NEW ORLEANS, La. (NewsNation) — Three-year-old Ramona Lynn Brown went missing 40 years ago during a fire in her family’s New Orleans home that killed two of her siblings, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported.
On the early morning of March 6, 1984, the Brown family woke up to raging flames tearing through their home.
“My mom was yelling that her babies were inside the house,” Tiffany (Brown) Nickerson told the NCMEC. “My daddy was throwing water buckets at the house, and the heat was pushing them back at us.”
The community came to help the family that night, but 2-year-old Kevin Brown and 4-year-old Aubrey Jr. Brown did not survive.
Initially, it was believed that Ramona Brown had also died during the fire with her siblings. However, first responders were unable to find any trace of her remains in the ashes and rubble of the destroyed home, which fire experts say is almost inconceivable if she had died in the fire.
“I spoke with fire investigators, and they said the fire would need to reach thousands of degrees in order to burn everything, meaning bones,” said Detective Lamar Lewis with the New Orleans Police Department. “Firefighters on the scene said they don’t think she was in the house, and I don’t think she was in the house.”
Ramona Brown’s family believes she may still be alive, but area searches showed no sign of her existence.
Her sister, Simona Brown, who was 6 years old at the time of the fire, told her parents that Ramona Brown had made it out of the house, and she saw the 3-year-old get into a gold Cadillac of an older, biracial couple who had pulled over to help.
“I remember Simona telling my mom and dad that there was a couple, a biracial couple that stopped and picked up Ramona,” Nickerson told NCMEC. “After that, Simona went into a shell. She wouldn’t talk for a few years.”
In 2018, Simona Brown took matters into her own hands, contacting the police and sharing the memory of standing outside their burning home with Ramona Brown.
Lewis reopened the cold case after Simona Brown came to him with her story.
“Simona is positive she had Ramona’s hand that night. She remembers everything, the car that pulled up and the description of the couple that offered to help the family watch Ramona,” Lewis said.
Now, Lewis believes Ramona Brown is still alive and that she may have been abducted the night of the fire.
Police and the NCMEC released new age-progression images of what Ramona Brown may look like now at age 43.
“We know that our images can work, even in a missing case like this when many decades have passed,” said Angeline Hartmann, Director of Communications at NCMEC. “We ask people to take just a moment and really look at this image. We just need the right person to see the image and make that call. You never know when you might be the person who can help investigators pull the missing pieces together.”
“My heart goes out to the family,” he said. “I am not a superhero or anything, but I am determined to figure this one out,” Lewis said.
Ramona Brown’s family often called her “Al” and said she had a distinctive birthmark. If anyone has any information about the disappearance of Ramona Brown, call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678), or the New Orleans Police Department’s Special Victims Division at (504) 658-6040-6795.