Teekah Lewis 01:04:58

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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.

This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice. Today, I'm discussing the disappearance of Tika Lewis.

Tika was only 2 and a half years old when she went missing from a bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington in 1999. Her disappearance sparked a wave of media attention that propelled her into the spotlight. It also sparked some pretty compelling witness statements that may be connected to one man. After 25 years of doing media, holding vigils, and just trying to make sense of this investigation, her family wants her home.

This is the case of Tika Lewis. In 1999, Teresa Chepesky lived in Tacoma, Washington, and she had her hands full as the mother of five young girls. Teresa is actually the youngest of eight kids, so I imagine having a lot of kids around is nothing new to her. Plus, it seems like she had a pretty solid support system. She has a really large extended family in the area. Lots of aunts, uncles, siblings, and, of course, kids in the family.

At two and a half years old, Tika is the second youngest of her sisters, and has quite a personality. Every morning, she wanted her cereal and to watch Winnie the Pooh. She was also known to make sure that anyone driving past a McDonald's was well aware that she wanted them to stop and get her some french fries, her favorite food.

It didn't hurt that Tika was also just absolutely adorable at this age. She has big brown eyes, dark curly hair, and dimples. She was also pretty big for a two-and-a-half-year-old, and her family has described her as mature. Her favorite toy was a doll of this older woman, so her maternal grandmother Mary affectionately called Tika her little old lady. Of course, no family is perfect.

But looking in from the outside, they seem pretty tight-knit. And there seems to have been, and likely still is, a lot of love here. They just enjoyed being around each other. Which is exactly what they were doing on the night Tika went missing. At around 8.30pm on Saturday, January 23rd, 1999, about 16 members of this family met up at the New Frontier Lane's bowling alley on Center Street in Tacoma.

It was league night, so the bowling alley was packed, to the point where there were no spaces left in the parking lot. Of the 32 lanes, Tika's family takes up lanes 7 and 8.

So everyone's kind of close together, but people are coming and going to the restroom, they're grabbing food and drink, and of course, Tika wants to play in the arcade area. And she is ready. She's carrying her little clear plastic purse with fishies on it, and inside she has her Christmas money, a ton of quarters from her uncle, and her favorite candy, Starburst. All the essentials for a two-and-a-half-year-old.

Tika takes a chance at the claw machine and loses a good amount of change before one of her uncles walks over and wins her a teddy bear. Tika decides to pay it forward, and she gives the teddy bear to her 10-month-old sister, Tamika.

As Teresa and everyone else bowled, the adults just took turns watching the kids. Tika's playing in the arcade area, but at one point runs back to Teresa, kind of grabbing her legs and trying to hide. Teresa told me that Tika was very much a mama's girl at this age, so she didn't think much of it. Her turn to bowl comes up, and she walks Tika back to the games and asks her brother and boyfriend to keep an eye on Tika as she takes her turn bowling.

Teresa says it all happened in just a few seconds. She grabs the ball, looks back at the arcade area, and sees Tika trying to reach the pedals on the race car driving game Cruisin' World. She focuses back on the lane, throws the ball, watches it go, and when she walks back, she looks to the arcade area, and Tika is gone.

At this point, it's about 10.15pm. Teresa and her family start looking for Tika. Teresa goes into the woman's restroom where she sees her cousin changing her baby. She asks if she's seen Tika. No. Teresa opens the heavy side door near the arcade area and screams Tika's name. But she gets no response. They start asking the patrons if they've seen Tika.

They search for about 15 minutes. Then Teresa alerts the bowling alley security guard that they can't find Tika. In my interview with Teresa, she told me that this man was actually an off-duty Tacoma police officer in full uniform. He asks Teresa if she's sure Tika's missing. She obviously says yes, please help, and they make an announcement over the intercom that a child is missing.

Some people do stop to help and search, but for the most part, people just keep bowling, drinking, and cheering. Now, most news reports say that the bowling alley was completely shut down. The parking lot was cordoned off, and all vehicles leaving were stopped and searched.

While it's possible that happened later in the night, Teresa told me that after she reported Tika missing to the police officer at about 10.30pm, it took another 20-30 minutes for him to even call for backup. So there does seem to be this window here for people to come and go without any police interaction. And this is later supported by witness statements as well.

The bowling alley was full that night, and it seems like everything after Tika was reported missing was chaos. Teresa told me something extremely shocking that I couldn't find in any news report. That a woman who was asking to hold Patron's babies in the bowling alley that night grabbed Teresa's 10-month-old Tamika, put her in her car, and tried to leave with her.

