Amanda Mandy Dougherty

Toddler Kidnapped and Found Dead in Florida

From: Cold Case Facebook :

On September 22, 1994, at approximately 6:30 a.m., Amanda was reported missing at her residence in North Lauderdale by her father and mother.

The victim was in bed at approximately 10:00 p.m. The mother claimed to have checked on the victim before she went to bed, between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. At approximately 6:00 a.m., the victim's father and brother found the front door of the house open and the victim missing.

On September 24, 1994, Amanda was discovered 28 miles north of North Lauderdale in Palm Beach County. The body had trauma and a wire wrapped around her neck. The victim was not sexually assaulted nor showed any indication or combative wounds.

Contact Special Agent Floy Turner Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Broward Office 1475 NW 62 Street, suite 203, Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33309 telephone 954-958-5426 or 1-800-226-3024

Also from : Sun Sentinel:

Handcuffed and in a jail jumpsuit, David Dougherty appeared in court Thursday, and, through a lawyer, later declared his innocence in an unrelated case: the unsolved murder of his daughter six years ago.

The 32-year-old North Lauderdale resident appeared relaxed during the Broward County Circuit Court hearing, where he asked a judge to reduce his bond on two-month-old aggravated assault and domestic battery charges -- a request that was turned down.

The courtroom audience included agents from the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, two agencies reviewing the murder of Amanda Dougherty, the 5-year-old North Lauderdale resident found strangled to death in 1994.

"He unilaterally said, `I have absolutely nothing to with this [the murder],' and that's what he's been saying for the last six years," attorney Thomas Austin said afterward.

The attorney said Dougherty also spoke with Austin's law partner the day before. "He is aware of the attention that's been given to that case."

From his seat in court, Dougherty personally spoke to Judge James Cohn, asking him to lower his $170,000 bond to $70,000, stemming from charges during a domestic dispute in May.

But the judge told Dougherty, who is being held in a Broward jail, that a written request was needed.

Austin, who said he had not yet been officially retained as Dougherty's attorney, said he could ask that the bond be lowered anytime between now and the hearing next month.

No mention was made in court of the ongoing investigation into the death of Amanda Dougherty, but it clearly was the focus of a few court visitors.

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This case caught my eye here in Florida because this child has been dead for so long. There are a lot of cases here like this; people, both young and old, just disappear and no one knows what happened. There are no suspects in this case. The child was not raped so there are no body fluids and even so DNA testing was just coming into view in 1994. Apparently they found no other forensic evidence at the scene and no suspects have come into view. I am not sure how they investigated the family. But I am always trying to help in these cold cases, even though hardly anyone pays attention to what I do, so I cannot resist this one. I am always a sucker for the cases involving children. There is a playing card distributed in Florida prisons for Mandy. You see it and the text it delivers here: http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2008/09/did-big-boy-bandit-murder-mandy.html.

The parents reported that they put the child to bed around 10 pm. I ran a chart for an hour later to see if the child was, in fact, in bed or if the parents were telling stories. Here, you can see the child is in the home in her bedroom, as they said she was. The fifth house (children) ruler is Mercury (the natural ruler of children) and Mercury is in the fifth house. This pretty much says the child is in her room. The Sun is also there so noting that the Sun rules the fourth house (the mother) we can assume the mother was there, putting her to bed, perhaps reading her a story or just chatting. The Sun is close to the cusp of the fifth to the fourth house, which indicates the mother will leave the child's room and re enter the rest of the home. This the mother's home as well. There are documented reports of the domestic abuse in this household, with the husband beating on the wife rather frequenty and his outside arrests for manslaughter and assault. He is the prime focus of the police, their best suspect so far, but he has yet to be charged and he vehemently denies killing his daughter.

There is someone else who lives there as shown by Sagittarius on the seventh cusp and it might be her father or some other relative. Jupiter, the seventh house ruler, is in the sixth so perhaps this other person was at work? The node is close by so I would assume this person was doing something that was alway done, following a routine of some sort. Whether this was work or some other activity I am not sure but it was the usual activity for this time and place. I believe it is showing someone at work because the seventh house ruler is disposed of by Mars in the second house (which shows income or money).

