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Nancy Grace
Nancy Grace Mysteries, Teekah Lewis
Aired December 07, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just give me my baby back!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tacoma police and FBI agents hope this flier will help in their search for 2-year-old Teekah Lewis. The Tacoma girl been missing for 38 hours now. The ground search that took place all day yesterday is now over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Over 300 people in that bowling alley that night, and not one out of 300 people didn`t see nothing. It`s hard to believe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, close to two dozen detectives will be canvassing a one-mile radius near this bowling alley, handing out the flier. They`ll also be checking with some residents in the area.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve missed 14 birthdays, and it`s time to bring her home! Give me a Christmas miracle!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Teekah Lewis was just 2 years old at the time she disappeared. I can`t think of any person that is more defenseless than a little child. Teekah was last seen at Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington.
Now, you may wonder, why was a 2-year-old little girl at a bowling alley? She was there with her family. She was there with her mom, aunts, uncles, friends. They were all there bowling in lanes 7 and 8. It was league night at Frontier Lanes bowling alley, so there were tons of people there.
The mother says -- and this is not disputed. The mother says she was watching Teekah, who was playing around some video games, and near a side exit door, I might add. She looked back and saw Teekah, she says. Then Mommy turns to look at an uncle bowling, turns to watch him bowl, turns back, and Teekah is gone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you find anything at all that you think is of interest, don`t pick it up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four dozen volunteers stand shoulder-to-shoulder, searching for clues into the disappearance of 2-year-old Teekah Lewis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just the desire to help people out. Just want to come out and do what we can to help find the little girl.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a Tweety Bird white and green T-shirt on. She had white pants.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Teekah Lewis was last seen here at a nearby bowling alley. Officers wanted to make absolutely sure that she didn`t wander off by herself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This is every parent`s worst nightmare because I have not talked to a single parent that hasn`t been at the grocery store, or at the mall or in Target or in Walmart, somewhere, and you look at your child, you turn to put something in the grocery cart, or you turn away, and you look back, the child`s gone. It`s happened to me.
And the panic that you feel in that moment -- and you immediately think, how far could they have gotten in 15, 20 seconds? And the panic that takes over your body until you find that child. Well, Teekah`s mom, Theresa (ph), never found the child.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... sure that without a doubt that she didn`t just wander away from the building, that she didn`t wander away and then lay down in the brush. We want to make sure she`s not here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tacoma police even bring in Tunk (ph), one of the best search dogs in the area.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s just being really thorough and checking the ground and actually working quite fast today, so that`s good because we`ve got a lot of area to cover.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Everyone went running toward the door. They burst out that side exit door at the bowling alley and flooded into the parking lot. No Teekah. They searched around the parking lot and all through the bowling alley, bathrooms, you name it. No Teekah.
She`s just 2. She couldn`t have gotten very far. Police were called in about 15 minutes when they realized they could not find her in the bowling alley, they could not find her in the parking lot, she hadn`t gotten into one of the cars in the parking lot. They called police immediately.
Police came out, full force, with bloodhound dogs, you name it. They blocked off the area. They searched that parking lot and the streets surrounding Frontier bowling alley into the night looking for 2-year-old Teekah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Searchers come up empty-handed. Only a few possible clues are found, such as a pair of rubber gloves. But the search leaves authorities with only one possible conclusion, that Teekah Lewis is the victim of foul play, something her mother is not ready to accept. She spent this day handing out pictures of her little girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe my daughter is still alive, and I`ll never give up hope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The family heart-broken, police working around the clock, when 48 hours later, two days later, an unrelated woman calls in, calls police and says she has connected the dots. Two plus two, in her mind, equals four.
She said that evening, the night that little Teekah, 2 years old, goes missing from this bowling alley in Tacoma, that she was pulling into the bowling alley. And when she did, she saw a dark-colored Pontiac Grand Am scratch off, just take off at an unexplainable high rate of speed out of a parking lot, guns the motor and takes off out of the bowling alley.
She calls police. They immediately try, try, try desperately to find out who was driving that car. Was there a connection?
Here`s the problem. The bowling alley, Frontier bowling alley in Tacoma, had no surveillance video at all, no security video, nothing, not inside and not in the parking lot. So there`s no way to capture a license tag, an identification, even the certain make and model of the car, nothing.
