as per a donor. Thank you for keeping this issue alive and I am sure we will find her."