Florida baby-sitter cold case leads to Everett

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — A baby-sitter who disappeared with a Florida child more than a decade ago was arrested in Everett this week and is fighting efforts to bring her to Florida to face a manslaughter charge.

Melissa Harding Jones, formerly Melissa Cooper, was arrested Monday at her home in Everett and charged with aggravated manslaughter in connection with the death of Pilar Rodriguez, 4.

Authorities are trying to extradite Jones, 33, to Punta Gorda, Fla., where the child was last seen alive and the criminal investigation is based. A band of retired detectives is credited with finding the evidence that revived the cold case from 1999.

Jones was arrested at the home where she lives with her husband and two children, according to an online report from Heraldnet.com in Everett.

Pilar, remembered by neighbors in Hollywood as a talkative, playful child, is presumed dead even though authorities never found her body.

"I have never forgotten her little face," former neighbor Georgina Florencia, now of Dania Beach, said Wednesday. "I hope her family finally gets some justice."

Pilar disappeared in February 1999, after her father, Marco Rodriguez, allowed Jones to take the preschooler on a two-week vacation to Punta Gorda.

The child was last seen with Jones and her then-boyfriend, Keith Wilson, and police immediately suspected Pilar was dead. Jones and Wilson have accused each other of responsibility for the child's death.

A massive search of Florida's west coast, including draining an entire lake, did not reveal any clues to Pilar's whereabouts.

Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Cameron told reporters during a news conference Tuesday that the team of retired investigators who took up the cold case last year led authorities to the arrest.

Cameron said investigators dug up new critical information, evidence and witnesses that allowed them to make an arrest. Those new details were not immediately available.

A spokeswoman with the State Attorney's Office in Charlotte said the investigation is still open and declined to release any further details.

In November, investigators spent more than a week on a Punta Gorda property owned by one of Wilson's relatives, and police indicated that some items of interest were found. They did not provide specifics.

Marco Rodriguez, who was investigated and ruled out as a suspect, tried to sue Wilson for wrongful death, alleging the man had beaten his daughter to death and then disposed of the body. The case was dismissed in 2000.