Expand<\/a><\/p>\nArbushites and Boehmer both sang with Bradley in the Apple Tree Girls, a children\u2019s choir group at Ritter Elementary that performed 1930s-era music for veterans and retirees around Allentown.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe and I were the tallest girls in fifth grade, so the way they placed the formation of the girls singing, we were both in the middle,\u201d Arbushites said. \u201cSo we always got to stand next to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Boehmer, Arbushites and Bradley grew more distant as they got older.<\/p>\n
Even though both attended Dieruff High School, their classes did not overlap, so their friendship dwindled to friendly hellos in the hallways.<\/p>\n
When Bradley went missing, Arbushites recalled being shocked, but said that she and other friends gradually accepted that maybe Bradley decided to leave on her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn\u2019t been spending a lot of time with her, so I thought, well, maybe we were very different now, and she really did want to leave,\u201d Arbushites said. \u201cMaybe there were things that I didn\u2019t know about. I definitely thought about her after that, but after time, I think we just assumed she had gone somewhere, and chosen a different life. And God, I wish that was what had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivera, who was close with Bradley until the day she disappeared, remembers watching her show up late to gym class in her ROTC uniform, smoking cigarettes with her in large groups of friends in Stevens Park, and singing Destiny\u2019s Child songs together in the halls of Dieruff High.<\/p>\n
She confided in Bradley about how scared she was when she became pregnant at 16.<\/p>\n
Bradley told her, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was just the sweetest person. Everyone knew that she was the sweetest person ever,\u201d Rivera said.<\/p>\n
Tiffany\u2019s disappearance and a final phone call<\/p>\n
Tiffany Bradley was reported missing by family members after she did not come home the night before.<\/p>\n
Friends, including Michele Weiand, another elementary school classmate, said her disappearance didn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n
Bradley never showed any outward signs that she was unhappy or experiencing abuse in any way, several of them said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of disbelief, it didn\u2019t make sense. Wherever she went, her brothers went,\u201d Weiand said. \u201cI was only allowed to go trick or treating with her because her brothers were coming with us, they were very protective. \u2026 There was never any kind of inkling at all that there was any kind of unhappiness that would indicate why she would go missing or run away.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recalled hearing from her own parents that authorities believed Bradley ran away.<\/p>\n
But family members and others close to Bradley said they never stopped trying to find her, or wondering what happened as the years went by and their hope dwindled that she was still out there.<\/p>\n
Tiffany Wiggins\u2019 sister, Shakirah Wiggins,\u00a0told the audience at a news conference last month that friends and family searched in New York and Philadelphia for her. At one point they believed she might have left the country, Shakirah recalled, but their efforts to search for her became complicated when no leads turned up.<\/p>\n
Both of Bradley\u2019s parents died not long after her disappearance.<\/p>\n
According to accounts from her family members, Bradley made a phone call to one of her cousins after her disappearance. She sounded scared, according to Shakirah Wiggins, but she did not disclose what was going on and hung up before her cousin could get any more details.<\/p>\n
Rivera believes that phone call was Bradley\u2019s last cry for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was manipulated. She was taken from us, and pretty much put in that position where she could not get out,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cAnd I feel like that last phone call that she had, it was her trying to code something, to speak and say, \u2018I need help,\u2019 but she couldn\u2019t say it. She couldn\u2019t say it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A breakthrough in the \u2018Chelsea Jane Doe\u2019 case<\/p>\n
While Bradley\u2019s family members lost hope in their search, investigators in Massachusetts got closer to a breakthrough in a case that had haunted their state for decades.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 13, 2000, police officers discovered what they now know were Bradley\u2019s remains in a parking lot at the Soldiers\u2019 Home in Chelsea, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe disturbing circumstances surrounding the discovery launched an extensive investigation involving numerous detectives, prosecutors, forensic specialists, and law enforcement agencies,\u201d according to a Chelsea Police Department news release.<\/p>\n
The investigation brought officers to Eugene McCollom, who confessed to the murder of the unnamed girl \u2014 labeled a \u201cprostitute\u201d in news articles at the time \u2014 and pleaded guilty to murder in February 2005.<\/p>\n
Even though they made an arrest in the case, Massachusetts authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no leads on the identity of the victim at the time.<\/p>\n
Their only clue was that the decedent had gone by the name \u201cLisa,\u201d which happened to be Bradley\u2019s mother\u2019s name. She was labelled \u201cChelsea Jane Doe,\u201d and authorities circulated a composite image of her nationwide, seeking leads on anyone who might have recognized her.<\/p>\n
According to FBI Special Agent Ted Dawkes, investigators in Boston began an \u201cinvestigative genealogy\u201d process three years ago, using advances in DNA sequencing technology, in an attempt to identify Chelsea Jane Doe.<\/p>\n
