Left and Center: Childress in 1987; Right: Age-progressed image of Childress at age 23 (circa 2006)
Left and Center: Childress in 1987; Right: Age-progressed image of Childress at age 23 (circa 2006)
Name: Marlena Danyele Childress
Case Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Missing Since: April 16, 1987
Location Last Seen: Union City, Obion County, Tennessee.
Date of Birth: February 17, 1983
Age: 4 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 4'0
Weight: 38 pounds
Hair Color: Light brown straight
Eye Color: Blue / hazel
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Pierced ears.
Dentals: She has silver caps on upper and lower front teeth.
Fingerprints: Unknown
DNA: Unknown
Clothing: Light purple pants, a purple and white shirt and pink jelly-style shoes.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
Childress disappeared while playing in the front yard of her Union City, Tennessee home on April 16, 1987.
When Childress disappeared, hundreds of people volunteered to search for her. Several weeks later, the search halted abruptly when her mother, Pamela Bailey, confessed to accidentally killing her daughter. She told police she threw the body into the Obion River, but no body was found, and Bailey later recanted the confession.
In April of 2002, Bailey was charged with stabbing her 12-year-old son in a cemetery. She has pleaded innocent.
Bailey's son, Casey, said his mother had told him she had a surprise for him and to be home from a friend's house by 7:30 pm the night he was stabbed. Shortly after 8:00, while driving the three miles toward Arnett Cemetery, Bailey told Casey to put a blue handkerchief around his eyes. The stabbing is believed to have occurred between 8:30 and 9:00. Bailey sat her blindfolded son by a cemetery marker with the inscription "son" before she stabbed him in the neck and shoulder with a knife. At that time he felt a cut in the right side of his neck, and was able to kick his mother and run to the nearest house.
Bailey's son was released from a hospital the day after the stabbing and remains with his father.
Agency Name: Obion County Sheriff's Department
Agency Contact Person: Captain Stan Murphy
Agency Phone Number: 901-885-5832
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: N/A
NCIC Case Number: M-244548958
NCMEC Case Number: NCMC600739
The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
MSNBC News
Added: Prior to 2011; Last Updated: 05-18-2022 - By: Htmlcnvtr
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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