SFPD exhausting leads in bizarre homicide case with missing 2-year-old

San Francisco police say they’re exhausting every lead to find a missing two-year-old girl, whose mother turned up dead last week.

The body of 32-year-old Nicole Fitts was found in McLaren Park last Friday at the corner of University and Woolsey. Now family and friends are desperate to find her little girl Arianna.

One person of interest is a woman whom Nicole and her daughter used to live with— a pastor from Oakland. Friends say that the pastor was not allowing Nicole to see her daughter in the weeks leading up to her death.

She is one of about seven people police are now interviewing on the case.

Police have been scouring several cities in California looking for the little girl who lived in San Francisco with her mother.

We have received reports that she may have ties to Southern California as well as the Fresno area and Santa Cruz. We have been working with law enforcement partners in those areas,” said Officer Grace Gatpandan.

Police won’t say how she died, but sources inside SFPD tell us Fitts body was severely beaten and that it was a gruesome murder.

I was just boggled, you know. I couldn’t understand how this could happen because they seem like really nice people,” said Dana Galloway who used to live next door to Nicole and her daughter in Pacifica. “I mean, mom was a little strict, but you know, I talked to the daughter quite a bit and she seemed like a really sweet girl and she went to school just down the road."

Back then, Fitts had custody of her now 12-year-old daughter, Sendy.

Fitts used to work at a San Francisco Best Buy. Her friends there said she was about to get Sendy back and was going to turn her life around.

In a statement, Best Buy said they were saddened by the news and that their thoughts were with Nicole’s loved ones and that they pray her daughter is found safely. The store on Harrison Street is holding a candlelight vigil to honor Nicole's memory on Wednesday night. 

It’s definitely an odd case here. We have a missing child and someone who was also reported missing on April 5th. Three days later, we find her as a victim of a homicide so that’s not a common thing that occurs,” said Gatpandan. “Now the child is missing. She’s at risk. It’s very urgent that we find her, because she’s so young.”

On Thursday, just 10-15 hours before Nicole’s body was discovered, she or someone posted something to her Facebook account that said, “Happy birthday to my son.” But family said that Nicole only had two daughters.