Crawford's mother's then-boyfriend, Ronald Garrett, was watching Crawford in her family's residence in the P. T. Barnum Housing Project in Bridgeport, Connecticut on June 5, 1981. Garrett told investigators that an unidentified boy arrived at the home at 10:20 a.m. and told Garrett that Crawford's grandparents had sent him to retrieve the child. Garrett described the boy as 10 or 11 years old, African-American, with small braids in his hair. He stated he thought he recognized the boy as a neighborhood child and permitted him to take Crawford. She has never been seen again.

Garrett was convicted of risk of injury to a minor and sentenced to one year in prison for giving Crawford to the boy. Crawford's grandparents and great-grandparents occasionally baby-sat her in 1981, but they never sent any person to pick her up that day in 1981. Garrett has refused to change his story and maintains he had nothing to do with the young girl's disappearance.

Foul play is suspected in Crawford's disappearance.