Teresa does say that this woman was quickly arrested, and after attempting to die by suicide in the squad car, was taken to a hospital for treatment. A witness outside the bowling alley shortly after the announcement that Tika was missing also told police that they saw something suspicious. A car speeding away from the parking lot. They reported that it was a late 80s or early 90s maroon or dark-colored Pontiac Grand Am.

It had a spoiler on the back and tinted windows. Unfortunately, they were not able to get a license plate number. So while I'm sure that the scene was eventually secured, it seems that many people came and went after Tika went missing without interacting with police. But everything starts moving really quickly and they begin searching for Tika immediately. Her story makes headlines across Washington.

Both the FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are called in to assist.

They do search that night, but it seems that the largest, most comprehensive search happens that Sunday. They search for 15 hours, covering a one-and-a-half-mile radius around the bowling alley. About three dozen search-and-rescue volunteers, along with police, search rooftops, comb the nearby trash dump, and they even utilize a helicopter with infrared technology.

They also brought in search dogs, two of which independently lead trackers to a bushy area across the street from the bowling alley. The Red Cross even stepped in to help provide supplies for the search teams. Nineteen-year-old search and rescue field leader Ryan Sorsdale told the media, quote, When that call comes through for a two-year-old little kid, there's no buts about it. You go and stay till it's over, end quote.

Of course, the hope was that Tika just somehow wandered away. She was only two and a half. But like I said, she was a big kid and pretty mobile. But at 5 p.m., the Tacoma PD announced that they believed Tika has been abducted. Pierce County Sheriff Sergeant Cindy Fajardo added, quote, There's no evidence about what happened. She vanished into thin air. End quote.

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By Sunday, January 24th, 1999, Tika Lewis has been missing for less than 24 hours, and multiple agencies were working her case. The Tacoma PD, four FBI agents with four more expected to join, the Sheriff's Office, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Red Cross. It was all hands on deck.

But after a 15-hour search, it doesn't seem that anything was recovered related to Tika. On Monday, Tacoma Police spokesman Ed Baker tells the News Tribune that the investigation is not focused on Tika's family, but they do need to rule them out. However, in a statement years later, the Tacoma PD would admit that as soon as Tika went missing, they and the FBI began conducting two parallel investigations.

one looking at her family, and one exploring the possibility of this being a stranger abduction. Now, I obviously understand how crucial it is to look at the family when a child goes missing.

Stats prove that it is very likely that when a child goes missing, it's at the hands of someone they know. I just thought it was kind of funny how they were fibbing to the public here, because it was no secret to Tika's family or really the public that they were being looked at. On the same day Baker told the Tribune that they were not focusing on the family, they gave Teresa her first polygraph test.

But either way, the search for Tika continued on Tuesday. Fifty volunteers handed out flyers within a three-mile radius, and a pond near the bowling alley was dragged, but nothing was found. Then something is finally found. In the bushy area across the street from the bowling alley, where two dogs led police to on Sunday, a ball of men's clothing is found under a bush.

Police don't think it had been there very long, because there was no mold or mildew on any of it, despite the rain and humid climate of Tacoma. So, I don't know if these clothes were there on Sunday when the dogs alerted and they just missed them, or if this ball of clothing was placed under the bush after.

But according to reporting by Bruce Rushton for the News Tribune, they find a hip-length Boatworks brand navy blue wool coat with a green quilted nylon liner in size large. It has oblong wooden buttons, and on the tag on the collar, written in black ink, are either the initials IS or JS.

There are also numbers printed on the label that police are withholding in hopes of verifying the owner. With the coat are a pair of off-white jeans that are stained with either blue or purple ink. They're a size 34 at the waist and 32 in length, with a label over the right back pocket that reads, Lee Dungarees. Can't bust them since 1889.

They also find a rather new-looking Columbia button-down flannel shirt. It's blue and green plaid over a white background with yellow highlights. So these three pieces of clothing are all balled up under this bush, and we don't know exactly how long they've been there. They are wet, so they take the clothes, let them dry, and comb them for fibers to be tested. Law enforcement also goes to the media and asks for the owner of the clothing to come forward.

Now, these clothing items could be crucial, because they align with a few different witness statements. Now strap in, I'm about to take you on a journey through these statements, so stick with me. Within days of Tika being reported missing, the TV show America's Most Wanted sent a crew out to the bowling alley to film a reenactment for a short segment that aired on the show on Saturday, January 30th.

exactly one week after Tika disappeared. And during filming, a witness came forward to report a suspicious man watching the crew. The man was described as having a pockmarked face. So let's call that witness statement one. The date of the next statement is less clear. The earliest reporting I could find of it was January 2000.

