Cold-case detectives refuse to give up solving Tacoma child disappearances

The fate of two Tacoma toddlers who disappeared years ago remains unknown. But police insist that although the cases have long since gone cold, they’ll never give up trying to find out what happened to the little girls.

Lenoria Jones was just 3 years old when her aunt reported her missing 20 years ago.

Teekah Lewis was just 2 years old when she disappeared from a now defunct Tacoma bowling alley 16 years ago.

Her mother Theresa refuses to give up the search.

“I don’t let Teekah’s case die. I wont,” Lewis said. “I’ll never give up hope on Teekah until she comes home or they otherwise tell me that she’s not coming home.”

Tacoma police say they’re not giving up either. But with no evidence, there’s little they can do.

Spokesperson Loretta Cool said the only possible clue is a report of a maroon Pontiac Grand Am fleeing the New Frontier bowling alley in January of 1999.

“It left the bowling alley at a high rate of speed and almost took out another vehicle head-on,” Cool said.

Theresa Lewis remains heartbroken and frustrated police have never uncovered what happened to her beloved baby.

“I think if they had closed the bowling alley and made everybody stay there instead of letting people come in and letting people go out, we might have had a chance to find out who took Teekah,” Lewis said.

Cool admits the department was inexperienced with child abduction cases at the time and has changed procedures significantly since both Lenoria and Teekah disappeared.

“We would do a lot of things differently than were done back then,” Cool said. “Not to say they didn’t do everything they could at the time.”

The department has since established a dedicated child abduction response team to mobilize immediately when a child goes missing.

And advances in communications, Amber Alerts and DNA technology have also provided powerful new tools that could significantly improve the chances of solving child abduction cases.

“Now almost on every case where evidence is retrieved, we’re able to use that to identify or help us identify a possible suspect,” Cool said.

It’s hard to say if any of that would have helped find out what happened to either Teekah or Lenoria.

Lenoria’s great aunt had claimed the youngster was taken while they shopped at Target in July of 1995, but surveillance video showed the pair never entered together.

Stories kept changing, the great aunt and other family members mired in a custody battle refused to cooperate. There was no evidence to go on.

Twenty years later, the department’s cold case detectives have discovered one possible new lead: an anonymous caller from 1995 reached out with new information. Whoever took that call failed to get in-depth information that could have potentially helped the investigation.

“Without having asked some significant questions, I think that is the one person the detective would like to talk to now,” Cool said.

Cool said it’s the hope that one jarred memory, one slip of the tongue even two decades later, is all it will take to crack one or both of the cases.

Theresa Lewis prays her daughter is never forgotten

“We want people to know that Teekah’s still missing and we’re still looking,” Lewis said. “I don’t care if it’s 30 years from now, I’ll still be out there looking for Teekah. I can’t give up.”