“This is like putting a puzzle together; right now we have the frame, and we need to build the picture. So we need your help in building that picture.”
Opelika Police Chief Thomas Mangham said to the public while releasing a composite sketch of a deceased young girl whose identity was, at the time, unknown.
It was only days earlier that the girl’s remains had been found, on January 28, 2012, at the Brookhaven Trailer Park on Hurst Street in Opelika, Alabama. A resident’s young son had been playing outside when he chanced upon a small human skull.
His mother promptly contacted police, who arrived and searched the surrounding area. Subsequently, they recovered additional skeletal remains, along with a small bundle of curly hair and a pink child’s shirt.
Clues in the Bones
The forensic study of these remains revealed that the victim had been a Black female child, believed to have been between four and seven years old. Without a name or any identifiable indications, the remains were dubbed Opelika Jane Doe.
When the results of the forensic study came to light, police understood that this was not simply a case of an unidentified child whose circumstances were unknown. An anthropological assessment from her bones indicated that she may have suffered from malnutrition and had been blinded in her left eye as a result of an injury to her eye socket, which might have either been natural or inflicted.
Further forensic examination of the bones showed signs of extensive trauma, with more than fifteen fractures located across her skull, arms, legs, shoulders and ribs.
The injuries appeared to have occurred before her death and even showed signs of healing, which indicated that the child may have endured previous instances of physical violence as well.
With no name to attach to the remains, investigators turned to forensic reconstruction. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children worked with investigators and its forensic artists to create images depicting what the girl may have looked like while alive.
Investigators also examined school and birth records in an attempt to identify her, but these efforts initially produced no answer.
Eleven Years Without a Name
Police became hopeful in September 2016, when a former Vacation Bible school teacher at the Greater Peace Church in Opelika was able to procure photographs of a child who resembled the deceased from the summer of 2011.
The teacher remembered that the child was about 4 or 5 years old, with a slightly unkempt appearance. She also said the child had trouble communicating with others and mostly kept to herself.
Investigators used software to enhance the child’s photo, but it didn’t lead to any productive leads at the time, despite their best efforts.
A Breakthrough Through DNA
Despite their efforts, the case remained unsolved for more than a decade. Investigators reviewed more than 15,000 case files from the Alabama Department of Public Health and followed thousands of tips, but none produced a definitive identification.
Finally, advances in DNA technology led to a breakthrough in January 2022, when investigators attempted to extract usable DNA from the remains for genetic genealogy.
Othram Laboratories obtained a DNA profile from the child’s scalp, while Astrea Forensics obtained another profile from her hair. They then uploaded the resulting genealogical profile to a DNA database, where it could be compared with genetic information from distant relatives.
Investigators then enlisted Dr. Barbara Rae-Venter of Firebird Forensics Group, an experienced genetic genealogist, to work through the potential familial matches.
The investigation eventually led the police to Lamar Vickerstaff Jr., who was identified as Jane Doe’s biological father in October 2022. Vickerstaff was born and raised in Opelika before joining the U.S. Navy and later lived in several states during his military career.
Jane Doe Gets a Name
The child was named Amore Joveah Wiggins and was born on 1st January 2006. Shortly after her birth, her biological parents, Sherry Wiggins and Lamar Vickerstaff Jr., had separated. Vickerstaff married Ruth Vickerstaff in May 2006, when Amore was only four months old.
During the first two years of Amore’s life, Ruth would pick the child up for visits with the Vickerstaffs, which Sherry later described as occurring “without incident.”
This arrangement changed in 2009, when Lamar and Ruth obtained legal and physical custody of Amore. As part of that custody arrangement, Sherry’s visitation rights were suspended.
Sherry’s contact with Amore became limited to paying child support only, with her visitation rights being suspended after the custody arrangement changed.
In fact, Sherry had had no direct contact with Amore during her time with the Vickerstaffs, and continued paying child support for more than 13 years after Amore had died, believing that her daughter was alive.
In these circumstances, the burning question of where Amore had been between the time she was last known to be alive and the discovery of her remains in 2012 became integral to the investigation.
Detectives reached out to school districts and medical facilities in the states where the Vickerstaff family had lived, but there appeared to be very little official record of Amore’s existence after she entered the Vickerstaff household. She was not enrolled in school, and strangely, no missing-child report had been filed for her.
The photographs taken during the 2011 Vacation Bible School at Greater Peace Baptist Church in Opelika finally helped the police.
Through these, police were able to find constructive proof of the fact that Amore had been in Opelika months before her demise. It also provided investigators with one of the few known photographs of her from the final period of her life.
Like the Molly Bish case, Amore’s case took years to solve, before investigators could arive at a decisive clue.
The Investigation Turns Home
For obvious reasons, the blame fell upon Amore’s biological father, Lamar Vickerstaff, who had been legally responsible for her care before her death.
Detectives traveled to Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida, where Vickerstaff was stationed, and informed him that his daughter had been identified as the previously unidentified child found in Opelika.
According to police, Vickerstaff did not provide information explaining what had happened to Amore.
