WA TEEKAH LEWIS: Missing from Tacoma, WA - 23 Jan 1999 - Age 2

Teekah's photo is shown age-progressed to 17 years. She was last seen on January 23, 1999, at approximately 10:30 p.m. at the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington. Teekah is Biracial. She is Black and American Indian. Teekah was wearing a Tweety Bird T-shirt, white sweat pants and Air Jordan sneakers. She has eczema, with a skin discoloration on her face and left side of her buttocks. Teekah's ears are pierced. When she was last seen, her hair had a silver streak on the front right side. Teekah may require medical attention.
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Teekah and nearly a dozen of her family spent the evening of January 23, 1999 at New Frontier Lanes bowling alley on Center Street in Tacoma, Washington. Teekah was last seen playing a race car video game in the arcade section of the alley between 10:00 and 10:15 p.m.

She was a few feet from her family members and approximately six feet from the building's exit. Teekah's mother, Theresa English, said that she turned away for a moment and the child vanished. She has never been seen again. An extensive search of the area produced few clues as to her whereabouts.

A witness at the bowling alley told authorities that an unidentified maroon Pontiac Grand Am sped out of the parking lot during the night Teekah disappeared. The vehicle may have had four doors and was possibly a late 1980s or early 1990s model with dark-tinted windows and a large spoiler.

Another witness stated that an unidentified Caucasian man may have followed a child to one of the alley's exits during the night. The individual is described as being in his thirties with shoulder-length brown hair, facial pockmarks, a mustache and a large nose. Investigators do not know if the vehicle or the unidentified man are connected to Teekah's case.

NCMEC -

Have you seen this child? TEEKAH LEWIS

Missing From: TACOMA, WA. Missing Date: 01/23/1999. Teekah's photo is shown age-progressed to 17 years. She was last seen on January 23, 1999, at approximately 10:30 p.m. at the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington. Teekah is Biracial. She is Black and American Indian. Teekah...

api.missingkids.org

NamUs -

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Doe Network -

The Doe Network: Case File 2486DFWA

Charley Project -

Teekah Latres Lewis – The Charley Project

edited by staff to add media link

TEEKAH LEWIS has been missing from a busy bowling alley in Tacoma, #WASHINGTON since 23 Jan 1999.

Teekah and nearly a dozen of her family spent the evening at New Frontier Lanes bowling alley. She was a few feet from her family and six feet from the building's exit. Teekah's mother said that she turned away for a moment and the child...

www.crimewatchers.net

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

They know all about the house. I'm sure someone who knows how to look that sort of stuff up could easily find names. Investigators already know.

https://amp.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article306843371.html

Tacoma home being searched in cold case once was a presumed drug house​

The home was once used as a place for methamphetamine users to buy their drugs and get rid of stolen property, according to a 2003 search warrant obtained by The News Tribune.

The current occupants of the home are not related to the case in any way.

The home was once used as a place for methamphetamine users to buy their drugs and get rid of stolen property, according to a 2003 search warrant obtained by The News Tribune.

An investigation into the home began after a woman reported her 1986 Toyota truck was stolen from a grocery store at South 19th Street on May 10, 2003. Her truck was later found after a man, who was driving it, left the vehicle behind to steal someone’s dirt bike, documents show. The dirt bike owner reported the incident and truck to police.

The truck’s owner told police that empty of boxes of pseudoephedrine and lithium boxes were in the vehicle, but that they did not belong to her, documents show. Detectives believed the items were used to make methamphetamine.

Documents show a pay stub was also found that belonged to another person whose vehicle was stolen. The stolen-vehicle suspect previously admitted to detectives that he got the car from the owner of the Gunnison Street home. A telephone bill and Washington license plate in the truck also tracked back to the homeowner, documents show.

The previous owner reportedly received the house through his father’s will, documents show. The TPD drug unit at the time was aware of complaints that the home was used as a drug house.

Documents show that methamphetamine users would typically steal cars for valuable items in them. They would also use the stolen vehicle to go to drug locations, documents show.

Through records, detectives determined that 26 stolen vehicles had been recovered in the area of the Gunnison Street home within the past 12 months, documents show.

A witness who was familiar with the home told detectives that the house contained stolen items such as car stereos and speakers, documents show. There were also stolen car parts in the backyard, which a detective noted when they went by the home.

Another witness told detectives the previous year that car thieves would get orders from people at the home on what type of vehicles to steal, documents show.

The warrant shows that evidence investigators were looking for included:

• Records, notes, book and other papers related to the transportation, ordering, purchase and distribution of stolen property
• Information such as addresses or telephone numbers of any co-conspirators
• Any firearms and munitions
• Stolen property belonging to the victims
• Property within that was determined to be stolen
• Equipment used for the theft and/or dismantling of vehicles. This includes rings of car keys, lock picks, lock-out kits, pry bars and screwdrivers.

