What we learned from the Milwaukee police reports in the Alexis Patterson case

Alexis Patterson, then 7, disappeared on her way to Hi-Mount School in Milwaukee on May 3, 2002.

The latest season of Unsolved, a true-crime podcast for USA TODAY and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, examines the case. The episodes feature exclusive interviews with Alexis' family and more details about the police investigation than have ever been made public. The eighth and final episode of Unsolved is now available on all podcast platforms.

As part of the podcast, reporters obtained the Milwaukee Police Department’s investigative files in the case, which are being made public for the first time. The documents reveal information that has been kept secret for more than 20 years. Here’s what to know:

What led up to Alexis Patterson's disappearance?

Alexis’ stepfather, LaRon Bourgeois, sold drugs. In the three years leading up to Alexis’ disappearance, he had repeatedly robbed – and been robbed by – armed drug dealers during.

In one incident, a man held Alexis and her mother, Ayanna Patterson, at gunpoint, a witness told police.

A year and a half before Alexis disappeared, the principal of her sent home a letter to parents warning them about the attempted abduction of a little boy who was walking to school. It did not include the description of a vehicle. Patterson mistakenly believed the letter had been sent home mere weeks before Alexis vanished.

What happened the day Alexis Patterson disappeared?

Alexis’ stepbrother, who was 5 at the time of her disappearance, told police Alexis “got a whooping” that morning. But he did not describe a violent or life-threatening beating. He said Ayanna hit Alexis on the arm because she was pretending she didn’t know how to put her socks on. He said Alexis cried. He also said LaRon did walk Alexis to the corner that morning.

Alexis had been late for school 20 times during her first-grade year. She almost always walked alone to the school, which was less than two blocks from her home.

A school crossing guard, who was in fifth grade at the time of Alexis’ disappearance, couldn’t remember specifically whether LaRon Burgeois had walked Alexis to the corner the morning she disappeared. The crossing guard did say Bourgeois returned to the intersection in tears the next morning.

A man who supplied Bourgeois with drugs to sell came to Alexis’ family’s home the morning she disappeared. He said he had been there early in the morning only once before. After Bourgeois told him police had raided his house several days earlier, the man went to help him clean up.

What do the Milwaukee police think happened to Alexis Patterson?

Alexis’ mother, Ayanna Patterson, agreed to take a polygraph right away. Bourgeois, her husband, consulted an attorney first, but later agreed. Milwaukee Police withheld the records detailing the test results. At the time, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, citing anonymous sources, reported that Bourgeois had failed. Bourgeois later told reporters the machine indicated deception on only one question: Do you know where Alexis is right now? He said he had not lied when he answered any of the questions, including that one. He always maintained that he didn’t know what had happened to his stepdaughter.

Patterson and Alexis’ biological father, Kenya Campbell, both provided police with DNA samples shortly after she disappeared in 2002. In 2016, authorities used that information to determine that an Ohio woman believed to be Alexis was not actually her.

FBI agents brought in to help in the case concluded that Patterson and Bourgeois likely had something to do with Alexis’ disappearance. A second possible scenario was that a neighbor or another family member had taken her. The FBI analysts dismissed the idea that she had been snatched by a stranger.

Several snitches who had been incarcerated with Bourgeois’ drug supplier claimed the supplier had admitted or implied that he had kidnapped or killed her.

Learn more about the Alexis Patterson case by listening to the true-crime podcast Unsolved.

Contact Gina Barton at (262) 757-8640 or gbarton@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @writerbarton.