Teekah Lewis

On the evening of January 23rd, 1999, two-year-old Teekah Lewis was abducted from the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, WA. Almost immediately, police suspected foul play. Within days, they had become reasonably certain that this was a rare case of stranger abduction...

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, you become accustomed to a few things: the Seattle Mariners breaking your heart every year, rain (or, rather, nine straight months of dark skies accompanied by a light drizzle), and your hometown being linked to a countless number of true crime stories.

I grew up in the town of Puyallup, Washington, which is now a decent-sized town in its ownright. But back in the mid-to-late 1990s, Puyallup was little more than a suburb on the outskirts of Tacoma: the third largest city in the state, but one that is always hidden in the shadows of Seattle. To many, Tacoma is still just the seedy younger brother of Seattle; a city that's been unable to shake it's rough reputation from decades prior.

When I was a child, Tacoma was a town that had gained fame for being the home of one of the largest gangs on the west coast: the Hilltop Crips, who sparred with other gangs in the area as well as law enforcement. They even got into a notorious gun battle with U.S. Army Rangers in 1989, which became known as the Ash Street Shootout. Because of these links to gangs and other violent crime, Tacoma would cultivate a reputation as a dangerous place throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. By the turn of the millennium, Tacoma had started to turn a corner - and is now regarded as one of the better cities in the US to live in and raise a family - but even I remember what it was like just a couple of decades ago... especially in the area known as "the Hilltop," where the Crips once reigned supreme. Nowadays, with all of the former-Crips incarcerated or dead, the Hilltop has been able to recover, and is now a thriving residential area.

By 1999, Tacoma had started to become the city it is today; no longer just Seattle's troubled younger sibling, but a full-fledged city with its own identity. In the years since, Tacoma has (mostly) managed to shed its "Tacompton" nickname, but like all hard-earned nicknames, it would take time.

The reason I'm telling you this is because as a child, I grew up fearing the city of Tacoma: not just because of these gang connections, but because of another incident that occured in my youth. When I was just eight years old, a story began to unfold that made regional headlines, and would begin to instill a fear of strangers within me. I would remember hearing coverage of this story on the evening news: a little girl abducted from a bowling alley, just feet away from her loved ones, never to be seen again. This would become a cautionary tale for other kids my age that lived in the Pacific Northwest, and has probably contributed significantly to setting me on the path I'm now on (covering true crime for a living).

This is the story of Teekah Lewis.

Teekah Latres Lewis was born on July 4th, 1996, to her parents Theresa English and Robert Lewis. Theresa had four other children, including a sister for Teekah that was born about a year-and-a-half after her; but unfortunately, Robert wouldn't be a large part of Teekah's early life, being convicted for theft and being sentenced to four years in jail.

Teekah was a multiracial child, having black, white, and Native American ancestry (her father, Robert, was black, and her mother, Theresa, was part Chippewa Native American). She would be treated for asthma and allergies as a toddler at Indian Health Practicioners, a nationwide clinic made available for Native Americans, which operated a tribal health authority in nearby Puyallup.

Unfortunately, Teekah didn't get to spend much time with her family - at least, not as much as she should have - in order to develop her own personality and show off her true self to loved ones. But in her brief amount of time with her loved ones, Teekah would begin to grow into a loving and caring child, who doted upon her younger sister and sonstantly clung to her mother. Teekah was described as a shy and quiet child, who didn't like to be picked up by people she didn't know - or even people she barely knew, for that matter. Her mother, Theresa, would later recall that she cried when aunts and uncles tried to pick her up or hold her. Speaking to the Seattle Times, Theresa stated:

"She wouldn't go outside on her own. She's a momma's girl. She sleeps with me and her blankie, and if I'm not there, she's crying, and if she doesn't have her blankie, she's crying."

On January 23rd, 1999, Teekah's family would gather at New Frontier Lanes, a bowling alley located along the 4700 block of Tacoma's Center Street. Located between the Oakland and Fircrest neighborhoods, this is just a few blocks away from Tacoma Community College and just a stone's throw away from Cheney Stadium (where the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners AAA-affiliate plays).

