Katharina Buczek
Interestingly, though, the neighbor that Ricky’s brother alerted for help also shared their perspective of events– and the story lined up much more with the young boy’s.
In addition, the neighbor claims that after they arrived, Ricky’s grandmother actually told them to stop looking for the four-year-old. Plus, the grandmother reportedly claimed that Ricky was already elsewhere.
Being that the Bryant home had been destroyed in the fire, most investigators believed that Ricky had perished due to the flames.
Once the property was extinguished, there was also some debris thought to be possible bone fragments which were sent out for analysis at a state laboratory.
The lab never identified the bones as belonging to Ricky, though, and the toddler’s siblings still believe that their sister might be alive.
In fact, the Bryant kids think that Ricky might have been conceived out of wedlock. So, they have a hunch that the fire was lit as a sort-of diversion to help the unknown woman take Ricky away from her family and home.
And per Ricky’s siblings’ request, investigators have since reopened the investigation into the four-year-old’s disappearance– even though she vanished over seventy years ago.
Back in 2006, one Minnesota woman even had her DNA tested after believing that she could have possibly been a Bryant family member. The woman’s DNA test revealed she was not a match, though.
Moreover, in early 2000, a flood wiped out all of the records associated with Ricky’s house fire and disappearance.
This is a substantial setback since first-person accounts of the case are harder and harder to come by with each passing year.
“The problem is no one from the fire department is still around from back then, no one from the sheriff’s department is still around, and some members of her family have passed,” explained Shaun Goyette of the Juneau County Sheriff’s Office.
