Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking Crime News now. Oakley Carlson has just been declared dead.

Little Oakley's body has never been found lasting alive by someone other than her parents in 2021.

Her Washington State disappearance finally reported by a school principal who overhears Oakley's sister say her mom told her

Oakley had, quote, gone out into the woods and had been eaten by wolves. Our Drew Nelson

joins us with the latest. Nancy, even as detectives continue to treat her case as an open homicide

investigation, a judge declared Oakley Carlson legally

dead. Her mother, Jordan Bowers, who was released from prison just weeks before the ruling,

remains a suspect. Records show the death declaration came in Pacific County Superior Court

nearly four years after Oakley was last seen at age four, the petition filed on behalf of her siblings.

The ruling follows years of unanswered questions since Oakley disappeared from her parents' home in Oakville.

The child had once lived safely with foster parents, but in 2019, the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families returned her to her biological parents, Bowers,

and Andrew Carlson. Detectives said the couple gave conflicting and false statements when asked

about their daughter's whereabouts. Both were later convicted of child endangerment for

exposing their other children to meth. More recently, Bowers was sentenced in 2023 to 43

months in prison for identity theft and released last month.

She remains on community supervision for one year.

Detectives from the Grace Harbor County Sheriff's Office confirmed both parents are still considered suspects in a so-called no-body homicide case.

Jamie Joe Hiles, who was Oakley's foster mother, says the

declaration of death came as a shock. She spoke to KOMO. I hope that they just keep seeing

Oakley's face and maybe they just are like, okay, I need to, I need to come forward with what I know.

Hiles says she still speaks often with investigators and finds Bauer's release unnerving.

According to records, Oakley's six-year-old sister told investigators that their mother had told her

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