That Saturday, which was a league night at the bowling alley, was a busy night for the establishment. In addition to dozens of people gathering inside of the bowling alley, the parking lot was nearly full. Nearly a dozen of Teekah's relatives would gather in the bowling alley that evening, occupying lanes 7 and 8 out of the 32. This would put them close to the center of the alley itself, and allowed them to keep sight of Teekah, who kept wandering back-and-forth from the bowling alley's arcade. She had been initially drawn to a coin-operated claw machine, unsuccessfully trying to win a teddy bear, but one of her uncles would help her win the teddy bear, which she then gave to her 10-month-old baby sister. However, she would keep going back to the arcade, feeding coins that she stored in a clear purse she carried: a child's purse with a fish design, which she had just purchased with some Christmas money. Inside of the purse were quarters for the arcade and several Starburst candies, which were her favorite.

Theresa, Teekah's mother, says that she last saw her in the arcade - just feet away from a side exit - playing a "Cruisin' World" racing game at around 10:15 PM. At that point, Theresa and her family members had been switching off supervising Teekah, and she would recall ducking out for just a moment to check in on her brother, who was bowling. Within those few vital seconds, something would happen. Dawn Czapiewski, Theresa's sister, later told reporters:

"It must have been 10 to 15 seconds that she looked away. It was that close. Someone had to have been watching."

When Theresa turned her head to check in on Teekah, she couldn't find her. There was nothing where the two-year-old had been just seconds prior. Theresa would begin to check in-between the individual arcade games, hoping that Teekah was just playing hide-and-seek with her, and would then begin frantically scanning through the crowd of people in the bowling alley that night, young and old alike. Speaking to reporters later on, Theresa herself would later recall:

"I turned my head for less than a minute and she was gone... Someone had to pick her up and run out the door. She's a mommy's girl. She wouldn't wander off."

Almost immediately, friends and family of Theresa and Teekah would begin to scour the premises for the missing child; with people in the lanes next to them recalling that these loved ones would search through every nook and cranny of the bowling alley itself. One of the first places that Theresa would check was the nearby bathroom, where she hoped Teekah had gone to. Inside of the bathroom, however, was a cousin of hers, who was changing her own baby's diaper, who had not seen Teekah.

Just outside of the bathroom, Theresa would encounter an off-duty police officer, who would begin searching the property alongside her. Together, they would alert the bowling alley staff that a child was missing, and asked them to not only check in the employee-only section of the building but make an announcement over the intercom. Staff members would make an announcement about a missing child moments later, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference; many of the people inside just continued on bowling.

A panicked search to find the missing youngster would begin to unfold in and around the bowling alley that evening, including in the exterior surrounding the bowling alley. With it being January in western Washington, the temperature was just above freezing that night, and it was not believed that Teekah had wandered outside on her own. Not only was she without a coat, but she was afraid of the dark, and wouldn't have gone outside without her mother.

Unfortunately, nobody inside the building had seen or heard Teekah cry out, and no trace of her would be found that evening. Her family, fearing that the worst had happened, reported Teekah missing at approximately 10:30 PM that Saturday.

The Tacoma Police Department would arrive at the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley that Saturday evening, and would unsuccessfully search for Teekah Lewis over the next several hours. At first, they believed that the child had wandered off on her own, but as the hours began to pass without any sign of her, they began to grow concerned that she had potentially been abducted. By the following morning, Teekah would be listed as "endangered missing" and police would announce that foulplay was suspected.

According to Lt. Jim Howatson, who spoke to the press that Sunday:

"We don't know the circumstances. She could have gotten into a car to get warm and been driven away unintentionally, or she could have been taken, but it appears she did not walk away on her own. We are expanding our investigation beyond the search area."

Over the next several days, Tacoma P.D. would be joined by members of the FBI as well as NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), who helped them canvas the neighborhood and conduct searches throughout the area. They would even begin probing wooded areas nearby, and brought out a helicopter armed with an infrared device, which they used to scan for any heat signatures that might match the missing toddler. They would even bring out search dogs to help sniff out where Teekah might have gone, and this would ultimately lead to one of the first major discoveries in case.

On Tuesday, January 26th - nearly three days after Teekah's disappearance - two search dogs would independently lead investigators to a brushy area across the street from the bowling alley. There, police would discover a pile of men's clothing, which had been compiled up into a ball and seemingly stashed or discarded under a bush. Because none of the items of clothing had mold or mildew on them (a near-certainty for clothing left outside in misty Tacoma, Washington) it was believed that they had not been there long. These items were described as a navy blue wool peacoat with "IS" or "JS" written on the back label, off-white Lee brand jeans (which were initially described as "Docker-style pants"), and a Columbia-brand button down plaid shirt. When asked to comment about this discovery, police wouldn't shed any more details, but the spokesman for Tacoma Police, Jim Mattheis, would admit:

"At this point, (the clothing) is evidence."