This chart shows this other person, as marked by the seventh house, now in the child's bedroom with what appears to be the child and it's mother. This looks like the parents to me, Mercury and Jupiter, checking in on the child when the father comes home from work. This is to be expected, I suppose. But the aspect that stands out to me is the opposition from the Moon in the eleventh house to Mercury, which rules both the child and the first house cusp. The eleventh to fifth house axis is often implicated in sexual contact, relationships outside of marriage. We know that the parents were married but was there also a relationship with an adult and this child? This chart appears to hint at this. But here I must also point out that the child was not raped and there was no evidence of sexual assault at the time of her body recovery and post mortem exam. So although the charts seem to hint at something sexual here I am going to say that it is not a suggestion that anyone molested or raped this child. The evidence simply does not support this.

The only angular planet in this chart is the Sun. It is in the fourth house and disposed of by Mercury. Mercury is the only sign in Libra and so is separate from the other planets in the fifth house in Scorpio. There is someone in the house who has no relation to the children but may be interacting with them, someone like a nanny, babysitter, close friend or distant relative. This person was also present the night that Mandy was taken and was not someone who came from outside.

This chart shows us when things change for Mandy. The tenth house ruler is now Mars and it is positioned right at the first house cusp. Pluto is trine to Mars from the fifth house now. Someone in the house has hit this child, probably over the head. Pluto in any house can be a marker for violence in and of itself but the trine to Mars right at the Ascendant is critical. Mars is square to Mercury and the Moon still opposes Mercury but from the tenth house. The attacker could well have been her father but it could also have been almost any man. The Sun is now in the third house, showing us the babysitter or relative leaving in a car or outside the house getting into a car for some purpose. Saturn has entered the eighth house, a marker for death and a dead body. Saturn is in mutual reception with Neptune, which is right at the seventh house cusp. The seventh house ruler in the eighth house is a marker for a career criminal. This is not just one criminal act or a fluke; this person has done this sort of thing before. Neptune conjoined Uranus describes a sudden, unexpected and secretive surprise. These planets are also disposed of by the malignant Saturn in the eighth house.

There are several people with malefic intent. The node in the fourth house indicates that someone in the home / family planned this. It does not have to be the parents but there is no way this person was a total stranger. So, if they have certain individuals within their friendly circles that happens to have been to jail, to commit crimes, to cause chaos in everyone's lives, then they already know who did this. Saturn being in the sign Pisces and disposed of by Neptune right at the seventh house cusp indicates this person is involved in drugs. Did the parents owe someone for drugs? Or was the father involved with drugs? He had a criminal history that makes him a qualified suspect here. The question might be why would a stranger kill the child when she could have been sold for cash or used in porn? Perhaps the parents were in over their heads and could not afford the child any longer and sold her to a scumbag... but if so, then the child would have been raped. Of this, I am sure. So, at this point, I am stumped. It is beginning to look like a random kidnapping and murder but by someone who knew or at least had met the family. How else could he have planned this in advance? The node where it is poses questions in this case and makes me suspect the father after all. He would have had access to the child, as shown in the charts, would have been in the house, has a criminal history and is capable of violence. He was frequently beating on his family so, perhaps, this time he went too far? Perhaps he was high on drugs when it happened? The markers are there.

Another factor I must point out is the Moon square Mars while the planets are in mutual reception. Moon in the tenth square Mars in the first. A dispute between the parents could have made this event happen. The mutual reception is like a greased wheel, making the necessary opportunities appear at the right time and letting people complete actions without restraint. But the square indicates there was disagreement about this whole thing, as if the parents were arguing about it. Their disagreement and failure to present a united front made it easier for this person to take their child. That's the gist of it. And since the seventh house ruler, Saturn, is in mutual reception with the dispositor, Neptune, this person who took this child had no problems at all in completing his mission. There was a window left open, a door unlocked, etc... or perhaps they had let him in earlier or even let him sleep there. I would think the cops would be looking at any criminal types who were said to have been there. If not, then perhaps his presence was a secret or he got in on his own, with something unlocked or easily broken. This is what mutual reception allows in these cases; easy access to the victim. And, once again, I must admit the person with the easiest access to the child is a family member like the father. These aspects, taken together, and studied bring me to beleive that the father killed this child and the parents were arguing over what to do about it. This is when he just took her and dumped her. And the mother, out of fear and paralyzed by grief, said nothing.

In this chart, you can see the child being put in a car. Mercury has moved from the fourth house (the home) into the third house (a vehicle). Notice how the first house ruler, the Sun, is in the last degree of Virgo (disposed of by Mercury). The last degree shifting into a new sign shows us that things are about to change for the child. Since the Sun is void of course (so late in the sign that it makes no aspect), it is essentially powerless. Mercury itself, which rules the child directly, has also moved into the third and is in the sign Libra, showing relationships. Mercury also rules the third so the car is a small one, either black or white, and might be a two seater. Libra might mean it has a sunroof or actually be convertible. There should be a trunk or storage area in this car but only seating space in the cab. If it is a truck, which it could be, it would be a small one with a convertible cab. Since this occurred in 1994, it is more likely this was a small car, black or white, with a sunroof. And since they were not known to have a lot of money, it was probably not convertible, which costs a lot more than a sunroof.

