When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diembra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today I'm bringing you two stories about two young women in two different cities who went missing two years apart. These are the stories of Kiera Coles and Kishé Jacobs.
It's the evening of Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018, and this woman named Karen Phillips is trying to reach her daughter, 26-year-old Kiera Coles. She called Kiera that morning, but didn't get an answer. And at the time, you know, Karen just figured she must have been at work already for the day, so she tried again that afternoon, but still got no answer. So she decides to try one more time before she turns in for the night. But even then, still no answer. Now at the time, she's trying not to overreact or fear the worst, because Kiera is a grown woman, she's responsible, surely everything is fine. Like, maybe she's just out somewhere, forgot to charge her phone, maybe she's not feeling well, trying to get some sleep, something like that. Right.
So when Karen wakes up on Thursday morning, she calls again, and Kiera's phone rolls straight to voicemail. Again. And that's when Karen gets that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she knows something isn't right. She and Kiera talk every day, often more than once a day, and it's not like Kiera to be out of touch for any length of time, but for sure not longer than 24 hours. Karen is not about to wait any longer, so she hops into the car and heads over to Kiera's apartment. As she's driving up to the building, she sees Kiera's car, and this little bit of relief creeps in because she's thinking, okay, if her car is here, at least she couldn't have gone far. Maybe she's sleeping or something.
Then Karen remembers their last conversation on Tuesday evening. Kiera had told her mom that she was planning to pick up a few groceries that night. And so all of a sudden she has this whole new set of fears. Like what if something happened? Like she collapsed carrying the groceries to her apartment or something like that. Why would she jump to the conclusion of her collapsing? Like does she have health concerns or something?
Well, sort of, yeah. According to an episode of NBC's Scene of the Crime called What Happened to Kiera Coles, she has asthma that she treats with an inhaler. But more than that, Kiera's actually pregnant, about three months pregnant. And things have been going really well for her so far. She's feeling great, no issues, nothing like that. But this is her first pregnancy, and so everything is brand new. And frankly for Karen, the idea of her daughter, you know, maybe collapsing and carrying groceries is as good an explanation as any for why she isn't answering the phone.
Karen gets up to the front of Kiera's place. There's a window, but she can't see inside. But she can hear from the outside of the door that the TV is on. So she knocks and knocks and keeps knocking, but there's nothing on the other side of the door. And she calls out for Kiera even, but there's no answer. It's about this time that she remembers Kiera saying she'd given a key to her boyfriend Josh. So she calls him next, her panic rising at this point. And he says actually he doesn't have a key and he hasn't seen Kiera all day, but he says he'll come over right away. While she waits, Karen calls the post office where Kiera works, but they tell her that Kiera isn't at work and actually wasn't there the day before either.
The last time anyone from work spoke to her was when she called and asked for October 3rd off. So then mom calls Kiera's sister Kimberly, who tells her she picked her sister up from work on Monday but hadn't seen her since. Finally, at this point, Karen is done waiting. She calls 911 and asks the dispatcher to send police to her daughter's apartment for a wellness check. When officers get there, they legit take the door off its hinges so that they can get inside. But when they get inside, Kiera isn't there. There's no sign of a struggle. Nothing is out of place. Even the groceries that she bought on Tuesday evening were all there and put away, everything neat and tidy.
So that's when Karen decides to go check out Kiera's car to see if maybe she'd find some clue there as to where Kiera might be. The car is parked on the same block as her apartment, but it's parked farther away than usual, like not right in front of the building where Kiera typically parks, which is strange because there are open spaces where she totally could have parked. And I mean, she's pregnant, she's carrying in groceries too, right? Like, if there was ever a time to park as closely as possible. It's now, right, exactly. When Karen and the officers get down to Kiera's parked car, they can see through the window that her phone and her purse are both inside. Now, Karen doesn't have a key to Kiera's car, and her keys weren't inside the apartment either.
