In the summer of 2020, a heart-wrenching story began to unfold in Davenport, Iowa, with the disappearance of 10-year-old Breasia Terrell, a Black / African American female. On the night of July 9, she was spending the night at the apartment of Henry Earl Dinkins, the father of her younger half-brother. Breasia sent a "goodnight" text to her mother that evening, the last time she would ever hear from her daughter.
By the early morning hours of July 10, 2020, both Breasia and Dinkins were gone from the apartment. Her mother, Aisha Langford, reported her missing later that day, sparking a massive search effort involving local and federal authorities and scores of community volunteers.
The search for Breasia stretched on for eight agonizing months. An AMBER Alert was issued, identifying Dinkins, a registered sex offender, as her alleged abductor. Though he was a person of interest from the beginning, he was not immediately charged in her disappearance. The community held onto hope, but their worst fears were realized on March 22, 2021. A group of fishermen discovered human remains in a pond in a rural area in DeWitt, Iowa, which were later identified as Breasia's. An autopsy revealed the tragic cause of her death: multiple gunshot wounds.
With the discovery of Breasia’s body, the investigation intensified and focused squarely on Henry Dinkins. In May 2021, he was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. During his trial, prosecutors laid out a timeline of his movements on the morning Breasia vanished, including a pre-dawn trip to a Walmart where he purchased bleach. Testimony from Breasia's younger brother, Dinkins' own son, was crucial. He told the court that he woke up in the middle of the night to find his father and sister gone. Prosecutors argued that Dinkins had taken Breasia to another location where he sexually assaulted and killed her.
In September 2023, a judge found Henry Earl Dinkins guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping. The defense had pointed to a lack of physical evidence directly linking Dinkins to the sexual assault and murder, but the judge, weighing all the evidence and witness testimony, delivered a guilty verdict. Dinkins was subsequently sentenced to two life terms in prison without the possibility of parole, bringing a measure of legal closure to a case that had deeply scarred the community and left a family to grieve an unimaginable loss.
