Bones are Opal's, examiner says

FORT WORTH - Skeletal remains found more than a week ago in northwest Fort Worth are those of Opal Jennings, the 6-year-old girl abducted as she played outside her grandparents' Saginaw home in 1999, DNA testing has determined.

Opal died from a crushing blow to the head, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. Her death has been officially ruled a homicide, the release states.

The confirmation, made through DNA tests, ends an almost five-year mystery about what happened to Opal.

Opal was playing with two younger children near her grandparents' home on March 26, 1999, when she was grabbed by an unknown man and forced into a car. She had not been seen since. Authorities later arrested Richard Lee Frank of Fort Worth, who acknowledged to police that he gave Opal a ride to a convenience store but said he dropped her off safely the day she disappeared. Despite Opal's unknown whereabouts, a jury convicted Franks in 2000 of aggravated kidnapping in Opal's case and he was sentenced to life in prison. On Dec. 30, a couple riding horses called police after they spotted a section of skull in a culvert about 100 yards north of Western Oaks Road, near the western shore of Lake Worth.

An extensive search by police, the Tarrant County medical examiner's investigators, the FBI and other volunteers later yielded more bone fragments and a pair of pink Barbie tennis shoes, the same type Opal was wearing on the day she disappeared.

That was a very terrible ordeal for Dallas, the little girl was playing in her grandmother’s front yard with several other young kids, and this creep snatched her kicking and screaming right from this group of kids. Later they convicted a guy for kidnapping but he never admitted killing her, claimed he let her go un-harmed, sure right, he was a local guy with a history of child sex abuse but with out the body they could never pen it on him, he did admit kidnapping her. They never could prove murder. Let’s hope with her body they can go back otherwise he is in for life. These kinds of creeps are the worst forms of humans. I think it was after this that Amber Hagerman was killed and the Mother asked a local talk radio guy why they don't have a alert like we do for Weather on all the radios, and after a few phone calls, the Amber Alert was born. I have a daughter who is now 17 and during all of these I just could not imagine the terror and anguish it must be like to have your child taken by one of these gene pool rejects.

I saw the report in The Dallas Morning News and now your thread.
Here is their article ...

Remains are those of missing girl
04:26 PM CST on Monday, January 12, 2004
From Staff and Wire Reports

FORT WORTH – Bone fragments scattered in a remote area of northwest Fort Worth are those of Opal Jo Jennings, a 6-year-old Saginaw girl who disappeared nearly five years ago, the Tarrant County medical examiner said Monday.
Opal’s body was identified using DNA from a tooth in the skull discovered in the Tarrant County field. Her death has officially been ruled a homicide, Dr. Nizam Peerwani said at a midafternoon news conference. "She had a crushing blow to the right forehead and there were a lot of radiating fractures," he said.
There was no way to precisely identify the time or place of Opal's death, Dr. Peerwani said. "We did not recover any murder weapon at the scene. All that we can say is that there was some sort of a blunt instrument used," he said.

Courtesy
Opal Jo Jennings

He said about 20 percent of Opal's remains were recovered by search teams, and that the DNA sample came from one of her upper teeth.
A small toy, Opal's shoes and a clothing fragment were also collected from the field in northwest Fort Worth and will be held as evidence in the case.
Dr. Peerwani said he spoke with Opal's family before making the information public.
Clay Sanderford, Opal’s uncle, told The Dallas Morning News that the medical examiner’s ruling would not bring closure for the family.
“It will bring acceptance,” he said. “We can put her in the ground. There is no more wondering and waiting."
An unidentified couple spotted part of a skull on Dec. 31 while riding horses in a brushy area adjacent to the 9900 block of Western Oaks, police said. Other bone fragments and a pair of size-13 Barbie tennis shoes were found during subsequent searches.
Peerwani had said that he couldn't make a final ruling until DNA testing was complete, but he said bones and the tennis shoes were consistent with descriptions of Opal, who was abducted from her grandmother's neighborhood on March 26, 1999.
The area where her remains were found is on the west side of Lake Worth about nine miles southwest of the residential neighborhood where Opal was abducted. A convicted child molester, Richard Lee Franks of Fort Worth, was convicted of kidnapping Opal and sent to prison for life even though her body had not been found.
The Tarrant County District Attorney's Office did not immediately return calls seeking comment Monday on whether Franks would face additional charges.
The disappearance of the kindergartner attracted national attention, and her grandmother became a spokeswoman for missing children.
The Dallas Web staff, WFAA-TV and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/011204dnmetjennings.c09ba11.html

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