Within the first week of this investigation, investigators had successfully ruled out the members of Teekah's family as suspects in her disappearance; including her two parents, Theresa and Robert. While Theresa had been at the bowling alley on the night of Teekah's disappearance, she didn't have a motive to carry out the crime nor the means to do so, and would be subjected to two separate polygraph tests to clear up some discrepancies in her testimony (police were initially skeptical of her because of her calm nature). Meanwhile, Teekah's father, Robert, was incarcerated at McNeil Island Corrections Center for a theft conviction at the time of Teekah's disappearance. Other family members and close friends would be cleared of suspicion early on, with Detective Larry Lindberg stating:

"There isn't any evidence the family had anything to do with it."

The more that investigators learned about this crime, they more they began to suspect that this was a rare case of stranger abduction. At the time, approximately 354,000 children were reported missing each year, and of those, only 4,000 were linked to people outside of their close family (neighbors, family friends, etc.). Of those 4,000, only 200 - 300 missing children's cases were proven to be have been committed by strangers, just to give you an idea of how rare this was, even for the time.

Teekah's mother, Theresa, would initially suspect another woman that had been at the bowling alley that evening, who she recalls asking to hold a relative's baby and displaying some odd behavior. But police would state that this woman's whereabouts were accounted for throughout the evening, and they had no reason to suspect her of any involvement. However, they would state that anybody in or around the bowling alley would continue to be investigated.

In the weeks to come, investigators would hear from two separate witnesses, who reported odd behavior from people in or around the bowling alley that evening.

One came from a female witness, who told police about a maroon Pontiac Grand Am, which came careeing out of the bowling alley's parking lot on the night of Teekah's disappearance. At the time, the Pontiac was speeding and nearly hit the woman, who later told police about this brief - but alarming - encounter with the vehicle, which then fishtailed out of the parking lot. This witness believed that it had been a four-door version of the vehicle, and possibly a late 1980s or early 1990s model, with dark-tinted windows and a large spoiler.

The second witness was a teenage boy that had been at New Frontier Lanes on the evening of Teekah's disappearance, who reported seeing a suspicious-looking man near one of the bowling alley's exits, who appeared to be following a child. This was described as a white man in his 30s, with shoulder-length brown hair, facial pockmarks, a mustache, and what the teenager described as "a big fat nose." At the time, this individual was wearing a blue-checked flannel shirt and jeans. This witness sighting, in particular, would become relevant later on, when additional witnesses came forward with stories of their own... reported run-ins with a troubled man matching the same description

In the weeks, days, and hours leading up to Teekah Lewis's disappearance, at least one man had been attempting to abduct young children in the area. This man seemed to match the description of a man seen by witnesses in the bowling alley on the night that Teekah went missing.

This man seems to have struck for the first time on November 29th, 1998, approximately two months before Teekah went missing. However, this man was reported in the same location she was last seen, New Frontier Lanes. On the evening in question, a Sunday, a man had attended a bowling league event with his four-year-old son, who - like Teekah - spent most of his evening in the arcade. However, that evening, he had gone off to the bathroom. Minutes later, another patron would head into the bathroom, and found the boy laying on the floor of a stall, having been sexually assaulted by a stranger.

The man from this incident was described as a white man with curly brown hair and a beard, who was possibly wearing a hat with the word "Husky" on front (which implied a link to the nearby University of Washington, whose team name is the "Huskies"). Unfortunately, this incident was not reported to police until the following day, due to a miscommunication between the child's father and the bowling alley's security guards, who were sure that they had seen the culprit at the bowling alley before, but didn't know his name.

Then, just a few weeks before Teekah's disappearance, another startling incident had unfolded at the same bowling alley. And again, this story seems to have originated in the arcade room.

