Initially police suspected otherwise. That evening they interviewed only Pond and did not search the apartment complex, waiting until the next morning to assign a detective. In coming days the picture they developed was no doubt confusing. Pond, on the one hand, insists that she and her daughter were inseparable, sharing passions for Nintendo, karaoke and bike riding. "She always had to be right next to me," says Pond, who has two other daughters, ages 11 and 7. "I couldn't turn around without my Ashley there."

Yet several of Ashley's friends, Miranda among them, initially whispered among themselves that Ashley had probably taken off. Pond says that the occasional mother-daughter strains were nothing more than typical teen stuff. She also says that in recent months Ashley had grown excited about the baby boy Pond is expecting any day now with her fiancé, James Keightley, 35, a warehouse worker who is also Ashley's godfather.

After two days police began to suspect an abduction. Yet it would be another week before they called in the FBI -- a nine-day delay that has drawn criticism from some experts. "Time was lost there," says John Walsh of FOX's America's Most Wanted, which has featured the case twice. Justice statistics indicate that 75 percent of all kidnapped children who do not survive an abduction are killed within three hours of being snatched. "After 48 hours the chances of getting the victim back are pretty slim," says Van Zandt.

It was Det. Viola Valenzuela-Garcia who contacted the FBI, concerned that she did not have enough experience to unravel the mystery. In charge of the Pond search since the day after Ashley disappeared, the petite detective has worked the case tirelessly every day since. "I take my beeper with me everywhere," says Valenzuela-Garcia, the mother of a 12-year-old son. "It's on my bedside table and even on the sink when I shower."