But according to reporting by Stacey Burns for the News Tribune, a boy only described as a Tacoma teenager tells the police that he saw two men at the bowling alley that night who were near Tika in the arcade, and also appeared to be following her as she walked toward the front desk area. So away from the arcade and the side door there, and closer to the front door.

Now, this Tacoma teenager does say that he didn't see the men do anything to Tika. He just thought it was odd. One of the men was described as being in his 30s or 40s, 5'9", about 200 pounds. He had long black hair and was wearing dirty jeans and a gray jacket with some type of sports logo.

The other man was described as also being in his 30s or 40s, 5'11", 200 pounds, but this guy had dark brown hair, a thick mustache, a big nose, and a pockmarked face. So we'll call this witness statement 2.

The next statement comes to police within days of Tika going missing. After seeing a picture of Tika, a teenage boy who was at the bowling alley that night comes forward to tell police he saw something strange. While he was going to the bathroom, he saw a man holding a little girl's hand who he believes is Tika. He says the man bumped into him and didn't say excuse me or anything. So he just figured that it was a dad trying to rush his daughter to the bathroom.

But of course, after he saw Tika's picture, he knew he had to call it in. And the boy describes this man as white, about 5'11", with a husky build, shoulder-length curly brown hair, a thick mustache, a big nose, and a pockmarked face. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt and faded jeans. Now, I want to say let's call this witness statement three.

The trouble is, I don't know if this is the same teenage boy from statement number two. See, while this statement is known to the police and the media pretty early on, some later reporting by Fox 13 Seattle in December 2020 kind of presents it as new. It's this breaking story about how detectives feel this statement may crack the case. And the thing is, there's no mention of any second man with long black hair.

And witness statement 2 never talks about any encounter with a man near the bathrooms, or the blue plaid shirt. They seem like two different witness statements, but it's never directly addressed by police in any reporting that I could find. I will also go out on a limb here and say that I don't think it's crazy that there were two teenage boys in the bowling alley that night who may have seen something.

But of course, either way, the tie here is the white male with brown hair, a big nose, and a pockmarked face. Is this the same man that was seen while America's Most Wanted was filming? Does the blue plaid shirt found belong to him? It's unclear. While they did test the clothing, ultimately nothing was found. Or, like I always say, if it was, they have not told us.

Unfortunately, there were also no cameras in the bowling alley to confirm or dismiss this theory either. Which is actually quite surprising to me, because in addition to these witnesses, even more come forward with their own stories of disturbing experiences at and around the bowling alley.

On November 29th, 1998, so about two months before Tika went missing, the father who played in a bowling league was at the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley with his four-year-old son. While dad bowled, he played in the arcade area. At some point, he goes to the bathroom and is sexually assaulted in one of the stalls. He's found lying on the ground in the bathroom by a patron shortly after. It's just absolutely horrific.

Dad tells the security officers on duty, who say that they think they know who the man is, but don't know his name. He's described as a white male with brown, curly hair, possibly wearing a hat with the word husky on it. When this boy's father calls the Tacoma PD the next day to follow up, he discovers that the bowling alley never filed a report, so he makes one. An arrest has never been made in the case.

The next incident happened just weeks before Tika went missing. A six-year-old boy was playing in the arcade area while his mother was bowling. Mom looks over and sees a man talking to her son. And then he begins to take his hand and start walking. Mom rushes over and hears this man say that he was the boy's father. She runs to security and the man is escorted out. He's described as a white male with brown hair.

The police are not called, but the tip was later called in to police three days after Tika went missing. The last incident happened hours before Tika disappeared. At around 2pm that day, a father and his two children were at a park less than a mile from the bowling alley. Dad sees a stranger motioning for his two kids to come into the bathroom with him. Dad chases this man.

but he hops into a blue 1995 Pontiac Grand Am and gets away. He was described as a white male with brown hair wearing a baseball cap. This tip was also called into police three days after Chica went missing.

So police have all this information at least within a year of Tika going missing. They have at least five separate witness statements, possibly six, about a male with brown hair, possibly a pockmarked face, possibly wearing a shirt matching the description of one found at the scene, possibly driving the same vehicle seen speeding away from the parking lot that night. But for some reason, not much is done with this.

I would think at the very least they would try to make and compare some sketches, but that just didn't happen. This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Ibotta. Are you planning your dream vacation but dreading the cost?

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and announced to the public that she'd been cleared of having any involvement in Tika's disappearance. Tika's father is also cleared. I haven't talked about him yet. He was never really in Tika's life, but his name is Robert Earl Lewis, and he was in prison on theft charges when Tika went missing. He'd been in there since 1997, so he is quickly ruled out.