So according to Bianca Hillier's reporting for NBC News, they call a locksmith to come down and open it for them. The locksmith gets there, opens the doors for them, and they realize that the purse that they could see, it's not like Kiera's everyday one, like the one she keeps her wallet and stuff in. But it's one that she was clearly using as a lunch bag because in it, Karen sees a full packed lunch and some water along with a bottle of prenatal vitamins. Do they find her regular everyday purse too, though? No, not in this main part of the car. But Karen knows that they're going to need to check the trunk too.
And when she thinks about it, this sick feeling of dread washes over her as her brain starts to like quickly catalog all the things that they could find when they open it up. So she holds her breath while an officer pops the trunk. And to Karen's relief, the only thing inside is some of Kiera's work stuff. OK, so it sounds like her car was packed up and ready for a day at work. But her boss said they hadn't spoken to her in a couple of days since she called in and asked for October 3rd off, right? Right. So, yeah, you're right. It looks like she was all packed up, ready to go to work. And actually, it's good to point out Kiera does work two jobs. But Karen knows she couldn't possibly be at that second job because that second job she works is as a Lyft driver.
They're going through her car right now. Right. So of course, in the back of her mind, Karen is thinking, could she have run away or something? Was she overwhelmed with work and life and the pregnancy and just left? Police are wondering that too, but Karen is sure she would have known if her daughter was overwhelmed or anxious or upset. And Kiera had been none of those things when they spoke on Tuesday night. If anything, she was the opposite of anxious about her life. She worked her butt off to get where she was. And Karen told Madeline Buckley from the Chicago Tribune that Kiera had worked for three years to get a permanent gig with the U.S. Postal Service. She had her own place that was pretty new, her own car, also a pretty recent thing.
Kiera had even been with Josh, her boyfriend, for six years at this point. So she'd spent the last three years knocking goal after goal off her list, and at this point, her life was unfolding exactly the way she planned it. Karen tells police that Kiera had no enemies, no one she isn't getting along with, nothing like that. Now, there's no mention in the source material of drug or alcohol use or mental illness or anything like that either, so I assume that's not even a factor here. There's nothing that Karen can think of that would explain her daughter's disappearance, period. All she has is this knowledge that two days is too many out of touch, and she has this gut instinct that something isn't right.
But unfortunately, a gut instinct is not an investigative lead. And Kiera is an adult. She doesn't have to tell her mother where she's going or what she's doing. And she for sure wouldn't be the first person to be keeping things from her mother. So with no sign of foul play, there's really not much they can do. So what now? Are they saying there's some like, you gotta wait 48 hours rule or something? No, I don't think it's that. And I can't even tell you for sure that police don't start working on an investigation at this time. All I can tell you is that Kiera's friends and family and co-workers from the postal service are the ones who spend the next several days pounding the pavement. I mean, they're the ones who are knocking on doors, handing out flyers all over her neighborhood.
And it's not until Monday, October 8th, almost a week after she was last seen, that Chicago police finally release a missing persons bulletin and the media start covering the case. And that's also the day that one of Kiara's neighbors checks the footage from his surveillance camera. And they get their first solid lead in the case. One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multi-million dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms, with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.
The couple that lived there had 21 kids. It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory. Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my co-worker, we named her the surrogate pin. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into? I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, but I'm going to actually send you the surveillance footage and get you to walk us through it. One sec. Okay, so what I can see is this person, I'm assuming this is Kira, comes from the street between two parked cars and walks on the sidewalk towards the intersection. She's, you know, walking away from the camera. And then, okay, a car goes to the intersection. So she kind of stops abruptly and does a complete 180 and walks back in the other direction, like along that same sidewalk, and is going back towards the camera now. She takes, like, her bag off her shoulder or back or whatever, goes back between the parked cars and onto the street.
And then the footage shifts to a different camera view and shows her she's not on the sidewalk anymore. She's kind of like walking along the road. And then she just walks out of frame. Yeah, and you can stop it there. The rest of the video is just a repeat of the same thing again. What stuck out to me is she's walking like pretty purposefully. Like it doesn't seem like some kind of aimless wander. Right, like there's like a little bit of a drive in her step, you would say. But then she switches directions halfway through.
