Go behind the headlines as NewsNation’s “Missing” investigates missing person cases from across the country, from cold cases to the latest developing stories. Tune into our latest case’s digital show each Friday where we speak to loved ones and examine the case. Subscribe to our newsletter here.

(NewsNation) — A young girl went missing from a park, and five years later, her family is still trying to find out what happened to her.

Noema Alavez frantically called 911 to report her 5-year-old daughter, Dulce Maria Alavez, had vanished from a New Jersey park.

Dulce is still missing.

Dulce Alavez disappears

The girl disappeared on Sept. 16, 2019, when she and her 3-year-old brother were playing near the swings at a public park in Bridgeton, New Jersey. The rural city with a large Mexican American immigrant community is just about an hour south of Philadelphia.

Her mother was sitting in a car about 30 yards away, but Dulce never returned from playing.

“It’s really hard to believe that she’s not here with us,” Noema Alavez said.

Alavez told NewsNation that Dulce has a spunky yet sweet personality, just like her Spanish name suggests.

“She likes princesses, she likes to wear dresses,” Alavez said. “She likes Elsa and Moana.”

Searching for Dulce Alavez

Two days after Dulce disappeared, an Amber Alert went out describing the original theory from witnesses and law enforcement that a suspect lured the girl into a red van with a sliding door.

New Jersey State Police later released a sketch of a possible person of interest who was described as a Hispanic male with acne, about 5 foot, 8 inches tall and between 30 and 35 years old.

To this day, that person has not been identified.

Cumberland County, New Jersey, prosecutor Jennifer Webb McCray told NewsNation the investigation remains open and active. She says all theories and possibilities are on the table, but investigators believe Dulce could still be alive.

“In the absence of evidence of Dulce’s demise, we hold out hope that she’s alive,” McCray said.

That’s why they, and Dulce’s family, want people to take another look at her photos, the sketch and age-progression photos released by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Those photos show how Dulce could look today when she would now be 10.

This year alone, they say they’ve received 17 tips from places like Nevada, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Have a question about the case? Join the conversation by submitting it on this page and we may answer it in the show. You can watch new episodes of Missing every Friday on our YouTube page.

They hope someone will bring detectives the last puzzle piece they’ve been looking for to help find Dulce, even if that information seems insignificant.

“One element that did not seem to be important could be important and be the piece that breaks this wide open,” McCray said.

Dulce Alavez’s father

One lead that authorities seemed to rule out at one point is the possible involvement of Dulce’s father, Edgar Perez. The FBI said they’d interviewed him, but local law enforcement reportedly reached out to Perez again after someone identifying himself as Perez posted a video on YouTube in 2021 saying he didn’t know where his daughter was.

The man specifically mentioned that he had been deported to Mexico before Dulce disappeared and alluded to suspicions about what he knew.

“Those that think I took my baby girl, let me tell you that I got nothing to do with it,” the man said.

For now, Alavez and her family mark another year at the park where Dulce went missing and continue to plead for any information that could lead to them being reunited with their girl.

“I want my daughter home,” Alavez said. “I just want her to be home with me and my family.”