But still, at this point, it seems like the police have so much with all these witness statements about that night, as well as these three other incidents from the bowling alley or the surrounding area. But at the same time, they're telling the public and Tika's family that they basically have nothing.

So on Wednesday, February 3rd, wearing a shirt with Tika's picture on it, Teresa and two of her brothers, Philip and William, go down to the Tacoma Police Department. And they demand to speak with the chief. They wait about 10 minutes. And then they actually get the meeting. It lasts about 45 minutes. Teresa explains that she's just not satisfied with the investigation. She thinks more should be done.

But they explain to her that Tika's case is getting more resources than any other case has in years.

Danny Dodge with the News Tribune covered this story, and reports that at this point, FBI agents are putting in extra hours without overtime pay. The Tacoma PD has nearly put in 3,500 hours on the case. The cost of just the manpower is close to $100,000, not including what was spent on searches for Tika or staffing the dedicated tip line.

Sergeant Jimmy Young says that he's been with the department for 23 years and has never seen more effort put into a case. He adds that he's worked 60 hours of overtime in the last week. The meeting ends with Teresa thanking them for their efforts. Now, I've talked about similar situations in other cases. These type of kind of standoffs with families and police. On one side, there's a child who's missing and a family that is terrified and worried sick.

On the other side, there's a department that's tallying up the cost of an investigation. I don't think it's a game that anyone can ever win. It's clear that this family is just in shambles. And while yes, the effort into Tika's case does seem more substantial compared to many other cases, she's still missing. Teresa's brother Phillip told Danny Dodge that they aren't a family that's going to give up, or just sit by and let the police handle it.

Her other brother William says that he hasn't even been able to go back to work yet. He's going insane with Tika being gone, and Teresa can't even go back home. She says there's just too many memories of Tika. She's been staying at her mom Mary's house, who seems like the glue that holds this very large family together. After this meeting, Teresa said that she ran right back to her mom's house. She had an 8-year-old who was sick.

See, most of the family goes to Grandma Mary's house to watch the news each night, hoping for an update on Tika. And because of that, 15 of them have come down with the same stomach bug. Tika truly has an army working for her. But nothing really happens.

Despite the police saying that they've done all they can for Tika, in May 1999, Senate Bill 5108, also known as the Tika Lewis Bill, passes. This established a Washington State Patrol task force to look at cases of missing and exploited children. It gives more resources for technology, personnel training, and coordinating information about cases.

While this bill was already in progress when Tika went missing, it was named for her just a few days after her disappearance. They say that if this was already established, Tika would have been found. That July, the new Frontier Lanes bowling alley closes for good, and is eventually torn down. What's left is combed for evidence, but again, nothing was found.

By the one-year mark of Tika going missing, her case file is compiled into six 4-inch binders. Investigators have received over 700 tips and conducted over 300 interviews. There's a $27,000 reward. At the vigil, a detective overhears one of Tika's uncles expressing his frustration that she hasn't been found, and the detective pulls him aside.

She says that this is the case that haunts her, and she's trying her best. There's clearly still some tension between Tika's family and the Tacoma PD, but her family maintains hope that she'll be found alive, even through one especially devastating development.

On April 28, 2001, a three-year-old girl was found deceased in a wooded area outside of Kansas City, Missouri. She was given the name Precious Doe, and a sketch was circulated in the media in hopes of identifying her.

This reaches a woman named Carol Benjamin in Olathe, Kansas. She sees this image and sometime later, one night at about 2am when she can't sleep, she throws on a program from Court TV called Final Justice. During the program, they show an age-progressed photo of Tika, showing what she might look like at age 4. Carol says the moment she saw Tika's eyes, she just knew that she was precious dough.

And Carol is not messing around. She calls the hotline. She calls Final Justice, America's Most Wanted, and the Kansas City PD. She says that she was just banging her head against the wall trying to get a hold of someone, anyone.

Now, the Tacoma PD will not confirm or deny that Carol's tip made them pursue this lead, but they did. They send a picture of Tika, DNA, and some other unspecified evidence to the Kansas City PD for comparison. And then they wait.

Teresa holds out hope that this is not Tika. And she's right. It's not. It's almost four-year-old Erica Michelle Maria Green. Her mother and stepfather were later charged with her murder. So, the investigation into what happened to Tika continues.

Over the years, a few people call the Tacoma PD to say that they've seen Teresa with a girl that they think is Tika, but it turns out that it was her younger daughter Tamika who apparently looked just like Tika as a baby.

