Teekah Lewis

30:58On 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.

31:43And 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.

32:33So 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.

33:20The 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.

34:06Right 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 8x12 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.

34:49But 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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36:15Then$12.99 a month or then current regular monthly price. 18 plus terms apply. 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.

36:57Black 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.

37:46In 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.

38:18So, 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.

39:05Which, 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.

39:53She 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.

40:40Unfortunately, this bright hope starkly contrasts 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, quote, 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.

41:33I 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, 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.

42:42and she promised Tika she would do that. But then a month later, Tika comes up missing

42:54and 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 she was like, 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 figure in the Happy Meals back then. and my mom had bought Tika a happy meal and that's what came in and so ever since then 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.

44:07Tika, 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 be one, two, three, 10. 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. And she was a big two-year-old. She's a big two-year-old.

45:03Smart. 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 a 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.

46:27And 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 poo bears and her pictures. I have it right there. And, you know, I look at her every morning and I see those big brown eyes and her, her dimples and the smile. You know, she, 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.

47:27She 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.

48:24If anything, please share for her.

48:36As a reminder, Tika Lewis was two years old when she was abducted from the New Frontier Bowling Alley in Tacoma, Washington on January 23, 1999. She is biracial. She's black and Native American, with brown eyes and black hair. At the time of her disappearance, she was three 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.

49:24She 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 Crime Stoppers 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.

50:19Thank you.

51:04Welcome 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.

51:53And my note there is really, with like a thousand question marks after it, 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 is 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, 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.

52:46And 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. But just like, don't say anything then.

53:29I don't know. And then again, with when they searched blacks 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 um when you follow this case through news reports in the media as like i think from like 2012 on um the i don't know and who knows right i don't know if this was started by the media, 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. I don't know.

54:13It 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.

54:54Of course, I felt some type of way about Detective Lindbergh, the Tacoma PD, telling the Gazette, if you talk to a hundred police officers, they'll all probably tell you that she's dead.

55:10listen i promise you families are not the people that need to hear that they're not we know the stats we are told the stat we we 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 alissa's dead that's not what people need to hear so while i agree with that statement that stats say that likely into 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 theresa she told me that a lot of these things she was finding out um 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.

56:28We 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.

57:21now outside of the police i do have some other things i wanted to talk about um one random thing that i i came across in researching tika's case was um that she was featured on trading cards and at first i was like oh it's like a cold case you know uh deck of cards right that's that's for sure what it is and no that was not it so um 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 um I 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 like give credit where credit was due again And Alonzo, I think that that is a great effort.

58:48And 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.

59:29You go and stay till it's over. Ryan, I hope that you are having the best day and the best life 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.

59:48My 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, um, 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 came through came through in the episode um she is an amazing lady and um like I say you know it's not often 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.

1:00:59So again, please, please, please share. 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. I, 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. So yeah, if you're around, come see me. Here are my flip-flops squeaking on my chair.

1:01:46If 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.

1:02:30The title is U.S. Marshals Rescue 200 Missing Children Over Six Weeks. 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.

1:03:21we need to take it very very seriously end quote oh my gosh please um mr davis come work on every single missing child case i would really really love that um now it does say that of course they worked with a fantastic um national center for missing and exploited children i am not surprised they are 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 NECMEC was there. Of course. 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.

1:04:20oh i'm gonna try not to cry um 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 um 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 marshal 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, which of course is why it makes this segment of hope.

1:05:17It'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.

1:06:11But that is all I have for you today. As always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.