Jessica Ridgeway case update: Ridgeway case mirrors 1993 Alie Berrelez murder case

DENVER - The current day search for 10 year old Jessica Ridgeway and her killer, mirrors a local mystery of the past.

Investigators combed property across Englewood in May 1993 looking for five year old Alie Berrelez and her murderer.

"We're taken back to '93 and the pain is so real," said her grandfather Richard.   "We might have a smile on the outside.  We might be enjoying life from the outside.  It might seem like we've moved on.  But you can't really move on," he said.

Over the years, Richard has become an activist.  He established  a foundation matching search dogs with police departments.  He also serves as a listening ear -- providing comfort to other parents who've experience the unthinkable.

  "Sometimes they're not able to.  Sometimes they're not able to talk about it at all," he said.

 Yet among the adversity,  a sense of optimism.  Eighteen  years later, Alie's killer was finally identified.
 Richard wants the Ridgeway family  to hold the same expectation.
       
 "Don't give up hope.  It will be solved.  It will be solved," he said.

The two families have not yet met, but Richard feels when the time is right they will.   

in 2011, Englewood police said that DNA taken from Alie's underwear, possibly from saliva, belonged to Nicholas Randolph Stofer, 41.

Stofer lived in the Englewood apartment complex where Alie lived with her mother and two brothers. He had been there for three weeks prior to the abduction and abruptly moved to California just five days after Alie’'s abduction and murder.

Stofer died of a drug overdose in his Phoenix apartment in October 2001.