Now, Teresa does eventually hire a private investigator. And in April 2006, he finds a girl in Texas who's being homeschooled who looks a lot like Tika. He snaps a picture of the girl and the woman she's with and shares it with Teresa and the police. Teresa sees this picture and her heart stops. She says she looks just like Tika's sisters. And she thinks she recognizes the woman from the bowling alley.

The FBI is called in. And pretty quickly, they say this is not a match. The girl was missing a birthmark that Tika has on her buttock. The birthmarks don't match. But they run the DNA anyway. After about six weeks, the results come back. It's not Tika.

But throughout all this, Tika's family still holds out hope. They hold a vigil for her every single year where the bowling alley used to be. They're doing media, talking to psychics, hiring PIs. Grandma Mary plasters her van with pictures and flyers of Tika. They're trying.

But the next lead doesn't come in until four years later, at the 11th annual vigil in 2010. Right before they get started, a man that Teresa has never seen before approaches her. He says he's had visions about Tika and may know where she is. Of course, Teresa tells the police and they say that the man is new to them too. But they play along, thinking that maybe this tip could be rooted in truth somewhere.

Four days later, they dig up an 8 by 12 foot area in the native gardens in Point Defiance Park. But nothing is found. This causes a lot of uproar. One, people are apparently very upset that these plants were removed. Metro Parks has to make a statement assuring the public that the area will be restored.

But more importantly, Teresa is extremely upset. She doesn't understand why the man came to her and not the police. And she wants to know why. She also wants to know if this man was lying, and if he was, why he would do something so awful. But again, all they can do is move forward. And it wasn't long before the Tacoma PD begins pulling search warrants in connection to Tika's case.

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In July 2012, the home of John William Black was searched in connection with Tika's case. In October 2010, Black pled guilty to luring a child at a different bowling alley in Tacoma, Tower Lanes. He apparently squatted and motioned for a three-year-old girl to come to him. The girl's dad runs over, pushes Black, and possibly punches him in the face. Black is arrested. He admits to what he did.

Teresa tells the News Tribune that she thinks Black may have been at the bowling alley the night Tika went missing, and she thinks he may have even spoken to her. Black denies any connection to Tika, and says he doesn't know anything about her or her case. Now, while searching his home, three cadaver dogs led police to the same spot, and they dig, but nothing was found.

And by August 3rd, the Tacoma PD say that Black is not a suspect. And I just can't help but point it out, now we here have another case of contradictory statements from the Tacoma PD. At first, they won't say what led them to Black. Then in August, they say it's because of what he did, his charge. But two years later, in 2014, they say it's because of comments Black specifically made. So take that for what you will.

In 2013, there was another promising sighting. One of Teresa's friends think that they may have seen Tika in California, but it's not her. The next year, Teresa says that she's studying to become a private investigator, saying that she's the only person who's going to bring Tika home. But it's been a decade since then, and Tika's case has seen next to no movement. So what happened to Tika Lewis?

We do know that from the beginning, authorities have explored the possibility of Tika being taken by a stranger or by a family member. But it does seem that they lean towards a stranger abduction. Detective Lindsay Wade actually said exactly that. They think a stranger kidnapped her, though many detectives have admitted how rare that would be. As far as I know, the white male with brown hair and a pockmarked face has never been found.

Over the years, many detectives have made many statements about Tika's case. They've said that Tika was too young for a sex-related crime and too old for a quote, baby steal. Which, I don't know if I really believe that. They've called her case baffling and said it defies the pattern of most child abductions.

Some have pointed to Teresa's statements about how Tika likely would have cried if she was taken by a stranger. But I'd counter that with, bowling alleys are loud. Between the games, the pins, 36 lanes of people talking, music, people coming in and out, it's a loud, overstimulating environment.

Of course, I asked Teresa what she thought happened to Tika, and she said that there are still some loose ends here. She told me that the Tacoma PD refuses to follow up on the woman who tried to drive away with her other daughter Tamika that night. She says Tika's paternal grandmother called a few weeks before she went missing, asking if she could have her. She'd like them to follow up on that too. She also has concerns about her boyfriend at the time.

And she has no idea what happened to the $27,000 reward that was once being offered in Tika's case. The most current reward that I could find was down to just $1,000. Teresa does still hold out hope that Tika is alive, that she was raised by a family who was good to her. And she just doesn't know that she was kidnapped. Teresa even submitted her DNA to ancestry sites in hopes that Tika might do the same someday.

Unfortunately, this bright hope starkly contrasts with what the police have said over the years. In fact, in one of possibly the worst statements I've ever heard, in 2000, Detective Lindbergh of the Tacoma PD told the Gazette, "...if you talk to a hundred officers, they would all probably tell you she's dead. They would say she's near the bowling alley somewhere. We just haven't found her." End quote.

