One neat thing about writing for a newspaper in the computer age is the ability to amble back through your professional past at the click of a button.

Like browsing through an old photo album, rereading stories written long ago can whisk the writer back in time. Don’t tell our editors, but some reporters actually do this from time to time when the scanners are quiet and the public meeting agendas are short.

Some may do it for research when an old issue resurfaces or maybe just to remind themselves what better writers they have become over the years. When I’m in a writing funk, I may revisit old stories that I think I did a decent job at writing to remind myself that I do have the ability to tell a story when I put my mind to it.

This week it was a phone message that sent me to the computerized archives, back to this week 11 years ago and to the story of an 8-month-old baby named Aisha Mariah Dickson.

Aisha died in a Bald Mountain Drive apartment in Bangor. Nearly every bone in her 11-pound body was broken, save for her spine. Her mother, father and grandmother were with her. They each hired lawyers and opted not to talk to police. Just who did beat that baby to death that cold January night remains unknown.

With only the three adults in the home and no one talking, police were left with little to work with.

Her murder is what’s known in the police business as a “cold case” revisited from time to time by detectives but mostly going nowhere.

“It’s an active case,” Bangor Police Detective Sgt. Paul Kenison assured me this week. “John Robinson is the detective assigned to the case, and he talks to her [Aisha’s] mother very often. He definitely keeps track of their whereabouts and continues to interview neighbors and family members.”

Aisha’s grandmother moved back to her native Honduras shortly after Aisha’s death. Her mother, Sarah Johnson, and father, DeShawn Dickson, left for Lewiston not long after and remain there today. The couple went on to have two more children. The state took custody of both children and they were adopted.

Aisha’s death made for big headlines and drew angry letters from readers still reeling from the horrific starvation death of 5-year-old Tavielle Kigas by her mother in the same neighborhood just 14 months earlier.

After attending Aisha’s funeral, my co-worker Tom Weber wrote in his column, “Someone killed Aisha Mariah Dickson, police say. And until that someone is made accountable for her death, no one should allow this tragedy to be put to rest.”

But let’s face it – time moves on. Detectives retire, reporters have other stories to tell and communities have new concerns and crises to deal with.

Aisha’s life was brief, and her community connections here were limited. But she did have two connections in the way of Brian Storman and his wife at the time, Shirley.

Brian was Sarah Johnson’s teacher at Penobscot Job Corps. The couple took mother and baby under their wings. They worked to try to help Sarah be a better mother. They had them for dinner a couple of times a week and took them to church, where Aisha quickly charmed her way through the congregation.

It was Brian’s call that drove me deep into the recesses of my computer’s memory this week.

Brian remembers Aisha every day. He keeps pictures of her around him and visits her gravesite when he comes to town.

He still struggles with feelings of guilt that he didn’t do more to protect that precious baby.

“I just wish I had taken her and run,” he said. “I should have just grabbed her and gone.”

But he couldn’t have done that, of course. He and his wife called the Department of Human Services with suspicions, but were told they didn’t have enough evidence of abuse to warrant action.

So they kept watch the best they could.

Aisha would have been 11 years old now. Brian is living on Grand Lake Stream and wishes he could be taking her four-wheeling and fishing.

Instead he’ll keep making the trek to Bangor and picking a handful of flowers to place on the rose-colored stone that marks her tiny grave.

Her killer will go on living his or her life somehow, and Detective Robinson will pull out the folder from time to time, hoping to find that missing piece of the puzzle that will land someone in prison.

And for this moment anyway, maybe a few of us will remember, because this week, with the click of a button, I was reminded of how soon we forget.

Renee Ordway can be reached at rordway@bangordailynews.net.