If you have been in Amarillo for any length of time then you know the name Dorien Thomas. This is a mystery that still haunts Amarillo. We are coming up on the anniversary of his disappearance.

It was October 26, 1998, when Dorien was out on his bike here in Amarillo like he was almost every day. The difference is on this day he never showed back up at home. He was just nine years old. This is one of those unsolved mysteries that come up every now and then.

credit: Center For Missing And Exploited Children

I saw a post the other day on an Amarillo History page reminding us again of this tragedy. The family still twenty three years later still has no answers. As much as a story like this hurts the city of Amarillo it cuts even deeper for the family:

Twenty-three years ago this month Dorien Thomas went missing...not a
trace of evidence was ever found...not a body
..not his bike...we need to solve this. It haunts me that no one knows anything!!!

I don't understand how nobody has talked in these twenty-three years. I don't understand how that bike was not ever found. How was his body not ever located. This is one of those Amarillo mysteries that a lot of us growing up would love to have solved.

Then there was always this that came out about the story which always left me a little uneasy:

Dorien was one of the children who discovered the body of Gloria Ann Covington in August of 1997, more than one year prior to his disappearance. Dorien was playing in Hilltop Park in Amarillo with friends when they came across Covington's remains behind the YMCA building. She had been stabbed to death.

Did that have something to do with his disappearance? So many questions and so little answers.

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My daughter was two years old when this hit the news. I remember the stories after stories on the news trying to find little Dorien. Instead this boy will always be remembered as being that nine year old frozen in time. The boy in North Amarillo that will never age.

The boy from Amarillo that will never be forgotten.

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