This family has been through so much. Horrible, unnecessary statements from police like that, people coming forward to say that they are Tika and asking for money, 25 vigils, and seemingly unlimited appearances on talk shows, podcasts, and the local news. I told you about Grandma Mary driving around town in her van covered with Tika's picture. But don't take it from me.

I'd rather you hear it directly from Teresa. Tika was a mama's girl. I couldn't go nowhere without her. I would try to walk to the store. I had to bring her with me because she would cry and cry and cry until I let her. Tika was not, didn't really trust anybody but her sisters, her cousin Sarah, and

Her grandma. Those are the only people that Tika would really let hold her and that she trusted. My niece, Sarah, she was turning 16 in 99 in February. And she told Tika that when she got her driver's license, she would take Tika to go get french fries when she got her driver's license. And she promised Tika she would do that.

But then a month later, Tika comes up missing. And my niece didn't get that chance to take Tika to go do that. And she told Tika she would do that when she got her driver's license because her and my niece were so close. And Tika was a grandma's girl. Every time grandma would drive by McDonald's, Tika had to have French fries. And in 99, I forgot what.

cartoon it was they had an old lady um figure in the um happy meals back then and my mom had bought tika a happy meal and that's what came in and so ever since then um tika

My mom called Tika her little old lady because, you know, she bought that meal for her and that's what she got. And so that was my mom's nickname for Tika, her little old lady. Tika, you know, she was two years old. She was smart. You know, she was trying to count and her sisters would play hide and seek.

And she would be the one to count and her sisters would go hide. And Tika would be one, two, three, ten. And she was like, here I come. And she would go find her sisters. And all you could hear is her little footprints running down the hallway trying to find her sisters. And every morning, Tika would have to wake up her baby sister. It's, I want cereal.

go wake up her baby sister and watch Pooh Bear, her favorite thing to do every morning. She was a big two-year-old. She's a big two-year-old. Smart. She was cautious of everybody. You know, like I said, there's a very few people that could hold her or that could watch her. She wouldn't let nobody. Every time I went to the store, I had to take her

And she wanted Starburst every time we went. She had to have Starburst. She wouldn't leave the store without it. She always had to have Starburst. And, you know, my other kids would get, they would get tired of the crying because she was such a mama's girl, big mama's girl. You know, Tika was my everything. She was my independence baby. She was my heart. She was my heart. And,

When Tika came up missing, it went down to Tamika. And I did everything for Tamika. Everything. Everything. You know? And I looked at Tamika and I seen my Tika. Now I look at my grandbabies of Tamika's, especially my grandson, and I see Tika in him. And...

The dimples, her face, his face, everything, everything. And her kids just remind me of my Tika. And Tika's that, her big brown eyes and that smile. I mean, I'm looking at her right now. You know, I have a shelf where her, of her, her pooh bears and her pictures are

I have it right there. And, you know, I look at her every morning and I see those big brown eyes and her dimples and the smile. You know, she was a mama's girl. And I don't know how they got away with my baby. I really don't. Grandma Mary passed away in 2018. Teresa told me that her dying wish was to find out what happened to Tika.

Which brings me right to our call to action. When I asked Teresa how we can help Tika's case, she said that she just needs help in sharing it. She needs more people to get the word out about Tika. One of her biggest goals is to get Tika featured on the Today Show, but she said that she would take any major true crime television show. She told me that she's willing to speak with any creator who wants to cover Tika's case. So please share.

Share Tika's case on social media, with your favorite creator, tag your favorite TV show. I also highly encourage you to support Tika's family on Facebook. The page is called Help Find Tika Lewis. And if that doesn't get to you, if this whole episode has not compelled you to share Tika's story for some reason,

I want you to know that the day that this episode airs, July 4th, 2024, is Tika's 28th birthday. If anything, please share for her. As a reminder, Tika Lewis was two years old when she was abducted from the New Frontier Bowling Alley in Tacoma, Washington on January 23rd, 1999.

She is biracial. She's black and Native American, with brown eyes and black hair. At the time of her disappearance, she was 3 feet tall and weighed about 35 pounds. When she was last seen, her hair had a silver streak on the front right side and was in pigtails. She was wearing a Tweety Bird t-shirt, white sweatpants, and Air Jordan sneakers. She was also carrying a clear plastic purse with fish on it.

She does have a quarter-sized birthmark on her buttock, and at the time had skin discoloration on her face due to eczema. She also has asthma.

Anyone with information about Tika is asked to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. You can also visit the Crimestoppers of Pierce County website at tpcrimestoppers.com or call 800-222-TIPS. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. Welcome to the Secret After Show. The door is open, our emotional support puppies are in the room.