That DNA sequencing led investigators to Bradley\u2019s brother, James, who lives in Texas; a cheek swab revealed that James was the biological brother of the body they found, allowing them to confirm that Tiffany Bradley was that victim.<\/p>\n
Shakirah Wiggins, at the news conference announcing her cousin\u2019s identification in early June, said learning Bradley\u2019s fate was \u201cbittersweet.\u201d Though it was not the answer she hoped for, it gave her a sense of closure after a quarter century of wondering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was bittersweet but we were so happy and relieved that they even cared after this amount of time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just truly a statement on humanity and we\u2019re not in such bad shape after all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions remain<\/p>\n
Some troubling questions about Bradley\u2019s disappearance and death remain.<\/p>\n
How did a teenage from Allentown end up trafficked across state lines to Massachusetts, where she had no known family or connections?<\/p>\n
Could more have been done to intervene before she was killed?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that hurts me the most is we looked so hard. We did anything we could to find her, but if you know the story of how she was found, who would have known to go there?\u201d Tiffany Wiggins said. \u201cGod, so far away from home, how in the world did she get all the way over there at 16, you know what I\u2019m saying? Nobody knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Suffolk County district attorney\u2019s office, any investigation into the circumstances of Bradley\u2019s trafficking and disappearance would not result in any criminal charges due to the statute of limitations expiring.<\/p>\n
Rivera, Bradley\u2019s high school friend, said that while the two confided in each other about experiencing sexual abuse as girls, Bradley never said that she might have been trafficked while living at home. The fact that she was labeled a prostitute at the time of her death just does not add up, she and other friends said.<\/p>\n
According to the nonprofit Committee for Children,<\/a> victims of sexual abuse often do not confide in others about the abuse for a variety of reasons \u2014 including shame, feeling confused because the offender is someone they trust, or because they have been convinced that the abuse is normal.<\/p>\nRivera also was frustrated that the identification took so long, leaving her family and friends without answers for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so flabbergasted that that was her. And why did it take so damn long, right?\u201d Rivera said. \u201cWhy did it take over 20 years to identify her? Why couldn\u2019t they identify her any other way?\u201d<\/p>\n
However, according to one forensics expert, Bradley went missing and was killed at a time long before today\u2019s advancements in forensic investigative technology.<\/p>\n
Bradley was found in a different state, at a time DNA technology was only 10 years old and far from the advances it had made today, and before the era of widespread internet and social media, which can be a tool to spread the word when someone goes missing.<\/p>\n
All of those factors made it harder for investigators to identify Bradley sooner, according to Ralph Ristenbatt, an associate professor of forensic science at Penn State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis happened back in 2000 so DNA is still relatively \u2014 we didn\u2019t have forensic genealogy back then, the DNA was still 10 years young at that point, so there\u2019s lots of things that I think could have impeded this progress here,\u201d Ristenbatt said. \u201cThey don\u2019t know who she is, no clue on the family, family reports her missing in Pennsylvania, but that is several states away, so these are some of the challenges they have had to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remembering Tiffany Bradley<\/p>\n
While the news of Bradley\u2019s death has been little solace to those that loved her, the headlines about her have brought together a community of those with fond memories of Little Tiff.<\/p>\n
Rivera, Arbushites, Wiggins and others interviewed for this story are part of a Facebook group that has shared photos and stories about Bradley. It has reconnected some long-lost friends from Ritter, Harrison Morton and Dieruff who have fond memories of her, as well as extended family members who lived outside of Pennsylvania but recall joyful visits from Bradley and her family.<\/p>\n
Rivera and Arbushites are both published writers who have written poems in Bradley\u2019s memory. Both told The Morning Call that writing about their dear friend helped them process the news and honor her memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all bright voices and dreams, \/\/ never knowing one of us \/\/ would become a ghost story \/\/ before she had the chance \/\/ to become a woman,\u201d Arbushites wrote in a somber poem titled \u201cApple Tree Girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all these years, the world held a question mark \u2014 \/\/ where your laughter used to be. \/\/ They gave you an unknown title, \/\/ Jane Doe \/\/ a box on a shelf to collect the dust of passing time.\/\/ But truth is a patient light,\u201d wrote Rivera in her piece titled \u201cNever Forgotten, Just Never Identified Correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley\u2019s extended family has a memorial service planned Sept. 5 in Pensacola, Florida, where some of her family members live. Her ashes will be returned to her oldest brother, James.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This story features reporting about sexual abuse and human trafficking and may be disturbing to some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,202,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-248377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n![\"Tiffany](\"https:\/\/www.mcall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TMC-L-TiffanyBradley-02-1.jpeg?w=620\")
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