Was baby a missing Florida child? ; Six years later, Pullman woman and police wonder

There is seldom a day that goes by that Rick Peringer and Rod Reder don't think about little Sabrina Aisenberg.

Peringer is a detective with the Pullman Police Department. Reder is a lieutenant at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department in Tampa, Fla.

There also probably isn't a week that goes by that a Pullman woman, who has asked police that she remain anonymous, doesn't agonize about whether she saw the still-missing Aisenberg baby six years ago in the care of a couple who had stopped at the Pullman Shopko.

On Nov. 27, 1997, Sabrina Aisenberg, then 5 months old, vanished from the crib at the home of her parents, Steven and Marlene Aisenberg, of Brandon, Fla.

The case has become one of the most high profile unsolved missing baby cases in the United States.

The parents were initially charged in connection with the disappearance. The charges were dropped and the parents have hired an attorney and sued police. They also have appeared on almost every big name radio and afternoon television talk show since they say their child was taken from her crib while the couple slept.

That exposure has not helped bring the girl, who would now be 6, home.

"I know it's a stretch and it's four to six years old, but would you drop it?" Peringer asked during a recent interview.

There were reasons why the Pullman woman didn't call police during the winter of 1997-98.

"When she got home, someone told her they had heard the case was solved, that the parents had been charged," Peringer said. "So she figured she was wrong."

It was only recently that the woman was listening to another talk show and realized the case was still alive.

"She said she saw them near the (Shopko) checkout," Peringer said.

The woman became concerned about the baby's welfare because the two adults with the baby seemed to be standing too far away from the baby carrier.

The man was described as white, about 6 feet tall with a medium build, blond to light brown hair and wearing a baseball cap and jacket that may have been crimson and gray.

The female was about 5 feet 7 inches tall, perhaps a bit taller, with long dark curly hair.

The Pullman resident reportedly engaged the woman in conversation and learned that either the woman's sister lived in, or visited someone, in Vallejo, Calif., or knew someone in that city.

The couple left with the baby. But the baby's face stayed stuck in the mind of the woman.

Since that time, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has composed an age-progressed image of the child. That photo now appears on the organization's Web site, next to the child's photo shortly after birth.

"This has been a high-profile case," Reder said during a phone interview.

He added that the case is one that won't go away. Tips continue to trickle in, some of them after the Aisenbergs made their latest media appearance.

There is still a Sabrina Task Force and, as Reder said, the police haven't packed this case up in a box.

Anyone who has reason to believe that a child about 6 years old could be Sabrina Aisenberg should contact Peringer at (509) 338-3357.

Ron Marose can be reached at (509) 334-6397, ext. 307, or by e-mail at .