Child’s murder still frustrates Orange police

For The Record

The 15^th anniversary of the unsolved murder of 4-year-old Dannarriah Finley is not going unnoticed by the detectives at the Orange Police Department.

Tuesday, Capt. Robert Enmon said, “the Dannarriah Finley case is always on our mind.”

He added that his office had recently resubmitted old evidence to undergo new DNA lab testing.

“We have recently reviewed that case,” Enmon said.

“We converted old VHS videos to DVDs to help with the preservation of evidence. We had a team of detectives go over every piece of evidence and confirm the need to retest some evidence.

“That evidence has been sent to the state.

“I’m not sure how long it will take but it’s promising that new technology will discover something we couldn’t years ago.”

Finley disappeared from her Orange home on 4^th Street sometime between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. on July 4, 2002.

Area citizens reacted to news of the missing girl by volunteering to help search for the 4-year-old. Helicopters and horses assisted in the search.

Four days later, her body was found on Pleasure Island in Port Arthur by a pipeline inspector, wrapped in a bed sheet.

She had been sexually assaulted before being strangled to death, an autopsy revealed.

Detectives from Port Arthur joined OPD to work the case. The Texas Rangers and Federal Bureau of Investigation lent assistance.

The killer remains unidentified.

“Looking at cold cases is something we do periodically,” Enmon said.

“All our homicides are major cases, but that one – where a young girl was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, murdered and left out for the alligators – that one’s always on our mind.

“A lot of times when we get new detectives we’ll give them old homicides for some new eyes. We’re in the process of investigating four other old homicides as well.”