Yeah. And listen, I've done that, too. Like if I thought I knew where I was going and then realized, again, I turned around so easily. Or like maybe you forgot something in your car or something and like, oh, gosh, I got to turn around. Yeah. Yeah. But she like hard pivots again. It's not like she's looking around. She's like walking, walking, almost like she's like, oh, I'm going the wrong direction. And then like pivots hard and starts walking in the opposite direction. Right. But I mean, this is right outside her apartment building, right? Yeah. So I guess I go back to like maybe she forgot something and had to go back for it. It could be that. And I mean, I think both of those are kind of pretty innocent explanations for what we're seeing. Now, Karen's boyfriend tells WGN9 Chicago about his thoughts on the footage, saying, quote,
She's seen something that made her turn around that fast and cross the street, end quote. Now, what that something is, no one really speculates. Now, in this video, it doesn't look like this person is in distress. She's moving quickly. But again, she's not like sprinting or anything. Yeah. She doesn't look scared or surprised even to me or even like caught off guard. No, not at all. And do we know what day this video is from?
So interestingly, some of the source material says October 2nd, which would have been that Tuesday. But other times it says October 3rd, the Wednesday, the one that she had called off. Now, if you pause that video, though, at the 42 second mark, you'll see the time and date stamp. Oh, it says 10-3-2018, Wednesday, 11-54. Yeah, so I'm going to go with Wednesday. And here's the thing about that. In this video, this person who, again, we're assuming is Kira, is wearing her postal service uniform. But remember, her work said that she didn't come to work that day. According to Bianca Hillier's reporting for NBC News, that is the day that she was supposed to have requested off. You mean like she had called in sick?
Source material is a little wishy-washy on that, like WGN9 Chicago ran a story saying that a spokesperson for the Postal Service said that she had called that morning. But Emily Shapiro for ABC News reported something totally different. She reported, quote, Kohl's, who was off duty when she disappeared, had called and asked for leave for October 3rd, according to Postal Inspection Service spokesperson Julie Kenny. But she didn't say when the call was made and declined to provide the reason Kohl's gave, citing employee confidentiality, end quote. So to me, that says we're not telling you when she called or what she said when she did.
Only that she requested October 3rd off. Right. Now also, October 3rd is the day, remember, that her mom Karen had been trying and trying to get a hold of her daughter starting at like 8 a.m. And yet, here she is like walking around a few hours later, like again, almost like noon, seemingly fine. Anyways, this new footage throws a monkey wrench into, well, everything really, but especially the timeline everyone had been working from. And it raises new questions like why was Kiera in uniform if she was supposed to be off that day? Did she change her mind? And what made her stop at that intersection and turn around? And even more than that, where did she go after she walked out of frame?
So police head back to Kiera's apartment, this time doing a full search for anything that might tell them where she'd gone. And Kiera's family and friends and a growing list of her postal service colleagues are out in the neighborhood handing out missing persons flyers and asking if anyone had seen Kiera, but no one had. I mean, her family even offers a $3,500 reward, but still nothing. I mean, you said police searched her place, but do we know what else they're doing? We don't.
They're investigating, according to what Karen told News 1, but how that actually looks, I don't know, because the official statements coming from the Chicago PD at this time say nothing about what they're doing, or they don't even say anything about possible foul play. Quite the opposite, actually. They're treating Kiera's disappearance as a non-suspicious missing person case. So they think that she left over on religion then? That's certainly how I take it. By Monday, October 15th, nearly two weeks after Kiera was last seen, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service steps up and offers a $25,000 reward for information that helps locate Kiera.
Now, you'll notice I say the U.S. Postal Inspection Service because that's the agency that investigates crimes within the Postal Service, including crimes against employees. Which is not to say that anyone thinks her job is involved in her disappearance, though at this point everyone's like, listen, anything's possible. Right. That same week, Kiera's dad quits his job and moves from his home in Wisconsin to be in Chicago. Like I'm talking about he straight up parks out in front of Kiera's building and plans to stay there day and night until his daughter comes home. And a community activist and Kiera's union both add to the reward, which is now at $28,500. But still, there is no sign of Kiera. And...