Police try desperately again to -- since it was league night there in the bowling alley, which means there were dozens and dozens of people there, probably men, bowling against each other, tried to get home video that they may have taken of each other at the league night. No good.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Until the day I get her back, I`ll never give up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For 12 years, Theresa Lewis has returned to the place that changed her life forever. It`s the last place the mother of five saw her 2-year-old daughter, Teekah, on January 23rd, 1999. During a family outing to the now defunct Frontier bowling alley, Teekah vanished without a trace.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s been a roller-coaster, nonstop crying.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While family and friends bowled, the 3-foot girl played at the wheel of a video arcade game. When Theresa`s brother got up to bowl, Mom says she looked away from her baby girl for less than a minute, and when she looked back, she was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chills went down my spine. Just really blew my mind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They searched all of the usual places, the bathrooms, up, under, over and behind any standing item until finally alerting the security guard at the alley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a Tweety Bird white and green T-shirt on. She had white pants.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police and FBI immediately began searching for any sign of the tot, using bloodhounds, ATVs, helicopters, questioning sex offenders and searching all areas around the bowling alley, including a building at a landfill nearby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, many people have asked, was the family cooperative? Number one, the father was not there that night. He was out of town. He is not part of this scenario. He`s accounted for. He has an air-tight alibi. He is not an issue.
That leads to the mother. She was with the baby. She was with 2- year-old Teekah at the bowling alley. Well, the mother immediately volunteers to take polygraphs. She took not one, but two polygraphs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The majority of the bowlers at the alley that night have been interviewed, but police have yet to identify the driver of a late 1980s or early 1990s Grand Am with tinted windows. Witnesses say the car was seen speeding out of the parking lot just moments after Teekah disappeared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a matter of narrowing the timeline down, and also, again, to rule them out so we can focus our -- put our energy elsewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The bowling alley is now a fast-food restaurant. But until the toddler described as a mama`s girl comes home, Lewis will continue to revisit where she lost her daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s what I`ve been asking for years, pleading for years, is someone just to come forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And police have told us that she took the second polygraph not because she failed the first one, but to tie up loose ends, to answer more questions than they had at the first poly. Apparently, she passed both those polygraphs.
Other family, other relatives have offered to take polygraphs so they could clear themselves, so police can get past them and look for whoever took 2-year-old Teekah.
Sadly, the night 2-year-old Teekah was taken, no Amber Alert was issued. Amber Alert in that area was not yet in place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, you have to step down two or three steps to go to the bowling area. And above that, there is a counter that`s above there, where people can watch the people who are bowling. And then, too, the back of there, there is this arcade, which is kind of in a little nook area behind there. There`s also a bar and a restaurant that`s in there.
But where the arcade was is just about six feet from an exit door of where Teekah was playing. And then we believe that her mother was down in the bowling area, but she could have also been up at the counter area. But she said that she was able to see Teekah when she was looking over at her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Immediately, when the bowling alley found out Teekah was gone, they did an announcement overhead for everybody to stop what you`re doing and look for this child. Just like when you`re in a grocery store, or a store and you hear the overhead, So-and-So is looking for 2-year-old Derek, he looks like this. Everybody stopped and looked. They did that immediately. They lost no time. No Teekah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went out the side door. I was screaming for Teekah because I knew if I was screaming for her and she heard my voice, she would run back, if she walked out on her own. But I know she didn`t walk out on her own. She couldn`t even open up that door. The door was too heavy for my little girl to open up that door.
It was dark. You know, if the person that did this knew what they were doing, they could have got away. But Teekah was one to scream at any stranger. She was a mama`s girl. She would only come to mama, her sisters and her baby-sitter, and her cousin Sarah. She wouldn`t go to nobody else. So I don`t understand how this person got away with my daughter.
That`s what I`ve been asking for years, pleading for years, is someone just to come forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two-year-old toddler Teekah Lewis played at a coin-operated video game while her family bowled nearby. Teekah vanished minutes later, January 23rd, 1999. Investigators say they believe the toddler was kidnapped by a stranger, but say it`s hard to believe nobody saw what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What the police can do is go back to that bar. I believe this person was a local because that`s where a lot -- you know, bowling alleys are local people. They`re not people along the road or from far away. And I also believe that somebody who was probably one of the bar people, coming and going quite often. Probably people know who he is, but don`t suspect he`s, you know, particularly guilty of anything because that`s Roger of that`s Bobby. You know, they know who he is, even if they don`t like him too much, and he`s always around.
And it isn`t that hard to grab a child at a very, very busy place because all you have to do is have that moment. If he sees that little girl, he`s over in that corner, and he can get her out of eyeshot for a second, put a hand over her mouth, and he`s out the door.
