HAMPTON, Va. — The Virginia General Assembly has passed identical bills that would establish the Codi Alert program for missing children, sending the legislation to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's desk.
Named after Codi Bigsby, the child who was reported missing from Hampton in January 2022, the bills would create an emergency alert system aimed at helping individuals under the age of 18, whose whereabouts are unknown, and their disappearance is under suspicious circumstances or poses a threat.
Currently, there are several alerts in place to find abducted children or people. The Amber Alert deals specifically with abducted children, and the Ashanti Alert is for abducted adults.
The House of Delegates version of the legislation unanimously passed the Virginia Senate on Thursday, while the Senate version passed the House on Wednesday.
Codi's disappearance was reported on Jan. 31, 2022, from a home in the 100 block of Ranalet Drive, in the Buckroe Beach section of the city. Since then, search teams and community members have banded together at different times to search for the child, but he has never been found.
Codi's father, Cory Bigsby, was charged with murder and the concealment of a body, along with dozens of counts of child neglect and abuse for allegedly leaving his other children home alone, charges unrelated to Codi's disappearance. Bigsby is set to go on trial from March 4 through 8.
Court documents obtained by 13News Now in June 2023 state that Bigsby is accused of murdering his son "on or about" June 18, 2021, and doing something to conceal his body with malicious intent and hide the crime from law enforcement.
The documents didn't explain why Codi wasn't reported missing until Jan. 31, 2022, seven months after the date of the crime listed.