Do you want to know who else there is no sign of? Her boyfriend. Wait, what? Josh? Like, wasn't he there with her mom on the day she was reported missing? Yes, he was. But after that, he left. And no one has seen him since. Now, they've tried to reach him and make contact with him, but he's just gone. And listen, I'm not talking about, like, vanished into the woods, solo hiking, gone. I mean, he just flat out moved to another state with another woman. What? Yeah. Well, it turns out the baby Josh was expecting with Kiera, it wasn't his first. He had other children with this other woman. This woman that he is now with in Louisiana.
Now, I have no idea the terms of Josh and Kiera's relationship, nor of the relationship he had with the mother of his children. Because again, it's not like him and Kiera just started dating. They've been together for years. Right. What I do know, though, is that whatever the arrangement, it doesn't seem like a peaceful co-parenting kind of situation. Rob Stafford and Lisa Capitanini reported for NBC5 Chicago that Kiera and this other woman did not get along. I mean, to the point where they'd actually gotten into a fight and Kiera had been banned from going to the house. You mean like a restraining order? Well, the source material doesn't say anything about an official restraining order, but Karen told NBC Chicago in February 2021, quote,
She had a fight with the other baby's mother, and she was banned from coming to the house. End quote. I mean, still, that seems kind of significant, don't you think? Yeah, to me. Especially since Josh and this other woman up and left town pretty much right after Kiera disappeared. But Karen actually doesn't think Josh is involved. Karen had always seen him as a decent guy. I mean, he worked, he went to church, he treated Kiera well. They'd been together, like I said, six years, and they, at least to her, were excited to welcome this baby. So everything seemed good.
Now, I have no idea how police feel about Josh, but just over two weeks after Kiara's disappearance, they officially say that they suspect foul play in her case, and they make a plea to the public for information. Police do several searches in and around Chicago, and while tips in the case are few and far between, there are at least some that come in. Some of those tips lead community volunteers to search a forest preserve about 25 or 30 minutes from Kiara's place. But according to Will Jones from ABC News, authorities do end up being called in anyway when the search teams discover some bones. Neither the searchers nor the responding authorities know right off the bat whether or not the bones are even human. And as far as I can tell from the source material, no one has ever confirmed whether or not they are, like, even to this day. Okay, but if they had been human, I feel like, I don't know, that would have been made public at some point in the last three years, right? I have to, I hope so. I was going to say I have to believe so, but I hope. Whether or not they were hers or not, like, they're still human remains. Yeah.
Now, there really is no movement at all in Kira's case all throughout 2019 and in the first half of 2020. Both the Postal Service and the police continue to investigate possible leads. But then in July of 2020, Chicago PD announces that they're suspending their investigation. They are closing this case after a year and a half, are they? Well, to my knowledge, unsolved cases are never truly closed. So I don't think it's that. I think this is more like they believe they've done all that they can with the evidence they have. And until something changes, investigators...
Basically, they're saying we have to look at other cases. There's nothing more we can do here. Like they've explored every road they've found and they're all dead ends. That's what they're saying. But the thing I wonder about this whole we're suspending the investigation announcement is whether it's even true at all. OK, what do you mean by that? Well, in February of this year, 2021, Karen drops an absolute bombshell when she reveals to the public that the surveillance footage of Kiera from the apartment building, well, turns out that isn't Kiera at all. One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion dollar mansion in Los Angeles County.
Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms, with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids. It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory. A baby factory. Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates.
But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into? I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
Karen says she knew from the first time she laid eyes on the tape that it wasn't her daughter. Kira's walk is different. She's just a little shorter, a little smaller. It's subtle, but it's the kind of thing a mother would know. Just maybe not anyone else. Anyway, Karen says that she went down to the police station the next day to tell detectives, like, listen, I am 99.9% sure this is not my daughter on the tape. And according to Rob Stafford and Lisa Capitanini from NBC, police are like, oh yeah, so we know it's not Kira. It's actually this other postal worker who lives in that same area. But let's just keep this between us, okay? Like, don't tell anyone. I'm sorry, what?