And we're going to need them. I have a lot to talk about with Tika's case. I have probably the most notes ever. So bear with me. If you're not ready for a rant, I'll see you next week. Otherwise, let's freaking talk about it. This list is like not probably in the best order, but it's just the truth of how I feel. So let's go right down it.

The first thing I wanted to talk about is I found this quote that right after Tika went missing, Tacoma PD spokesman Ed Baker told Danny Dodge with the News Tribune that the FBI is brought in whenever small children are abducted. And my note there is really with like a thousand question marks after it. Yeah.

That has not been my experience. I don't think that that's real, and I don't know where that came from. I think certainly the FBI has brought in on many cases, but not every case of a small child. I don't know. That just stuck out to me, and I do think that I, by the end of researching this case, um...

I had some questions for the Tacoma PD, so I'll get right into the next thing, and that's the contradictory statements from police. Now, I know that detectives change over the years, but it's just, I don't know, there's something about them constantly giving conflicting statements that made me not feel good about what they're doing. And maybe that's a little judgy, but...

This is all I can base my opinion off of. So, like, that statement about not investigating the family, when they knew damn well that they had two concurrent investigations happening. And again, I will say it, you need to investigate the family. I will never say that, oh my gosh, like, you should never look at families, that's so awful. Please, please, I am, my sister's case is the perfect case of, like, please, please, please look at the family. And

I don't know. Like, I know that they need to be cool in the media and not give everything away. Just, like, don't say anything then. I don't know. And then again, when they searched Black's home because of what he did, later it was because of what he said in an interview. I don't know. And I think what made me really cautious about these statements, too, was that when you follow this case through news reports in the media...

As like, I think from like 2012 on, I don't know. And who knows, right? I don't know if this was started by the media or if this was started by the police. But all these articles start coming out about new information that's going to crack the case. And it's stuff that I read in reports from 1999. Yeah.

It was just kind of weird. It was weird. I didn't know what was going on or who was telling the truth or where things were coming from. And I will say that actually, you know, if a police department wants to drum up some media and, you know, allude to it being new information when it's not...

I'm not really mad at that. I don't think that that's like the slimiest tactic to get people caring about the case. It's just it was one of those things. I don't know. All these things combined, along with some just weird statements from police.

Made me feel weird about it. I don't know. Let me know if you feel the same way. Of course, I felt some type of way about Detective Lindbergh, the Tacoma PD, telling the Gazette, if you talk to 100 police officers, they'll all probably tell you that she's dead. Listen, I promise you, families are not the people that need to hear that.

They're not. We know the stats. We are told the stats. We see quotes like this all the time. I was sat down when I was 15 years old and told, you need to accept that Alyssa's dead. That's not what people need to hear. So while I agree with that statement that stats say that likely, even a year later in 2000, that Tika was most likely deceased, why make that statement to the media? I don't know.

I will also say that in my interview with Teresa, she told me that a lot of these things she was finding out through the news, through podcasts. So again, there just doesn't seem to be the best relationship there between the police and the family, um,

And that was something I wanted to talk about too, are these, we see it all the time. And like I said in the main episode, I do not think it's a fair fight. Again, on one side, you have a family that has a missing child. Their one goal is advocate, advocate, advocate. I must get this in the media. We must progress this case. I don't care what you have to spend. I don't care what you have to do. I don't care about the logistics. I need results.

And then you have a police department who is spending a lot of money, who is likely answering to someone higher up about all this money and what the end point is. At what point do we stop putting so many resources into this case? And I see both sides. I also think at the end of the day, when it's your person, you don't care how much money is spent. You don't care how many hours are spent because it's your person.

I don't know. I think that that battle is something that we will always see in true crime that will never, ever go away. Now, outside of the police, I do have some other things I wanted to talk about. One random thing that I came across in researching Tika's case was that she was featured on trading cards. And at first I was like, oh, wow.

it's like a cold case, you know, deck of cards, right? That's for sure what it is. And no, that was not it. So there was a comic book artist who created a series of trading cards featuring missing children. And I wasn't, I didn't know how to take that. I'd never really seen that before. So again, that's one of those things. I'd like to get your opinion on that. But

don't know well would people collect trading cards of missing people and then what do you do with them do you trade them i don't know if you guys have more insight into that let me know i think it's so like the fact that this guy wanted to do that is so so fantastic it is so so nice it was just one of those things that kind of stopped me in my tracks and i was like huh i've never seen this before

So they were created by a man named Alonzo Washington. He's a comic book artist and activist from Kansas City, and he gives them out when he travels. He says it's more captivating than milk cartons. I just wanted to give credit where credit was due. Again, Alonzo, I think that that is a great effort. And I wonder where they are now. I actually went to look up his website. It was in the article that I read. It was...

