Pretty Pink Bicycle

Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, age 8, disappeared on September 17, 1984 in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona while riding her pink-colored bicycle a few blocks to mail a birthday card to her aunt. She had been abducted by a stranger, Frank Atwood. The tip to police that cracked the case was when a physical education teacher, Sam Hall, provided Atwood's license plate number to the investigators. The day before the murder, the teacher had noticed that a man was watching school children. This made the teacher uneasy and he jotted down Atwood's Datsun 280Z vehicle's license plate number and watched the stranger until he left the school area. This valuable information led to the arrest of Frank Jarvis Atwood, age 28, from Los Angeles, who was on parole at the time. Atwood had a long history of sexual assaults against children. Atwood was arrested and convicted of Vicki's murder and was sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on June 8, 2022. Seven months after Vicki's abduction, her partial remains were found by a hiker in a desert area 20 miles from her home.