The school called at ten that morning, but Sarah was asleep after her night shift. The voicemail said Jessica hadn’t arrived for class. When Sarah finally woke in the afternoon and listened, her blood ran cold. She called her daughter’s friends’ parents.
She called the school office. No one had seen Jessica. Then she dialed 911. “My daughter is missing.
I guess she never made it to school this morning. ”
“How old is she? ”
“She’s 10. ”
“When did you last see her?
”
“This morning, when she left at eight. She walks to school. ”
“Has she ever done this before? ”
“No.
”
Later that same day, Sarah and Jeremiah, Jessica’s father, stood before the press and begged for their daughter’s return. They insisted neither of them had anything to do with her disappearance, and they never blamed each other. “She’s my rock,” Sarah said. “She’s all of our rocks.
I watched her walk out the door, I shut the door, and that’s the last time I saw her. ”
Five days after Jessica vanished, a man walking a dog in a field in Arvada, Colorado found a black garbage bag. More bags were nearby. The contents were later identified as the remains of ten-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.
She had been dismembered. After the body was found, local police called in the FBI. The community built a memorial at Chelsea Park, leaving flowers and stuffed animals in purple, Jessica’s favorite color. Her funeral drew roughly three thousand people dressed in purple.
Now turning to Austin Sigg. Austin was a seventeen-year-old student at Arapahoe Community College studying mortuary science, a topic that unsettled his friends. He had dropped out of high school in his junior year, and although he was bright, he rarely did his homework. He had won second place at a crime scene investigation competition.
Austin had a childhood diagnosis of OCD and ADD, and friends had noticed he grew argumentative and short-tempered. He had once told his younger brother that he thought a lot about how a person could get away with murder. The police had collected hundreds of DNA samples from local residents, including one from Austin. When lab results came back, the sample from the woman who’d been attacked by a jogger that spring was matched to the DNA left on Jessica’s body and belongings.
But the lab made an error that cleared Austin, so he was never flagged as a suspect. Mindy Sigg, Austin’s mother, had always lived in fear that her children might be victims of violence. When she heard a news report described the physical features of the possible suspect, she texted Austin and told him the description sounded like him. He replied, “Where did you hear that?
”
Days passed. Austin told his mother and classmates he wasn’t feeling well. He slept in his mother’s bed that night. He was terrified that because he had given a DNA sample, his time was running out.
On October 24th, Mindy came home from work and went to take a shower. When she stepped back into the bedroom, Austin was sitting on her bed. “Mom, I’ve got to tell you something. ”
“Is this about Jessica?
” she asked. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m a monster. ”
Mindy dropped to the floor and sobbed.
When she recovered, she told him he had to call the police. He asked her to call for him, so she did. She was transferred to the tip line and then to the police department, and she handed the phone to her son. “He just confessed to killing her,” Mindy told the dispatcher.
“He gave me details, and her remains are in my house. ”
Austin himself got on the line. “I murdered Jessica Ridgeway,” he said. “I have proof.
You just have to send a squad car down here. ”
Police arrived and arrested Austin. More of Jessica’s remains were discovered in the Sigg household, including her skull and some organs hidden in a crawl space. Austin also had images of child sexual abuse on his computer.
During the interrogation Austin explained he had driven around aimlessly, looking for someone to kidnap. He described it as a random place, a random time, random everything. Jessica was simply the first person he saw alone. He said he parked, waited for her to walk past, then grabbed her and pulled her into his Jeep.
He took her to his home and brought her to his bedroom. Jessica asked about the litter boxes in the room. Austin answered her questions. “I would lie to her,” he recalled.
“I would tell her everything was going to be okay. ”
He tied her hands and tried to strangle her with zip ties. When that failed, he used his hands. He said her body was still twitching, so he held her down in a bathtub of hot water.
He admitted dismembering her in the tub and dumping part of her remains in the Arvada field. Investigators found forensic evidence that Jessica was sexually assaulted before she died. Austin eventually admitted to that as well. When asked why he attempted to kidnap the jogger earlier that year, Austin answered: “Probably to do the same to her that I did to Jessica.
”
He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree kidnapping. The case never went to trial. Austin pleaded guilty. Because he was a minor when he committed the murder, he would not face the death penalty.
His defense argued for leniency due to untreated mental health problems. The prosecution pushed for the maximum sentence, noting that Austin planned the crime extensively and prepared for it. “He is someone who derives pleasure in pain,” they said. “Any claim that this man lacked the ability to plan is proven false by his actions.
”
During her victim impact statement, Sarah read her words over a slideshow of photos and music. “I don’t think the defendant has the right to hear how he affected me,” she said. “Once we walk out of this courtroom, we will no longer remember his name, only the legacy Jessica left behind. ”
For the first and only time during the trial, Austin cried.
Jessica’s other grandmother, Angie Moss, said: “Now when people ask me how many grandchildren I have, I have to say seven, but I used to have eight. I can’t imagine being his mother, trying to live with the fact that I raised a child capable of doing this. ”
Mindy sat in the courtroom and hid her face as she cried. Austin was sentenced on November 19th, 2013.
District Judge Steven Munsinger gave him life in prison with the possibility of parole after forty years, with additional concurrent sentences totaling eighty-six years. “This case cries out for a life sentence,” the judge said. “Evil is apparently real. It was present in our community on October 5th, 2012.
I expect you to spend the rest of your natural life in prison. ”
Austin showed a blank expression the entire time. He was later moved to an undisclosed facility out of state. Jessica’s family still does not know where he is.
Mindy has not spoken to her son since his sentencing. She spent years avoiding the public, feeling watched and judged, and struggled with intrusive thoughts. She says she carries a horrible sense of guilt, not because she had any part in the crime, but because she brought this child into the world. She still believes she did the right thing by turning him in.
Sarah continued to honor Jessica in her own way. She remarried in 2016 and later had a daughter. She named the girl with Jessica’s middle name. “She definitely has an extra special angel watching over her,” Sarah said.
The local synagogue has invited her to annual Hanukkah services in Jessica’s memory for over a decade. Jessica would be twenty-four years old now. The park where she used to meet her friend has been renovated and renamed the Jessica Ridgeway Memorial Park. It is decorated with butterfly imagery, purple paint, and knock-knock jokes submitted by her classmates.
A custom track ride, her favorite piece of playground equipment, was built there in her honor.