A family was spending a Saturday night at New Frontier Lanes, and their six-year-old son had been playing video games in the arcade by himself. Like Teekah, the boy's mother was checking in on him regularly throughout the evening. At one point, the mother looked up and saw a strange man bent down near her son, holding onto his hand. As she quickly approached the arcade area, she heard that the strange man was claiming to be the boy's father (which he clearly was not - she would know). The mother began confronting this strange man and called upon the alley's security guards, who escorted the man from the building. The mother would just assume that police had been called by the security guards, but - as had happened in the prior case from November - they weren't.

After learning about Teekah's disappearance just a few weeks later, someone would call in a tip to Tacoma Police about this attempted abduction, and would put police in-touch with the boy's mother. She would recount the incident to investigators (and was surprised that no police report had been filed), similarly describing her son's attempted abductor as a white man with brown hair.

Then, on the same day that Teekah went missing, a man matching this same description was seen in a park nearby - less than a mile away from the bowling alley. A father had taken his two kids to Oakland Madrona Park that Saturday afternoon, and recalled that his children went to the bathroom together at around 2:00 PM. A few moments later, this father spotted a strange man near the bathroom, who seemed to be attempting to lure his children away; at least, he was physically motioning for the two kids to go with him. This father would chase the man off, and reported that the man sped off in (what looked like) a blue 1995 Pontiac Grand Am, which had been parked nearby.

In this case, the father would not report this incident to police for approximately three days; at least, not until he learned about the disappearance of Teekah Lewis on the news, a case that had unfolded just hours after this reported run-in and approximately 3/4 of a mile away. The man he described to police was also a white man with brown hair, who was wearing a baseball cap at the time.

While it's possible that these were all unrelated incidents, the fact that the potential offender matched the same general description - and attempted to abduct children from the same neighborhood - leads me to believe that this was just one man. Investigators themselves seem to think that they might be linked, as well, with Detective Lindsey Wade saying to The News Tribune's Stacey Mulick in 2012:

"I can't say for certain if all these incidents are related or if they are related. [But] there's a possibility that they are, given the Pontiac Grand Am."

In this same interview, Detective Wade stated:

"In a lot of abduction cases, these guys will make several attempts before they are successful. They will get involved in incidents like exposing themselves or luring."

Since none of these cases have been cleared by police in the decades since, it leads me to believe that one man had been attempting for months to abduct a child from the same general area that Teekah disappeared in . At the same time she went missing, these attempted abductions seem to have come to an end. Perhaps, this man had succeeded in one abduction and then moved on - maybe to another region.

In April of 1999 - just a couple of months after Teekah's disappearance - the "Teekah Lewis Bill" would be passed in Washington state, creating a multi-agency task force within the Washington State Patrol. This task force would augment local and regional police when they were dealing with reports of missing and exploited children, and could be mustered together in emergency situations (such as Teekah's).

In the months that had followed the disappearance of the two-year-old, police had attempted to link the witness sightings they had obtained - of both the pockmarked man seen in the bowling alley, as well as the repeated sightings of a white man with brown hair driving a Pontiac Grand Am - to registered sex offenders in the area. It's unknown how successful they were in finding individuals that matched this description, but months would pass without police naming a suspect or person-of-interest - nor finding any sign of the missing child.

For weeks, police held out belief that Teekah's body might be found in the area around the bowling alley. Speaking to the media, Tacoma Detective Larry Lindberg stated:

"If you talked to a hundred police officers, they would all probably say she's dead. They would say she's near the bowling alley somewhere - we just haven't found her."

In particular, a large contingent of police officers seemed to believe that Teekah's body had been abandoned on a property nearby the bowling alley, adjacent to it, which was scheduled to be excavated for development later that year. However, when the excavation was carried out - much to their surprise - no sign of Teekah was found.

Months would begin to pass by without any sign of Teekah Lewis. Before long, more than a year had gone by, and the youngster's name would begin to disappear from local news headlines. It wasn't until the Spring of 2001 that Teekah's case would be reported upon again, more than two years after her disappearance.

On April 28th, 2001, the body of a headless child was found in Missouri (who would later become known as "Precious Doe"). This girl, who appeared to have been around four years old at the time of her death, was found in a wooded area just outside of Kansas City, and had clearly been a victim of homicide. Her head was found wrapped in a plastic trash bag about 200 yards away from her body, and an ashtray - one of the murder weapons - had been left near her body.