Ruth Vickerstaff, Lamar’s wife since 2006, was also unhelpful. Reportedly, she told detectives that she had not known that Lamar had a daughter or who Amore’s mother was, even though the child’s custody had been entrusted to her.
As previously mentioned, detectives had already learned that Amore had been placed in the care of Lamar and Ruth in 2009, when she was three years old. Her biological mother, Sherry Wiggins, had subsequently lost visitation rights, although she continued to make child support payments.
In these circumstances, Ruth’s statements made little sense.
Charges Against the Vickerstaffs
Once detectives had established the connection between Amore and the Vickerstaff family, they began examining the circumstances surrounding her death.
On January 17, 2023, more than eleven years after Amore’s remains were discovered, police arrested Lamar Vickerstaff Jr. and Ruth Vickerstaff in Jacksonville, Florida.
Lamar was charged with felony murder, while Ruth was charged with failure to report a missing child.
Detective Alfred White testified that Ruth Vickerstaff had given investigators a different account of her relationship with Amore after her arrest.
White reported that Ruth acknowledged she had previously lied when she told detectives she did not know Amore. She reportedly said that she had become overwhelmed while caring for the child and had asked Lamar to “take Amore to his family.” According to the detective, Ruth said that this was the last time she saw Amore.
WTVM reports that Ruth told White she had previously received a visit from Child Protective Services while she was living in Virginia and Lamar was deployed with the Navy. White further testified that the CPS involvement followed an anonymous report from someone who knew Ruth and had observed injuries on Amore.
Opelika Police Chief Shane Healey described the broader picture even more starkly. After the arrests, he said investigators believed there had been “significant abuse” occurring over potentially the last year of Amore’s life and suggested that something was wrong within the family dynamic and that Amore was “not well received.”
Lamar’s Version of Events
Detective White testified that military records indicated Lamar had been deployed between approximately October 2010 and October 2011. Police believed Amore’s death occurred sometime between the summer of 2010 and 2011.
“He stated that once he made it to Alabama, he drove around. I asked him where he was going; he said he didn’t really know. He said he was just driving,” said Detective White.
“He recalled placing her where she was ultimately found, however, he would not give detail how he “did it” but he did mention he made attempts to resuscitate her”.
The most significant allegation emerged when Detective White described Lamar’s police interview.
“He eventually gave knowledge that she knew she was deceased… he repeatedly said that he did it – he wanted his wife to not be charged, and that is what he was seeking from some sort of deal he wanted to make,” White said.
A Mother’s Search for Her Daughter
Lamar was subsequently denied bond. Ruth, meanwhile, was granted bond and ordered to wear an ankle monitor while living in Jacksonville, Florida.
Amore’s biological mother, Sherry Wiggins, had a completely different perspective, though. To the utter shock of all the detectives, Sherry had thought her daughter was still alive.
“She [Sherry] had no idea that she was missing,” Opelika Police Chief Shane Healey told the press. “She thought that she was with her father. She didn’t know she was missing until we contacted her in December.”
Hoping to meet her daughter when she finally turned 18, Sherry had continued to pay child support.
“I felt like they made me feel so bad about myself. Kept trying, and the doors kept being closed. I felt like the best I could do was live out my financial obligation, which I never stopped. I felt like one day I could tell her, ‘I never gave up on you,’ and all I could do was take care of you financially,” she lamented.
Furthermore, she stated that the thought that the worst Lamar and Ruth had done was to turn Amore against her biological mother; she never imagined that they’d harmed Amore, let alone killed her.
Investigators assumed that people in Lamar’s family did know what had happened to Amore, but had intentionally kept it under wraps.
The police found no evidence showing Amore visited a doctor. “The last years of her life were traumatic, to say the least,” they said.
The Case Against the Vickerstaffs
Understandably, the news was quite a shock for Sherry Wiggins. When asked about what she would like to say of Lamar Vickerstaff, she seemed at a loss for words.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start. It always wandered in my mind, all the whys, but now it’s no justification, because now my child is gone,” she said.
She further lamented that if things had gone too intense, she herself could’ve taken custody of the child, and when asked, said that she “at least tried every other year” to approach the court for custody.
She expressed an intense dislike towards both Ruth and Lamar Vickerstaff, praying that they “get everything that [they] deserve… and suffer the way that [Amore] did.”
An Unfinished Case
Lamar Vickerstaff was charged with felony murder as well as a separate charge for failure to report a missing child, while Ruth faced the latter charge alone.
Neither case has reached a final verdict yet, and although the arrests and preliminary proceedings produced allegations and evidence, they did not result in convictions.
“She’s no longer ‘Jane Doe’,” Sherry Wiggins says while speaking of her daughter. “And she does have a name, and her name means something very special.”
“After more than a decade, we finally know that this beautiful little girl was Amore Wiggins. Her case is another example of how answers are always possible, even years later, and why it is so important to never give up hope,” the police said.
For more true crime stories involving unsolved disappearances, read our articles on Jane Longhurst and Leah Roberts.