And you know, if somebody actually even saw him even with his hand on the child, he`d probably say, Oh, your little girl was running toward the door here. I was trying to keep her from going outside, and we would never think anything of it. So I bet you he`s a regular at that bowling alley. They need to go back and find out drinks at that bar back then.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Police are working under four different scenarios. I`ll go from least likely to statistically most likely. Number one, one theory is that there may be a party having a dispute with a family member, that is a get-back, to take Teekah. Well, not likely. That usually only happens in the movies, or maybe with a Colombian cartel.
Also, time has passed. If this were a revenge factor, then what were they bargaining for? Was there money owed? Was there some disagreement that need to be solved? That was never made known. So that seems extremely unlikely.
Also, the family has cooperated with police, so any known enemy -- that`s so cliched -- would have been reported to police. They would have been investigated. That`s a dead end.
Number two, did 2-year-old Teekah wander off in January in Tacoma, Washington? Did a 2-year-old leave the video area, the play area, go out a side exit into the freezing cold? Possible. Two-year-olds are extremely agile. My children at 2 years old could absolutely turn a lock and get out the door. That`s why I put the latches way up only I could get -- I could open, because them not knowing, can get out the door and down the driveway before I could stop them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of them could easily have gone outside, got in the car. The other guy could have put himself between the child and the family, scooped her up, and immediately taken her outside, gotten into the car and disappeared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Here you are in this crowded bowling alley, Frontier Bowling Lanes, Tacoma Washington, January, on a weekend night. It`s league night. The place is packed. A 2-year-old girl playing. Mommy`s watching her at a distance, letting her run around. Mommy turns to the uncle to see him bowl, turns back, the baby`s gone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say maybe 10 seconds I turned away. And I turned back around, and she wasn`t there. I immediately stopped everything!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Did she get out a side door? She could have. Here`s the problem with that. Mom says she noticed in about 15 to 20 seconds, Teekah wasn`t there, as long as it took her to watch the relative bowl and turn back.
If she did, let`s follow that scenario to its logical conclusion. If she did go out that side door where she was playing, it had to be a fire exit or emergency exit that`s not hooked up and doesn`t make a sound, like most of them.
How far could she have gotten in 20 seconds in January, in Tacoma, Washington, in the cold, in a packed parking lot, walking between cars? How far could she really get?
As an adult, how far can you get at night, in a packed parking lot, walking through the cars in a parking lot? Not far. Police were there in 15 minutes. How far could she get? So toddler wandering off -- not likely.
That leads me to family. Why? Yes, I know the family`s taken polygraphs, and yes, I know that they`ve cooperated, and yes, I know the father is out of the picture. He`s got an alibi, out of town that night.
That`s a possibility only because, statistically, family is usually involved when a child goes missing. But in this scenario, there were dozens of witnesses that Teekah, the 2-year-old little girl, was in that bowling alley that night, witnesses that the child was playing in this area, witnesses that the mom was by the lanes, watching the bowling.
I do not believe that every relative in that family, that every friend, that every casual observer lied to protect a family member. I don`t think that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In my heart, she`s still alive. I`ll never give up on Teekah. You know, she was 2 years old. And she was a mama`s girl, and I don`t understand how they got away with her. But deep inside my heart, she`s still alive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ms. Lewis, do you know who has her?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe so.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you told authorities?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve told them over the 12 years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have they investigated in that area?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have. I mean, it`s been 12 years. They took 12 years of my life. They took 12 years of my daughter`s life. I have an empty spot in my heart. You know, I can`t get that back until I get Teekah.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That leads me to a crime of opportunity. That scenario seems the most likely, the most logical. Let`s just face it, most sex offenders are men. This bowling alley was crowded for league night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember (INAUDIBLE) being happy. The first thing she would do when she woke up in the morning was say, Mommy, I want cereal. And she would go turn on Pooh Bear, and then she would say, Now it`s time for me to go wake up my baby sister.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The last time her family saw her, she was in the video game department of the bowling alley. It was a very, very busy Saturday night, the busiest day of the week here at this bowling alley in south Tacoma. Her mother says she actually turned her head for just a moment, and her daughter was gone.