Police would begin to link the two together, since Teekah was one of the missing black girls that matched the description of the female victim, and their ages would have matched; Teekah had been missing for two years, and would now be four years old (the estimated age of the victim). However, DNA tests performed in May of that year (2001) would prove that Teekah was not "Precious Doe," and approximately four years later, she was identified through DNA testing as Erica Michelle Marie Green. Police would find that her stepfather and mother had conspired to kill her and dispose of her body, and were later sentenced to life in prison and 25 years, respectively. This would bring an end to that grisly story, but not the enduring mystery of Teekah Lewis, which remained unexplained nearly a decade later.

By 2006, a $27,000 reward for information was being offered by Tacoma-Pierce County Crime Stoppers, and while investigators were still actively receiving tips, the investigation had reached a virtual stand-still years earlier. However, that same year - inspired by another news story from out of state - Teekah's name would make headlines yet again.

It was announced in 2006 that a private investigator hired by Teekah's family had found a girl living in a Dallas, Texas RV park, who seemed to match the profile of the missing girl; not only did this girl look similar to Teekah and her older sisters, who were then 8 and 15 years old, but - according to Theresa - she had the same earlobes. Speaking to the News Tribune, Theresa stated:

"The minute I saw the picture, my heart told me it was mine... In my heart, this is my daughter."

Photos were sent back to Theresa, which apparently showed this girl in the care of a woman that she supposedly recognized from the bowling alley; claiming that she had seen her there on the night of Teekah's disappearance. However, the FBI would assert that this girl wasn't related to Teekah in any way, with Melissa Schuler, the spokeswoman for the FBI field office in Seattle telling reporters:

"It's fairly certain that it is not Teekah Lewis."

Even though Schuler admitted that the girl from Texas was a "look-alike," she said that there were enough differences to rule out a comparison, including birthmarks (which the girl in Texas didn't have), but stated that DNA tests would make the ultimate determination. It would take several weeks for the results from the DNA tests to come back, but when they did, they came back as a negative match. Despite the similarities, this was not Teekah Lewis.

During this time, attempts would be made to link Teekah's case to others from the region. Among the most prominent were:

The disappearance of Lenoria Jones, a 3-year-old that went missing from Tacoma in July of 1995.
The murder of 10-year-old Adre-Anna Jackson from nearby Tillicum, who was murdered in December of 2005 and whose body was found in April of 2006.
The murder of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, a 12-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who was abducted from her home in Hilltop, Tacoma and then murdered.

In each of these cases, police would attempt to link Teekah's case through one factor or another. However, despite each case bearing similarities to Teekah's disappearance, I find it unlikely that any of them would be linked. In the case of 3-year-old Lenoria Jones, who similarly disappeared from a public place in Tacoma, her guardian at the time is believed to have been involved (changing her story numerous times, and having an alibi that was easily disproven). When it came to 10-year-old Adre-Anna Jackson, she was last seen walking through an area frequented by drug users and transients, and very little information has ever been learned in her case.

Then, finally, in the case of 12-year-old Zina Linnik, we know who killed her: a 42-year-old immigrant from Thailand named Terapon Adhahn, a convicted rapist and sex offender from the area, who has since been linked to additional rapes of teenagers and pre-teens from the region (including the murder of Adre-Anna Jackson from December of 2005). While Adhahn actually made for a valid suspect in this case (I actually wrote an entire section about him that I'm omitting from this episode), I don't believe he's a match for Teekah's murder for one simple reason: he never targeted girls younger than 11, and I don't think he would have been able to abduct a two-year-old from a bowling alley without being seen.

In the research for this story, I have found several sex offenders that lived in the Tacoma region at the time, and had a prior history of not only targeting young girls - between the ages of 2 and 7 - for sexual purposes, but also had a history of violent and controlling behavior. Unfortunately, this is an exhaustive list, and it would be virtually impossible for me to disseminate this information in a thoughtful and responsible manner. Needless to say, though... there are a lot of potential sex offenders living in the area who feasibly match the profile of Teekah's abductor.

In the years after Teekah's disappearance, the scene of the crime - the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley - would be demolished. Where it once stood is now a Home Depot, located next to a Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant and a Harborstone Credit Union.

Police would receive more than 700 tips in the first few years after Teekah went missing, and would end up investigating leads in several states. The case would even be featured on several true crime television shows, including "America's Most Wanted," which aired segments on Teekah at least three times throughout 1999.