Since the Sun is in the last degree of Virgo, the situation is going to change for Mandy really quickly. Saturn no longer rules the seventh house but it is still in the eighth, which is the open door to a death pattern. We will have to watch the aspects in each of the following charts to ascertain when she was murdered and by whom. Mars still rules the tenth and it has moved into the twelfth with the Moon right at the midheaven. Mars and the Moon are still square and in mutual reception. Because everyone was asleep (twelfth house) and the child was unconcious after the blow to the head (Mars in the twelfth) and the child was sneaked out of the house into the kidnappers car (ninth house is the third from the seventh), this is why it went so smoothly and no one was the wiser (or those that were wise to it decided to keep quiet). The presence of Saturn in the eighth indicates that the blow to the head may have been more than the child could survive and she may have already been dead when they moved her into the car. This may be why they tossed her away later on, because they had intended to use her for something and could not since she had died. Is this possible?

The fact that the Sun was leaving one sign for another is a good indicator that someone might die and along with Saturn, the marker for a dead body, lingering in the eighth house, it is possible this is what happened. And it works with my original theory that the father hit the child and killed her and then had to do something with the body.

In this chart, you can see them driving around with this child in the trunk of the car. I am still trying to keep an open mind and consider a killer other than her father. Mercury, the marker for the child, is in the second house, which is the storage area or boot. Tenth house ruler is Venus and this planet is also in the third, showing a female adult also in the car. Venus is in Scorpio, which is soft and in fall, shows the female to be there against her will or because she can't say no. This seems like it might be the mother. There has been a traveling grand square throughout this event and here it is preeminent. Moon in Aries opposing Mercury in Libra (markers for the child) in a tight square with Mars in Cancer (the fourth house ruler) and Neptune in Capricorn (the seventh house ruler). This shows a complicated push and pull relationship between the parents of this child and the man who took her, if that person is not one of the parents. This may have been an intended kidnapping that went bad. Again, because this man is a criminal who is involved with drugs, the child may have been kidnapped because money was owed. But the child was accidentally killed by a fatal blow to the head and was no longer useful. This third party could not very well demand the money owed once the child was no longer alive. Neptune conjoined Uranus in the fifth house is a monkey wrench because it seems to indicate that unusual sexual activity was a part of this man's working life (Uranus disposed of by Saturn in the sixth) and perhaps they were going to earn payback on the drug debt by using the child for porn. But everything went south when the child died.

I am not going to put my money on the parents being innocent in this matter, although I cannot accuse them either. Now, this chart is for when they claim they got out of bed and found the child gone. You can see that the Moon has moved into the eighth house, which is a marker for death. Saturn is in Pisces in the sixth and this is a descriptor for the dead body, the sixth house underscoring that Mandy will never be seen again. Although her body was later found, she was gone. Moon in Aries with Mars in Cancer and Saturn in Pisces, the person who took this child was an outlaw, a criminal, with a drug history. Saturn in Pisces with the twelfth house implications can mean he has spent time in jail. This profile does fit the father but if he is, indeed, innocent, it would be good for the family to consider all the people they knew who had been in trouble with the law and especially those they had used drugs with or bought drugs from, if they did so. These would be the clearest indicators to discover the man who did this if it was someone they knew. There is a really good chance that he has since gone to jail for a different crime and very well may still be incarcerated. On that same note, the main suspect, her father, had spent time in jail and could very well be the culprit. But I would like to see little Mandy get some justice in this matter and hope this post will help get people interested in finding her killer.

I am sorry I cannot be more adamant in my findings, even as they point at daddy. I have the gut feeling that he did actually kill his daughter during a beating or some other abuse and mommy went with him to find a place to toss her. I am sure mommy was devastated and my heart goes out to her and her own suffering. Women should make every effort possible to leave abusive relationships because they, more often than desired, end up like this. With someone dieing. Now, daddy is in jail and has been back and forth since, although they have been unable to indict him for this. So I have to say that there is a possibility that this was associate of his or a deal he made that went bad and he, in fact, did not actually murder his child. It's just that my gut is telling me otherwise. I will leave it up to the reader to put the chart aspects together for themselves and come to their own conclusions.