Today, FBI agents and Tacoma police will be out in this area near the bowling alley of south Tacoma distributing these new fliers. They will be put up on area businesses, areas residents` doors, asking for any clues to the disappearance of 2-year-old Teekah Lewis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I couldn`t leave the house without her. I had to take her wherever I went. And if that was going to the grocery store, I had to take her because she would cry. She was a mama`s girl.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, you would think that the league members would notice if one of the members went missing. But what if it was a player that didn`t play very much? What if it was just someone that sat on the sidelines and watched? What if it was a league member that never made it, that got to the bowling alley but never made it to the bowling lane, and they thought, Oh, he just stayed home?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember going there, just seeing tons of people. And I thought it was just a friendly environment because I had took my twins a week before and it was fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: What if it was just a man that was there watching, that wasn`t attached to any of the players? It was so packed there, who`s to know the difference? Who knew who was on what team, or who was not on any team? That is the most likely scenario, a crime of opportunity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I went up to bowl. And I seen Teekah. She was right there. She was at the video game, trying to play the machine. She was too short, so she couldn`t reach the pedal, so she couldn`t play, but she acted like she was playing it.
And I turned, not even a minute, and I would say maybe 10 seconds, I turned away. And I turned back around, and she wasn`t there. I immediately stopped everything, and I asked my brother, and I said, Where`s Teekah? And they said, She should be at the video games. And I said, No, she`s gone.
And we searched for her. We searched in the video games, in between them, in the bathrooms, in the nightclub.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Teekah goes missing, the 2-year-old girl, at the Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma. Time passes. The trail seems cold. Detectives come back on the case, new detectives, to just take a fresh look at the case, and this is what they learned.
Three other similar incidents at the same location. Number one, same bowling alley, a little boy, in the bathroom, says he was molested by a white male, a white male with brown hair.
Three days after Teekah goes missing, a 6-year-old little boy in the bowling alley, in the same video arcade area where Teekah goes missing, gets approached by a white male with brown hair. The mom intervenes. Security comes over, takes the man outside. They didn`t call police.
A third incident less than one mile away from the very same bowling alley. A father is at a park with his little girl, and he spies a white male with brown hair beside the bathrooms, trying to lure children over to come to him. The father goes after him. The man runs.
The man runs to a blue 1995 Pontiac.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A car that some said was fleeing out of the parking lot that night. It was maroon in color, Grand Am, either a late model, 1980s or early 1990s model. And I do have to say, Jean, that police did extensively research this vehicle. They didn`t find any connections to Teekah`s case.
However, I did ask Teekah`s mother when I spoke to her earlier if she knew anybody who had this type of vehicle, and she also said no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thinking about maybe the people behind the bar, that worked there, going in and out. And then we find out this video surveillance system wasn`t working that night in the bowling alley, Pat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person that did this knew what they were doing. They could have got away. But Teekah was one to scream at any stranger. She was a mama`s girl. She would only come to Mama, her sisters and her baby-sitter, and her cousin Sarah. She wouldn`t go to nobody else. So I don`t understand how this person got away with my daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m really confused about how Teekah`s mother says she knows where this child is, but she wants somebody else to give information to the police saying where the child is, to bring her home. If she already knows that, we don`t need anybody else`s help.
The only thing I can think of is maybe -- maybe she just wishes the child were alive down there, and the reason she doesn`t want to go down there is because she really doesn`t believe the child is alive down there. And that`s just one way to keep hope going. But if she knows where that child is, then obviously, somebody can go get that child.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Teekah, 2-year-old, goes missing from the bowling alley, Tacoma. Fast forward. Time passes. Everyone is desperate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went out of the bathroom and was frantic. And I went up to the off-duty officer and told him, I said, My daughter is gone. And he said, What do you mean? I was, like, She`s nowhere to be found. She`s gone. And I said, I`ve searched everywhere.
So he took my information down, and he said -- he told the bowlers to, Stop what you`re doing, look under the benches and see if you see a little girl sleeping. I said, We`ve done all that. She`s gone. She`s nowhere to be found. And so, like, 20 minutes later, that`s when they called the first officer in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST AND ANCHOR: People volunteered to help in this search. You had 200 police officers involved in the search, you had the dogs, the search dogs who were out there, all looking for some clues, trying to find any leads, anything that would shed some light on what happened to this 2-year-old girl.
But despite all these resources and all these people looking -- volunteers, police officers, helicopters, infrared, bloodhounds on the ground -- they found nothing.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: In July 2007, a man was arrested, suspected in the disappearance and murder of 12-year-old Zena Linnett (ph). When police searched the suspect`s home, they found other pairs of underwear they believe came from other girls. They thought he may have other kidnap, murder victims.