In 2008, police would begin releasing additional photos and videos of Teekah - in an effort to raise awareness for Teekah's case, as well as the $27,000 reward being offered by local Crime Stoppers. The following year (2009), Teekah's face would be plastered on the side of semi-trucks driving throughout the United States, which was part of a joint effort between the Washington State Patrol and Gordon Trucking to raise awareness for her case and others from the state.

During a vigil held on the 11 year anniversary of Teekah's disappearance (2010), a man would tell Teekah's mother, Theresa, about a vision he had about the still-missing girl, claiming to know where she was. Theresa, who had never seen this man before, said that what the man told her was unnerving enough to the point of forwarding this information to police, who began looking into the man and his claims.

Following through on the information received, police would conduct a search at nearby Point Defiance Park, digging up a roughly 8-by-12 foot area of ground in the Native Gardens. They would not find anything during this dig or subsequent searches of the area, and would later arrange to speak to the man, who was only described as a man in his 40s that lived in the Puget Sound. Since he wasn't being arrested or charged with any crime, police would refuse to release any additional details about the man.

Two years after this information was relayed to authorities - in July of 2012 - police would conduct a search at a home along the 800 block of South Hawthorne Street. This home belonged to a man named John William Black, who had been linked to another case from a different bowling alley (Tower Lanes) in October of 2010. In this case, Black had apparently motioned for a 3-year-old girl to come with him towards a nearby vehicle, where he claimed the child's mother was waiting. Fortunately for the child (and unfortunately for Black), the child's father had noticed, and not only pushed Black to the ground but proceeded to punch him in the face at least once.

John William Black was later arrested and sentenced to 12 months in jail for the attempted luring. But according to Teekah's mother, Theresa Lewis, the man had apparently claimed to see Teekah on the night of her disappearance, during interviews with police. This information would lead to police conducting a search of his home in July of 2012, and the use of three cadaver dogs would fixate on a single location on the property. Police would conduct digs in the backyard and extensively search the home, but were unable to find anything of-note. Weeks later, in August of 2012, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulgham would seem to clear Black as a suspect in Teekah's case, saying that:

"Nothing significant was found to indicate his involvement."

Other than the annual reminder of Teekah's still-unsolved case - which always came in January, when Teekah's family announced their yearly vigil at the scene of the crime - this would be the last news regarding this case until just recently.

On the night of Teekah Lewis's disappearance - Saturday, January 23rd, 1999 - a young man had been at New Frontier Lanes with his family. This young man, who was 17 at the time and has chosen to remain publicly anonymous, recalled having an odd encounter with a man in the bowling alley. Speaking to Q13 Fox News in January of this year (2020), he would recall:

"I had to use the restroom, so I went towards where the restrooms were. This rude guy bumped into me, with his little girl, and he was white - the little girl was mixed... I just thought it was a father rushing his daughter to the restroom."

At the time, this witness had thought nothing of this encounter: he bumped into an older man rushing his daughter to the bathroom, and that was that. Even later in the evening, when this witness went to leave with his family and they noticed police officers in the parking lot, he didn't think anything was awry. Officers would not reveal why they were there, so the family just went on their merry way home.

It wasn't until a few days had passed, and the story of Teekah Lewis being abducted from the bowling alley began to spread throughout the region. That was when this young man began to realize what had happened: he had possibly encountered Teekah's abductor in the process of him carrying out the crime. Knowing that he had to reach out to police, this young man would reach out to investigators and speak with them, being interviewed once in January of 1999 and providing a statement of his encounter with the man.

This information would end up setting in the binders of tips collected by investigators, where it languished for the better part of 21 years. It wasn't until just recently that Detective Steve Reopelle began to dive through the older tips, and that's when he stumbled upon this buried lead. Speaking to Q13, Detective Reopelle stated:

"This witness actually describes an encounter with Teekah by this individual and the description of the individual is not generic. It's specific and it's detailed and unique enough that the description can maybe identify the last person who maybe had contact with Teekah."

Within the past year, Detective Reopelle would begin reaching out to the older witnesses, including this witness, who had just been a teenager at the time but was now a grown man. He was more than willing to repeat the information he had given to detectives two decades prior, and one word that really stood out to Detective Reopelle was a descriptor used for the suspect, which had been lingering close to the case for years now: the word "pockmarked," a very specific and precise word, used to describe someone plagued with acne or other facial scars.