I think omega7.com. But now it's like some energy drink or something that I think would have to do with like omegas. I don't know. I don't know. If you're out there, Alonzo, let me know where you're at, what you're up to and how that project is going.

I also wanted to point out the quote that just, oh, it got to me so much. It was early on. It is the 19-year-old search and rescue field leader, Ryan, when he says, when that call comes through for a two-year-old little kid, there's no buts about it. You go and stay till it's over. Ryan, I hope that you are having the best day and the best life ever.

And that you are just hitting every green light. I hope that every side of your pillow is always cool. And thank you for what you do. My last note here that I wanted to talk about with the case is just that you can tell when you speak to Teresa, when I spoke to Teresa, I should say, this still, it's like it happened yesterday. She is hurting.

And she just wants some help and some answers. And I got off that interview with her and was like, oh my gosh, like, what can I do? I have to help. And I hope that that came through in the episode. She is an amazing lady. And like I say, you know, it's not often that

really, that you'll find somebody who's stuck with a case that long, right? And it's not always like their fault. It's people do need to heal. People need to move on. People pass away. Things happen, you know, especially in the older cases, but Teresa is still out there fighting and she is tenacious. I will tell you that. Um, so again, please, please, please share, um,

If we could get Tika's case on the Today Show, I would cry my eyes out. So please share.

on to what's going on with me other than crying my eyes out over everything all the time. Nothing. I am predictably boring, which is fine. I like being boring. My life has been plenty exciting. I am happy to have a boring week. All that to say, I'm just working away over here and getting ready again for the True Crime Podcast Festival, which is the week after this episode airs, July 12th in Denver, Colorado. Um,

So yeah, if you're around, come see me. You hear my flip-flops squeaking on my chair. If you're there, come see me. I would love that. I do these events, I think, 99% to see you guys. Of course, like families too, right? But listeners, families, I like meeting you guys. So please come. And if you're there, please don't hesitate to say hi. I am a hugger, but I will ask you before I hug you, I promise.

On to our segment of hope. Oh, you guys, I'm gonna try not to cry again. This comes from the week this episode airs, July 1st, 2024. You guys know I like to keep it current if I can. This week I could. And this comes from ABC News. This is written by Luke Barr. Thank you, Mr. Barr. The title is U.S. Marshals Rescue 200 Missing Children Over Six Weeks. Oh, I'm...

I'm like in such a crying mood. I'm going to try not to. It says, Operation We Will Find You Too, focused on cities such as Phoenix and Miami. So of course, this was big news here in Phoenix. And I thought, wow, what a great segment of hope. And we have a fantastic quote from U.S. Marshal Service Director Ronald Davis, who says, whenever a child is missing,

Whether we can explain how they went missing, whether we think it's a family abduction, or whether it's a runaway, they are at risk of being in danger and at risk of being trafficked, at risk of being hurt. We need to take it very, very seriously."

Oh my gosh, please, Mr. Davis, come work on every single missing child case. I would really, really love that. Now, it does say that, of course, they worked with a fantastic National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I am not surprised. They are amazing.

my go-to non-profit aside from season of justice of course um they help so many cases i cannot tell you how many times i research a case and it's like yeah of course neck mech was there of course um

Now, it looks like the number of children rescued is still just scratching the surface, Davis said. But with technical assistance from NECMEC, 123 children were removed from dangerous situations, and 77 of those children were found in safe locations.

Oh, I'm going to try not to cry. So they say that they've run this operation six times before this one. And so far, they have located 546 kids just in 2024. They say that this number is higher than the number they had this time last year, but lower than the nearly 950 kids recovered in 2021.

And officials are saying that this is the most children they've ever seen rescued over a six-week period from the Phoenix area. So thank you to the U.S. Marshals Service and to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I just think it's crazy and so freaking amazing that they can go find all these kids, um...

which of course is why it makes this segment of hope. It's really crazy to see all the different ways that kids can come home, you know, whether it's from a tip, somebody sees something online,

I'm going to give you a little preview of our segment of hope for next week. And that was, I just saw that a kid was found on a live stream. He was missing and popped up in somebody's live stream. It is insane the ways that kids can just be recovered, be found, come home, whatever happens. And that's why I will, one, always have hope.

And two, why this particular story makes our segment of hope. Just cool to see all the different ways we can bring kids home. And hopefully, I know she's not a kid anymore, but we can bring Tika home. But that is all I have for you today. As always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.