Online real estate records show the home was sold in March 2004. The home’s most recent sale was in July 2015.

 

[Kimster]

Okay, wow! I still am left wondering if Suspect Doe had ties to that house.

 

[Tresir]

Ok so Officer Dier came on the case in 2020 or 2021 she says and interviewed pock mark face but when she returned, he had died. So that must be fairly recent. The woman who took the other girl but mum retrieved her from the car, has also been interviewed but is too far gone to give any info or make any sense. This is all very convenient. So is there any connection between these two people? I noticed that the property that was searched had a Shiloh Baptist church van parked outside and google street view shows the van also. The Baptist church owns and rents 58 apartments in the area near there. I wonder if the family and/or the two suspects were members of that church?

It all seems conveniently untraceable at the moment and is concerning that no leads were pursued at the time. Why was that?

 

[Tresir]

They know all about the house. I'm sure someone who knows how to look that sort of stuff up could easily find names. Investigators already know.



The home was once used as a place for methamphetamine users to buy their drugs and get rid of stolen property, according to a 2003 search warrant obtained by The News Tribune.

An investigation into the home began after a woman reported her 1986 Toyota truck was stolen from a grocery store at South 19th Street on May 10, 2003. Her truck was later found after a man, who was driving it, left the vehicle behind to steal someone’s dirt bike, documents show. The dirt bike owner reported the incident and truck to police.

The truck’s owner told police that empty of boxes of pseudoephedrine and lithium boxes were in the vehicle, but that they did not belong to her, documents show. Detectives believed the items were used to make methamphetamine.

Documents show a pay stub was also found that belonged to another person whose vehicle was stolen. The stolen-vehicle suspect previously admitted to detectives that he got the car from the owner of the Gunnison Street home. A telephone bill and Washington license plate in the truck also tracked back to the homeowner, documents show.

The previous owner reportedly received the house through his father’s will, documents show. The TPD drug unit at the time was aware of complaints that the home was used as a drug house.

Documents show that methamphetamine users would typically steal cars for valuable items in them. They would also use the stolen vehicle to go to drug locations, documents show.

Through records, detectives determined that 26 stolen vehicles had been recovered in the area of the Gunnison Street home within the past 12 months, documents show.

A witness who was familiar with the home told detectives that the house contained stolen items such as car stereos and speakers, documents show. There were also stolen car parts in the backyard, which a detective noted when they went by the home.

Another witness told detectives the previous year that car thieves would get orders from people at the home on what type of vehicles to steal, documents show.

The warrant shows that evidence investigators were looking for included:

• Records, notes, book and other papers related to the transportation, ordering, purchase and distribution of stolen property
• Information such as addresses or telephone numbers of any co-conspirators
• Any firearms and munitions
• Stolen property belonging to the victims
• Property within that was determined to be stolen
• Equipment used for the theft and/or dismantling of vehicles. This includes rings of car keys, lock picks, lock-out kits, pry bars and screwdrivers.

Online real estate records show the home was sold in March 2004. The home’s most recent sale was in July 2015.

So what do the 2003 crime and a recent search have to do with Teekah's kidnap and the other girl's attempted kidnap? That is what LE need to determine and/or share.

Did they also traffic stolen children in addition to running a meth house and dealing in stolen property? How is it LE can investigate and track stolen vehicles but not stolen children?

26 vehicles recovered in the last 12 months plus witness reports of numerous stolen car steros and radios plus stolen car parts on the premises.

 

[GrandmaBear]

So what do the 2003 crime and a recent search have to do with Teekah's kidnap and the other girl's attempted kidnap? That is what LE need to determine and/or share.

Did they also traffic children in addition to running a meth house and dealing in stolen property? How is it LE can investigate and track stolen vehicles but not stolen children?

Good questions. Things that bother me from that night were of course, the other child was taken, the mother claims to have been watching and when she couldn't asked her relatives, etc. to watch who seemed not to and let children disappear under their watch, or was anyone truly ever watching any of them? Were any of the family part of this "ring" etc.? Mom SEEMED to care, she raised the alarm, she has fought for years. M

I will say thought a 2 year old free at a bowling alley is a bit not wise imo unless you flat out trust another child or someone to be watching her.

If she's telling the truth, every person she asked to keep any eye on the younger ones while she took her turn bowling failed her out of her OWN family. It's all VERY odd, the weird things that happened that night and the odds of them.

The church was an interesting mention too. Same kind of thing came up in Summer Wells case... I'll leave that there.