If you recall, a witness had described a pockmarked man hanging out near the bowling alley's arcade on the evening of Teekah's abduction. But this descriptor carried some added weight because of an additional lead that Detective Reopelle was able to resurface.

About a week or so after Teekah's disappearance, the television show "America's Most Wanted" had filmed a segment for the show just outside of the bowling alley itself. As they were filming a re-enactment of Teekah's case, a group of onlookers began to gather to watch the filming. One individual there in the group would later tell police about strange behavior from another person present at the filming: a man with a pockmarked face, whose behavior was so odd that it was worth reporting. At the time, police had not released information about a person-of-interest with pockmarks, so this tip came in totally unprompted, and was based solely off of the man's suspicious behavior at the time of the filming.

Using the information from these combined statements, it's believed that this was a white male between 30 and 40 years of age, who stood about 5'11" tall with a slightly-heavyset (or husky) build, who had a thick mustache, shoulder-length curly brown hair, potentially a large nose, and - of course - a pockmarked face. At the time of the abduction, he was wearing a blue plaid shirt and faded blue jeans, and may have been driving a maroon or purple Pontiac Grand Am. And because he seems to have appeared at the time "America's Most Wanted" was filming at the bowling alley, he was possibly a local to the Oakland or Fircrest neighborhoods of Tacoma.

While police have not named this individual a suspect or a person-of-interest in their investigation, he is being sought after for questioning.

Theresa Lewis, Teekah's mother, says that police showed her a photo of a man who they believe is this individual, and she claims to remember seeing him at the bowling alley on the night of Teekah's disappearance. She also believes that he - at one point, at least - followed along with the case via a Facebook page that she set up to raise awareness for Teekah's disappearance. Because of this, she no longer believes that Teekah is alive, telling reporters with King 5 News:

"I remembered the guy from the bowling alley, and if that's the case, there's no way Teekah is here right now."

At the time of her disappearance nearly 22 years ago, Teekah Lewis was two-and-a-half years ago, and was last seen wearing a green Tweety Bird shirt, white sweatpants, and black-and-white Air Jordan sneakers. Her black hair, which had natural red highlights, was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was carrying a clear purse with a fish design (which was full of quarters and Starburst candies).

Teekah had a couple of noticeable indicators, which - if she's still alive - can be used to identify her. She had a large birthmark on her left buttock, as well as patches of light discoloration on her face (which came about as a result of eczema). Her ears were already pierced at the time of her disappearance, and she had noticeable facial dimples. In addition to eczema, Teekah had also been treated for asthma and allergies, which would likely be lifelong issues. Age progression photos of what she would look like as an adult can be found online, and I'll also be posting them on the podcast website.

On the one-year anniversary of Teekah's disappearance, her mother Theresa would extend a heartfelt message to her daughter, stating:

"Teekah, Mommy misses you. She loves you. Wherever you're at... There's not a day goes by that I don't think about you. I'll never give up the search for you. I love you, Teekah."

In the two decades since, Theresa has continued to live up to her word, and has been one of the few driving forces in this case, holding public vigils on the anniversary of Teekah's disappearance every single year, and holding other events throughout the year (including Teekah's birthday, the Fourth of July). She has provided DNA to genealogical websites, in the hopes that Teekah - perhaps still alive out there - one day attempts to find her own genetic heritage.

In recent years, Theresa has begun to temper her expectations - believing that Teekah might have died shortly after being abducted from the bowling alley - but her and Teekah's father, Robert , continue to hold out hope that Teekah will be returned to them at some point. At the very least, they hope that answers can be found in her case - and with the revelations from this year (2020), they believe that they are closer than ever to finding out what happened to their missing daughter.

With the 22nd anniversary of Teekah's disappearance quickly approaching, it is encouraged that anyone with information reach out to Tacoma Police or call in to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. Once again, that's 1-800-222-8477.

As of this episode's recording, the story of Teekah Lewis remains unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on November 22nd, 2020

Producers: Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Scott Meesey, Steven Wilson, Travis Scsepko, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Bryan Hall, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Seth Morgan, Jo Wong, Alyssa Lawton, Patrick Laakso, Kevin McCracken, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Michele Watson, Teunia Elzinga, Ryan Green, Dawn Kellar, Stephanie Joyner, gravityheadzero, Elissa Hampton-Dutro, Ruth Durbin, and Sally Ranford