Why? Well, in the episode of Scene of the Crime that I mentioned, in those early, early days of the investigation, I guess police wanted people to think that it was Kiera. In particular, they wanted their suspect to think that they thought it was Kiera and that they were chasing this false lead about her last being seen in front of her building on the Wednesday morning, when all likelihood, apparently they'd always thought that whatever happened to Kiera happened the night before on Tuesday. Wait, you said suspect. They had a suspect that early on? Apparently. Now, police didn't say it at the time, but beginning in early 2019, they started saying publicly that they had a pretty good idea of what happened to Kiera, but just didn't have the evidence to prove their theory. Which is not to say that they didn't have evidence at all. They do. Because that surveillance tape, the one that we now know is not Kiera, that's not the only tape out there. Apparently, police also have surveillance footage showing Kiera and Josh leaving her apartment in separate cars on that Tuesday night.
And they have video of Kiera withdrawing $400 from an ATM and handing it to Josh that night too. Here's the thing, though. Police have never confirmed the existence of those two tapes. They haven't confirmed that the surveillance from Kiera's building isn't her either. Again, we get that from Karen. They haven't officially named a suspect, though they have said that Josh is a person of interest. But they're careful to say that it's only because he may have been one of the last people to see her.
So what police need, what Kiera's family needs, is the public's help if they're going to solve this case. Remember, this isn't just a missing person case anymore. There are actually two potential missing persons if Kiera is out there somewhere, because the baby that she was expecting would be two and a half years old now. There is now a nearly $50,000 reward for information up for grabs, you guys. So if you know anything, anything at all, big, small, you're in Chicago, anywhere, please call the Chicago Police Special Victim Unit at 312-747-8274.
And you guys know as well as I do that Kiera's heartbreaking story is not just a one-off. There are so many missing people, missing women, women of color in particular, whose stories share so much in common with Kiera's. And so for the second story that I want to tell you today, I need to rewind the clock to September 2016 and take you all the way to Richmond, Virginia. It's a Tuesday afternoon and a woman named Toni Phillips is at work when she realizes she hasn't heard from her 21-year-old daughter, Kishé Jacobs, yet today. Which is odd because Kishé calls pretty much every day on Toni's lunch break, sometime between 11 and noon, and today she didn't. So Toni calls Kishé.
And she calls and she calls. But every time, her phone goes straight to voicemail. She even texts but gets no response. Tony is worried enough after several tries that she calls Quiche's older brother Davon and sees if maybe Quiche was home sleeping or at least if he'd heard from her. But he says no, he hasn't heard from his sister since the night before. So Tony's kind of very concerned. She's telling her son, like, this isn't like her. But he says, Mom, don't worry. I'm sure she's fine. Now, Tony knew Quiche was planning on spending the night before at a friend's house. And Davon is like, you know, maybe she just decided to hang out a bit longer. Don't worry, she's gonna call you.
This reassures her a little bit, like he's probably right, I'm sure it's fine. So she gets home around 5 that afternoon expecting to find Kishé and get an explanation for why the heck she let her phone go dead. But when she gets home, Kishé's not there. And now Tony is really worried. So did she happen to know where Kishé was planning to be that day? Well, she'd seen Kishé the night before at like 8.30, just as she was heading out the door to that friend's place. And she had heard from her later that night too when she had texted saying she's going to spend the night with a friend.
They're even in contact again at 11 p.m., at which point, according to John Burkett's reporting for WTVR, Quichet says, you know, I'm at this place. Everything's fine. I'll talk to you the next day. But in all of this, apparently Tony had not asked which friend she was actually spending the night with. Because, again, Quichet's an adult. She's responsible. Tony had no reason to ask these specifics. So because she doesn't know exactly who she's with, she just starts calling all of Quichet's friends one by one. And one by one, they say that they haven't heard from her either. But they all promise to check around with others and get back to her when they know more.