They did try to see if they might be able to connect him to Teekah Lewis`s disappearance years earlier, but they were not able to make any sort of connection between that suspect and another little girl`s murder and the disappearance of Teekah Lewis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: An alarm, a little girl named, ostensibly named, Precious Doe, fitting Teekah`s description -- skin color, age, the works -- found dead, Kansas City.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was convicted from the start, in the eyes of the community.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was Horel Johnson`s (ph) argument on the stand before he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michelle Johnson (ph) had already pleaded guilty last year to her role in her daughter`s murder. She had watched the child die without calling for help because both she and her boyfriend had warrants out for their arrest. An apology now comes too late for a leader (ph) of the Precious Doe Committee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you let her lay on the floor and you let her die, but you asked us to believe that you really cared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Precious Does was the name given to the child when her headless body was found in a wooded area in Kansas City back in 2001. The girl`s real name is Erica Green, but it took four years to learn her identity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If that`s supposed to be her sign of remorse, I don`t understand because I feel like she had four long years, she had every opportunity to take and turn this around. She didn`t have to wait four years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Police believe it`s Teekah. They race there. Then after a DNA comparison, it`s not Teekah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t want none of you people to feel no sympathy or nothing for me because for one, you people didn`t have no sympathy or nothing when my constitutional rights was violated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Judge John Torrance (ph) responded to Johnson`s statements saying he was a textbook sociopath who refused to take responsibility for the murder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You committed acts that were ghoulish, vile, and by any measure revolting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sergeant David Bernard (ph) investigated the case seven years ago. The brutality of Erica`s death haunted him and his family. He said they set a placemat at their dinner table for Erica. Now that her killers, Horel and Michelle Johnson, are locked up, they can move on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re people with holes in their souls. They just don`t -- they don`t care anything about but themselves. That`s all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: More time passes, and another red flag raised, this time, in Dallas, Texas. There`s a little girl there, looks exactly like Teekah. Teekah`s mom convinced she`s found her little girl.
Specifically, the little girl not only looks like Teekah, she`s the same age as Teekah. She`s being home schooled, not allowed to get a lot of public access. She even has pointy -- little points on her ears like Teekah has. Mom`s hopes dashed when the little girl who looks just like Teekah is not her lost daughter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A little boy who was at the bowling alley that night says that he saw two men near the area where Teekah was playing, and that it even appeared one of the men was approaching Teekah.
Now, police could never find these two men or account for these two men that this boy thinks he saw. So that was just another dead end. They could never point to one or two men, any unknown men that might have been the person who did something with Teekah that night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My brothers are outside searching. You know, we`re calling her name outside, calling Teekah, Teekah. And she had a purse that she was carrying that night, and she was putting her Starburst wrappers in there. And I thought, Well, maybe, you know, she would drop something, something -- some kind of clue would have been dropped. But not -- nothing was dropped.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: To this date, tonight, Teekah`s mother has never given up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Point her the right way home because she has sisters that need to know her, that want her home. She has a grandma that`s about to turn 80 on Sunday, and she would love to see her granddaughter one more time!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Can you imagine all these years that have passed? Every year, Teekah`s mother holds a candlelight vigil at that bowling alley. The bowling alley has since been torn down. There is no more bowling alley.
POLITAN: To remember and honor Teekah around the holidays, they created a toy drive in Teekah`s name as a way to spread and keep her spirit alive, this 2-year-old girl who they hope and pray will come home someday.
JOSTAD: Tacoma police have repeatedly sort of gone back to the well, released new pictures of Teekah, released any new information that they`ve had, put her picture out there again, try to jog people`s memories if maybe they`d been at the bowling alley that night, maybe they were nearby, maybe they saw something suspicious. They`ve tried to do whatever they could to generate some new leads in Teekah`s disappearance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unless they have a tip that comes in, then they`ll call me and tell me about it. Back in August, they had dug up a man`s yard because he had tried to lure a 3-year-old from a bowling alley. They dug up his house and nothing was there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: So far, none of those tips have led to Teekah, but her mother hopes that they still might someday.
GRACE: There`s nothing left of the scene where Teekah went missing. But every year, the mother goes there and holds a candlelight vigil. She believes her daughter is alive. She believes someone took Teekah and is raising the child as their own.
That`s a mother`s love. There`s nothing greater on this earth than a mother`s love, and she is convinced that somehow, some way, she will find her little girl.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe somebody took my child, somebody that couldn`t have a child and is raising mine as their own. I pray every day my daughter comes home.
Just give me my baby back! I know she`s not a baby no more! She`s 16! I`ve missed 14 birthdays. And it`s time to bring her home. Give me a Christmas miracle. Bring my baby home to me. That`s what I want. That`s all I ask for every Christmas is bring me my baby home because I know she`s out there. She`s out there somewhere! And that person that knows the information needs to come forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Police have released an age progression photo. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But there`s that one person that can solve this case, and all we ask for them is come forward. I can forgive and forget.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
