SAN FRANCISCO (NewsNation Now) — Arianna Fitts was last seen in 2016 when she was 2-years-old. Those that love her believe she is still out there, even after her mother’s body was found buried in a shallow grave in a San Francisco park.
The disappearance of Arianna and the death of her mother, Nicole, remain a mystery.
Contessa Fitts, Nicole’s sister, has spent the better part of the last six years trying to piece together what may have happened to her sister, found dead McClaren Park.
“She was a single mom, she lived in San Francisco. And, you know, she didn’t live in the best situation,” said Contessa.
She didn’t have time to process her sister’s death because she immediately had to get to work trying to find Arianna.
Claire Bonnar, who was Contessa’s long-term partner at that time, close to Nicole and essentially a relative to Arianna, said Nicole was going through a crisis.
“Nicole had gone through a housing crisis, basically a housing emergency and the situation that Nicole had found herself in was temporary,” said Bonnar.
“It started in Daly City near San Francisco where Nicole and Arianna moved in with a woman they trusted — a street pastor named Lemasani Briggs — who would look after Arianna while Nicole worked at her job at Best Buy.”
But the situation at Briggs’ home deteriorated, according to Bonnar.
“She would criticize Nicole for over private matters that Nicole had never talked to Lemasani about,” said Bonnar. “And the only reason Lemasani would know about any of that would be going through her virtual diary on her laptop.”
That’s also the time Bonnar believes Lemasani became too attached to Arianna.
“She also became very possessive of Arianna and would call Arianna her child, her baby,” said Bonnar.
Fitts said it wasn’t uncommon for people to become attached to Arianna.
“She has a very magnetic personality,” said Fitts. “She’s just always smiling. She’s always getting the attention of anyone around her. She’s waving at people and people are waving back at her.”
After Nicole moved out of Briggs’ home, she allowed Briggs’ nieces, Siolo Hearns and Helena Martin along with Helena’s husband to take over as babysitters at this home in Oakland as Nicole worked to get her situation settled.
But things soured there as well.
“They would have excuses as to why they weren’t available for Nicole to come and pick Arianna up,” said Fitts.
Co-worker and friend Michael Jacobo spent Nicole’s last day with her.
“I had just started a new job at The Parks Conservancy, actually we working on Alcatraz,” said Jacobo. “She wanted to join me because I was going to pick up some things from my first day of work.”
From there, the two stopped at a pizza shop and Jacobo dropped Nicole off at a home where she was staying with roommates.”
“The roommate said almost like five minutes after she came home. She went back out,” recalled Jacobo.
Nicole’s roommate said a text message from the babysitter drew Nicole outside. And that was the last time anyone saw Nicole Fitts alive.
“The next day, she never calls them or contacts anybody. And that’s when I was like, ‘We should probably call the police,’” said Jacobo.
Six years later, there are still no answers but there is still determination
“People need to look out for this little girl,” said Bonnar. “She can be in plain sight.”
Contessa Fitts is holding onto optimism and doing it for both her sister and her niece.
“Nicole would want nothing more, nothing more than to know that Arianna is home with family. And for Nicole, for Arianna, we can never give up until we find Arianna,” said Fitts.