www.learnaboutghosts/index/lauraarroyo01

On June 19, 1991, 9-year-old Laura Arroyo answered the front door about 9:00 p.m. at her home in Chula Vista, California. She lived there with her parents and two brothers. Her parents were upstairs at the time that she answered the door, and when all became quiet, they went downstairs to investigate.

They found the front door wide open and their daughter gone.

Ten hours later, Laura's body was found by two women on their way to work. Her body was lying on a sidewalk, about three miles from her home, in an industrial area. She was still dressed in her pink pajamas, and had been sexually assaulted and brutally murdered with a pickaxe.

Everyone was shocked by the brazenness of the kidnapping...the kidnapper apparently boldly knocked on the family's front door, then snatched Laura quickly and quietly from her home when she answered the door.

A few weeks after her death, a neighborhood rumor began circulating about the image of a young girl that had appeared on a billboard near Broadway and Main streets. The image, it seemed, resembled Laura Arroyo. Even Laura's mother, also named Laura, saw the billboard and believes it was her daughter's image. Thousands of people were reported to have flocked there, to see the "Miracle on Broadway". After too many crowds and traffic jams, the city erected a large, color photograph of Laura on the billboard, asking if anyone had any information that could lead to solving her murder. Over time, the billboard was eventually torn down.

On October 25, 2003, police finally arrested the man suspected of kidnapping and killing Laura. But when police moved in on the suspect, Manuel Bracamontes, Jr., 40, he tried to run over two officers with his SUV, then led them on a chase and rammed a police cruiser before finally rolling the SUV and being apprehended. Ironically, Bracamontes was arrested nearby where the billboard once stood.

On February 2, 2004, authorities were able to link Bracamontes to Laura Arroyo's death through DNA evidence. He was convicted of murder charges with special circumstances in September 2005, and faces the death penalty.

Was the image on the billboard just a stain that coincidentally looked like a face? Or was it really Laura Arroyo's face, reminding others not to forget her, and sending a message to not let her murder go unsolved and her murderer go unpunished?