By this time, Toni is frantic. She tries to go to sleep that night, but it is useless. She just tosses and turns, and eventually, around 1 a.m., she gives up, throws on some clothes, and heads out to look for Kishé herself. According to an episode of ID's Still a Mystery, Toni drives door to door from one friend's house to another, places she'd dropped Kishé off before or places she'd picked her up from, and she's knocking on doors asking if anyone had seen her. But again, no one had. So Toni calls her sister and says, listen, something's very wrong here. I haven't heard from Kishé. I don't know where she is. I don't even know what to do. And Toni's sister tells her to hang up, drive to the police station, and report Kishé missing.
She arrives to the station at about 2 o'clock that Wednesday morning, and by now she is wracked with worry. She tells the officers that her daughter is missing, she hasn't heard from her in over 24 hours, and she's really, really worried that something terrible has happened. But when the officer finds out that Kishé is 21, he's like, well, you know, maybe she just doesn't want to be bothered right now. I wish there was some sort of sound effect to demonstrate how hard I just rolled my eyes. I feel like that would just end up being background music, like a full hour. Pretty much. Anyway, Tony tells the officer that he's got it all wrong.
He's like, she lives with me. We talk or text literally all day long, all day, every day. She is not a runaway. She would never run away. She is missing, I promise you. But this officer doesn't seem to be picking up what she's putting down. Like, Tony wants to put out an Amber Alert, but the officer tells her that she doesn't meet the criteria because of her age. The officer ultimately hands Tony a business card and says that a detective will be in touch with her soon. Like, basically, he says, go home and wait, get some sleep. I'm sure your daughter's going to turn up. But Kishé doesn't turn up. Tony spends the entire day, Wednesday, basically pacing the floors, waiting for someone to call. And she's at home that evening when she hears a knock on the door.
And I have to imagine she's thinking, finally, the police are following up. It took them long enough. But when she opens the door, instead of seeing a police detective, she sees Quiche's friends. They tell Tony, look, there is something we need to tell you, something we weren't exactly upfront about before. They tell her that they'd actually dropped Quiche off at a house that night. So Tony's like, OK, what house? Now, some of the source material seems to suggest that Quiche's friends know this guy whose house they dropped her off at. But then I'm also seeing it reported that they didn't know him.
Bianca Hillier reported for NBC News that the friends tell Tony that Kishé told them she was planning to meet this other friend there. And one of them says, I even got a text from her, that friend that Kishé was meeting, to confirm the plan. I mean, none of that sounds especially suspicious, really, but honestly, that almost makes me more upset. Why would they not tell her mom any of this the first time that she asked them? I don't have a good explanation as to why they kept this from her initially. But they do say to Tony, listen, don't worry. We went over to that house and talked to the person who lives there. And they say they didn't see anything. So they're basically like, hey, you know, we left this piece out, but we don't think it's relevant at all. Cool, cool, cool. So now they're doing their own detective work, too. Awesome. Well, yeah. And they're not the only ones because as Tony hears this, she's like, you know what? You take me to this house right now. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We're doing this. And so they do. One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene.
a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids. It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory. Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates.
But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate him. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into? I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
So apparently he changes his story then again to say, oh, you know, I must just be like thinking of a different day. Ultimately, he says, you know, it doesn't matter. Like, Kishé had called for a ride and left. But by now, something about this guy isn't adding up for Tony. And her gut is telling her to do something about it. So she calls 911 and is like, hey, I am at the house where my daughter's friends say that they last saw her. And the guy who answered the door is now lying to me. It doesn't take long for police to arrive on the scene. And one of them goes inside the house to look around, but finds no sign of Kishé. So what about the friend Kishé said she was going to meet there? Well, according to Marquesa Battles reporting for Elite Daily, Tony actually speaks to this friend at some point. And she says that she never sent that text confirming the meeting that night.
