By admin 
PHOENIX — Five years after Alisha Hale was murdered in Phoenix, her family is renewing their pleas for justice as investigators pursue a new theory in the case.
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Hale, whose full name is Alisha Marie Bellotte, also known as Alisha Marie Hale, was 34 years old when her body was found on June 3, 2021, in a secluded area near I-10 and Baseline Road. She had been shot.
Investigators believe the shooting happened the day before her body was discovered.
Hale was last seen on surveillance video driving down a dirt road near I-10 and Baseline with an unidentified man. The camera was more than 600 feet away, leaving the footage grainy. Both Hale and the man eventually walk out of frame — but only the man returns.
Police released that video on July 23, 2025, showing the suspect and the suspected vehicle from before and after the shooting.
Phoenix Police Detective Kevin Ham took over the case last year. An autopsy revealed Hale was HIV positive, and Ham says that detail may be central to understanding why she was killed.
“The possibility exists that maybe she passed on that virus to the suspect, and that may have been the motivation for her murder,” Ham said.
Hale’s family pushed back on that as any justification for a killer. They say if that was the killer’s motivation, it didn’t solve anything for him.
“It’s not like it was back then, you know, where it was a death sentence. It did not have to be her death sentence,” a family member said.
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Investigators are still searching for a mid-2000s, likely a 2004, 2005 or 2006 Dodge Ram truck seen in connection with the case.
“The unfortunate thing, we didn’t get was a license plate,” Ham said.
Despite the challenges, Ham said he believes the case can be solved.
“I think this has a good possibility of being solved,” Ham said. “The family needs justice in this case.”
Hale was a mother of five. Her daughter remembered her as devoted.
“She was a really good mom while she was around. She cared a lot about us,” her daughter Natalie Fitzgerald said.
Her sisters described the toll the years of uncertainty have taken.
“It’s the hardest thing is waiting and no answers, no justice, you know?” Jamie Terrell, Alisha’s sister, said.
The family is adamant that they will not give up.
“We got plenty of generations to keep looking. So don’t think that he got away with it because he didn’t. Yeah, she was loved and that was probably his biggest mistake. Thinking she wasn’t,” Alisha’s younger sister, Becca Scott, told ABC15.
A $2,000 reward is available for information in the case. Anyone with information is asked to call 480-WITNESS.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.