She Vanished From Her Crib In 1997, And Her Parents Have Been Cleared Of All Charges
On November 24, 1997, Sabrina Aisenberg vanished from her crib in Valrico, Florida, at only 5 months old. Investigators initially focused on her parents, Marlene and Steve, but the Aisenbergs have been cleared of all charges, and Sabrina’s case remains unsolved over 27 years later.
That Monday evening, Sabrina was put to bed, and Marlene checked on her daughter in the crib at approximately 12:00 a.m. But, by the morning, Sabrina was missing, along with her handmade blue and yellow blanket.
Upon discovering her baby was gone, Marlene also realized the garage door to their home had been left open, and their in-home door to the garage was unlocked. She contacted the police at 6:42 a.m., setting off a massive search for Sabrina.
The police learned multiple homes in the neighborhood, which housed small children, had experienced attempted break-ins. The same night Sabrina vanished, a neighbor also reportedly heard his dog barking at 1:00 a.m., and when he let the dog outside, he could hear a distant baby crying.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office found no signs of forced entry, and nothing else was missing from the Aisenberg residence. They did, however, discover an unidentified blonde hair, seven unidentified fingerprints, and a shoe print close to Sabrina’s crib.
Nonetheless, the first officer who arrived on the scene believed Marlene and Steve “did not appear very upset.”
“The police told me that very first day that they thought I had done it. A policeman looked me right in the eye and said, ‘We think you know what happened,'” Marlene remembered.
Authorities proceeded to follow up on thousands of leads. The investigation brought them to 49 states and even other countries entirely. Yet, the police still suspected Sabrina’s parents were responsible.
In the beginning, they agreed to cooperate and underwent polygraph examinations. Steve passed the test, but according to Marlene, the results of her first examination were inconclusive. She was subsequently brought in for a second test, and again, she reportedly failed.
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Following that, investigators began to question the Aisenbergs more aggressively, and they hired a lawyer.
It was just over two weeks after Sabrina disappeared that authorities obtained permission to secretly wiretap Marlene and Steve’s home and phone in order to record their conversations. Investigators thought there was probable cause suggesting the spouses had killed their daughter, so they bugged the Aisenberg residence on December 13, 1997.
The surveillance continued for three months, receiving extensions in both January and February of 1998. The police were able to extend the surveillance by referencing conversations with a pediatrician and the Aisenberg’s hairdresser.
The pediatrician supposedly said photos of Sabrina appeared as if her hair had been pulled out and her left eye had been bruised. Meanwhile, a hairdresser allegedly stated she’d previously noticed some hair was missing from Sabrina’s head.
So, over the course of 79 days, investigators recorded 2,600 conversations, and in the end, they claimed to have allegedly caught Marlene saying, “The baby’s dead and buried. It was found dead because you did it! The baby’s dead no matter what you say. You just did it!”
The police accused Steve of responding, “Honey, there was nothing I could do about it. We need to discuss the way that we can beat the charge. I would never break away from the family pact and our story, even if the police were to hold me down. We will do what we have to do.”
Marlene and Steve were served with subpoenas on January 30, 1998, and forced to appear before a grand jury on February 11 that same year. They were arrested and charged with making false statements to law enforcement in a 1999 federal indictment based on the recorded conversations. Prosecutors alleged Steve had discussed murdering Sabrina while he was high on cocaine.
However, the spouses denied ever saying such things, and a judge declared the wiretaps inaudible and the transcriptions to be false. Additionally, it was also ruled that the police had misquoted or taken the statements of the pediatrician and hairdresser out of context when applying to extend the wiretap period.
So, in February 2001, all charges against Marlene and Steve were dropped before the trial even started. Three years later, the federal government was ordered to reimburse nearly $1.5 million for the Aisenberg’s defense fees.
The latest major development in Sabrina’s case came in 2008 when a police informant alleged his cellmate discussed getting a boat from Marlene and Steve as part of a plan to dump Sabrina’s remains in Tampa Bay. This information was found to be false.
“All you have to do is check public records for boat ownership and see that we never owned a boat. So, I mean, the whole story was another one of these fabricated stories to try and disparage Marlene and myself,” Steve explained.
“I know [there are] always going to be people who think Marlene and I had something to do with Sabrina’s disappearance. We did not. We did not.”
In the years since their daughter vanished, Marlene and Steve have moved to Maryland. They’re both real estate agents and still keep a bedroom for their missing daughter. They also have two other children, William and Monica, who were 8 and 4 years old, respectively, when Sabrina disappeared.
The pair holds onto hope that, with the help of DNA and genealogy, the case will one day be solved. Marlene has received messages from women on Facebook who thought they might’ve been Sabrina, but there hasn’t been a match yet.
The Aisenbergs have shared their DNA with multiple familial genetics websites such as 23andMe and Ancestry. They think this, coupled with their work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, will help locate Sabrina.
“That’s how we’re going to get her home. Anybody who thinks they see somebody that looks like they could be our family, looks like Sabrina, looks like William and Monica, please have your friends take a DNA test. That’s how it’s going to happen,” Marlene pleaded.
Today, Sabrina would be 27 years old. The National Center For Missing & Exploited Children has shared an age-progressed photo showing what she might’ve looked like at 23 years old.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at (813) 247-8000.
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