8 replies to this topic

[Denise]

http://www.charleypr...es_lenoria.html

Lenoria E. Jones  

Left: Jones, circa 1995;
Right: Age-progression at age 16 (circa 2008)

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: July 20, 1995 from Tacoma, Washington
Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Date Of Birth: January 3, 1992
Age: 3 years old
Height and Weight: 3'0, 40 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: African-American female. Black hair, brown eyes. Jones's hair was braided at the time of her 1995 disappearance. Her nickname is Noria.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: Blue or turquoise pants and a black t-shirt with an image of the character Barney imprinted on it.
Medical Conditions: Jones was born with cocaine in her system and suffers from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a result. At the time of her disappearance, she was taking the prescription medication Norpramin to control the condition.

Details of Disappearance

Jones was last seen with her great-aunt, Berlean Williams, on July 20, 1995 in their hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Williams had legal custody of Jones at the time and was in the process of adopting the child. She also ran a day care center. The identity of Jones's father is not known, and her mother had her legal rights to her daughter terminated by 1995. Jones and her mother had never lived together; her mother gave her to relatives to raise when she born. She spent the first two years of her life living with relatives in the Spokane, Washington area before being placed in Williams's care. Jones's mother resided in Arkansas in 1995.

Williams initially told authorities that Jones disappeared inside the Target store on South 23rd Street in Tacoma during the day. Investigators believed Williams's account until Target management provided a security videotape showing Williams entering the store alone. There was no sign of Jones anywhere nearby. Williams reported her grand-niece's disappearance to police at 9:42 a.m., but at 8:47 a.m. she had called her daughter and said she did not know the child's whereabouts. She had no explanation for why she waited an hour to alert authorities that Jones had vanished.

Williams changed her statements to authorities numerous times after the discovery of the videotape. Among Williams's claims were the stories that Jones wandered away from her home, was abducted from the Target parking lot and that two unidentified African-American men kidnapped Jones near their residence on south Sheridan Avenue. Williams then said that the child was safe and living in an undisclosed location. Jones's mother says she called Williams and asked to speak to Jones two days prior to the child's disappearance, but was not permitted to talk to her. Authorities placed Williams under house arrest for four months after Jones's disappearance for failure to provide case information. Her day care center was also shut down by the state. Williams has never been charged in connection with Jones's case. Her lawyer maintains that her accounts of Jones's whereabouts differed due to badgering by law enforcement.

Authorities have ruled out other members of Jones's family, most of whom live in Arkansas, as possible suspects in her disappearance. Some officials believe foul play may have been involved in her case; others believe she is still alive in an unknown location. Some investigators theorize that she may have died from an accidental overdose of Norpramin. She had been taking the drug for a matter of days prior to her disappearance. It is not usually prescribed for young children and has a number of serious side effects, including a skin rash, seizures and death, that can occur in the first few days after starting the medication. There is no evidence to support the overdose theory, however.

Jones's disappearance remains open and unsolved. 

Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Tacoma Police Department
253-798-4721

Source Information
The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
KOMO TV
The News Tribune
The Seattle Times

[Denise]

Poster NCMA: http://www.missingki...earchLang=en_US

[Denise]

State Patrol refreshes case of missing girl

By HECTOR CASTRO
P-I REPORTER

Almost 13 years after 3-year-old Lenoria Jones disappeared from a Tacoma Target store, authorities not only hope she is still alive, but that someone will recognize her from a new, updated image of the little girl.

Saturday, in honor of National Missing Children's Day, the Washington State Patrol unveiled a new truck trailer owned by Gordon Trucking Inc. which bears both an image of Lenoria in 1995, and what she may look like today.

Lenoria was shopping with her great-aunt on July 20, 1995 when she vanished. She was last seen wearing a "Barney" T-shirt and turquoise pants.

Read more: http://seattlepi.nws...tml?source=mypi
Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call the State Patrol at 1-800-THE-LOST.

Visit the Washington State Patrol's Missing Person's Information Center at http://www.wsp.wa.go...ing/ourkids.htm

[Lori Davis]

http://www.doenetwor...es/524dfwa.html

Doe Network profile for Lenoria E. Jones

[Lori Davis]

http://www.wsp.wa.go...nes_Lenoria.pdf
Washington State Missing Persons profile for Lenoria E. Jones

[Deborah]

WSP has been contacted regarding Lenoria's case, we are awaiting an update.

[Deborah]

Lenoria is still missing.

 

Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call the State Patrol at 1-800-THE-LOST.

[Deborah]

NamUs profile for Lenoria E. Jones

 

https://www.findthem...g/cases/6241/0/

[Lori Davis]

http://mynorthwest.c...-disappearances

 

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

 

BY JOSH KERNS, KIRO Radio Reporter | August 12, 2015 @ 5:50 am

 

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."