So someone else texted it from her phone? Maybe. Or maybe there never was a text. This is like what I'm very fuzzy around about this story. Like, again, people's stories just aren't lining up. Right. Now that week, police send out a missing person bulletin and search the neighborhood where Kishé was last seen. But they don't find anything.
Toni keeps checking her bank account because she actually shares one with Kishé. And there's no activity. There's also no activity on her cell phone, no activity on her social accounts. And on October 2nd, nearly a week after Toni last spoke to her daughter, family and friends, members of the community, members of their church, they all come together to plan a rally and to pass out flyers in the neighborhood where Kishé was last seen, hoping that maybe seeing her face might help jog someone's memory. And something seems to work because later that day, Toni's phone rings. And on the other end of the line is the owner of the house where Kishé was last seen.
Now, they tell her, listen, the man you spoke to before, he doesn't actually own the house. He's a tenant, but he's gone now. Do you want to come back in and take a look around? And of course, Tony's like, you bet I do. So she heads over, walking from room to room, looking for anything. But she doesn't find anything suspicious, not to her anyway. Then one of the owners walks her to the back of the house where there is this basement. And I get the sense that this basement, based on Tony's description, is maybe just accessible from the outside of the house. So kind of like a cellar. But as far as I know, police had not been down there when they went through the house earlier that week.
So once she sees this, she calls detectives who come down and do a much more thorough search of the house, including this basement. I mean, they have dogs and everything. But still, there's nothing that they find. So where was that tenant during all this? Well, he is just gone. Like, he didn't, like, leave for a little bit and they were like, come on in. Like, dude left. Oh. At this point, police decide to go back and search Tony's house, hoping maybe they could turn up some clues about where Kishé may have gone. But even in her house, they find nothing.
They also do both air and ground searches of a wooded area in a park nearby. And police actually say that the park is Kishé's last known whereabouts, though I couldn't find any further explanation about that. Like, I don't know if that's the area where her friends dropped her off that night, or maybe if they have cell data that they're not telling us about that puts her there. Ultimately, though, the search turns up nothing. While police send out Kishé's picture and description to other law enforcement agencies across the state, the family is out canvassing the neighborhood where she was last seen and handing out flyers to anyone who will stop and take one. These renewed efforts do lead to several reported sightings of Kishé, but none of them seem to, like, pan out.
So the month of October goes by with nothing. November and December, same. Tony hears nothing from her daughter. And then on the night of January 8th, 2017, not long after Tony fell asleep, she wakes up to the sound of someone knocking on her door. But instead of feeling hopeful, Tony is immediately filled with this feeling of dread that something is very, very wrong. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the only reason someone knocks on your door at that hour, you know, like it's never a good thing. It's the police coming to deliver some awful news. Like that's immediately where my head goes.
Well, Tony rushes to the door, and when she opens it, she's relieved to see that it's not the police, but it's her nephew. The relief is short-lived, though, because what he tells her is that he thinks something may have happened to Davon, that Davon had been shot, that he's hurt. Tony doesn't even think about it. She just jumps in her car and starts driving towards the hotel where her nephew said Davon had been. According to reporting by Mark Robinson for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the whole way there she's calling Davon's phone over and over, and he's not answering. So she pulls into the Motel 6 parking lot to see flashing police lights and yellow crime scene tape, and her heart just falls into her stomach when she's told that her 25-year-old son is dead. Rumors start to swirl immediately about Davon's death and Quichet's disappearance maybe being connected. But in the hours and days that follow, police determine that Davon had been shot to death by someone he knew, this man named James Henshaw, over an argument about a rental car. It actually had nothing to do with Quichet.
Her disappearance and Davon's death are not connected. I mean, let's be clear, they're not criminally connected, but they're obviously connected for Tony. I mean, I can't imagine how she must have felt finding out that while she's actively trying to find her daughter, she loses her son. I mean, I just can't fathom that. Do they have any other siblings or was it just the two of them? No, it was just Davon and Kishé, which leaves Tony just absolutely shattered. I mean, she told reporter Marquesa Battle in the Elite Daily Story that she can't even really grieve Davon because she is still running herself ragged trying to find Kishé.
And the worst part is all her efforts, all the community's efforts lead nowhere. There are no more sightings, no clues, no leads, no word from Kishé, nothing. And it's not until this point, which is like 14 months of all of this, that police finally say that they now suspect foul play in Kishé's disappearance. Wait, they didn't before? I mean, they may have, I guess, but they certainly didn't say that. Up to this point, they'd just been saying they had no reason to suspect foul play, that they were just concerned about Kishé's well-being and safety. So this is long overdue, but at least now Tony feels like police are finally listening to her.
Unfortunately, the change in law enforcement's position on the case doesn't really do much for the investigation. But in the fall of 2018, there is a glimmer of hope when police get a call from someone who says that he knows something about Kishé's disappearance. This is their first real lead in the case in two years, so they head out to talk to this guy right away. Now, he is in jail serving 10 years for a violent crime against another woman. But when police arrive to speak with this guy, he must have, like, changed his mind. Either that or he didn't know anything to begin with because ultimately he doesn't say anything, won't talk to police.
Now, Toni doesn't know who this mystery person was that said they knew something, but she has said publicly that she thinks it is the same man from the house, the one with the wishy-washy story about when he last saw Kishé. The one that disappeared himself after the police searched his place. Yeah, that guy. But there's no way to confirm that. His name has never been shared publicly. Police say that they're holding it back to protect the investigation. But John Burkett's story for WTVR says that those who know him know exactly who he is. And as far as I can tell, nothing ever comes of this. Like, I don't know if they tried to press him more. I don't know if they just dropped it. But he's not talked since that one time when he called them up. Police have never publicly shared a theory on this case. They've never identified a suspect or even a person of interest. Kishay Jacobs has been missing for more than five years now. Five years, her mother has gone without answers.
One of her children was killed, the other is still missing, and she deserves to be reunited with her daughter and to know what happened that night in 2016. So if you have any information about Kishé's whereabouts, you can submit a tip anonymously by texting ITIP to 274637. We will have that along with a phone number you can call anonymously right in the show notes. Again, you can find contact information for both agencies to make tips on both these investigations in the show notes as well as our website, where you will also find all the source material for this episode. That's crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but stick around for profit of the month. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
Okay, so today we have a little bit of a pandemic profit of the month. And Ashley, I feel like we talk a lot about folks who get their fur babies in college, which I personally always side-by. Which I did. But of course, you always endorse. But I think maybe the next big trend for profit of the month is pandemic props, right? Yeah, I mean, I can definitely see it. We're all home. Literally, pups were not happier than when the pandemic hit. All of a sudden, all of their humans were staying home. It was great for them. See, my dogs hated it because we took all their couches. They were very upset that all of a sudden we were sitting on their luxurious beds all day. How dare you? And working from there and taking their spots.
It was a very contentious time for a while. But anyway, this story comes to us from our listener, Jenna. And she had lived in the same no dogs allowed apartment complex for 10 years, which I don't think I could do that. Commitment. Yeah. And she had even grown up in like a dog household. So the adjustment was hard slash never really happened. But the apartment complex changed ownership last year. And she was, you know, reviewing her new lease before she signed it and noticed a very important change. The pet clots. Limit one dog.
So basically everything changed and Jenna ran to her local rescue sites to find her new bestie and she found the perfect one. Ashley, you're gonna love this. It was a husky shepherd mix named Mulder after the X-Files, everyone, including Jenna's first spooky love. And at this point, we're in the pandemic, everything is closed and the shelters were by appointment only. So Jenna applies, is approved, makes an appointment as soon as possible, like three days later to meet Mulder. She shows up expecting to bring him home only to find out.
Mulder had already been adopted before she even got there. Oh my goodness. I mean, good for Mulder, but sad for Jenna. Yeah, when I read that, I was like, uh, no one called? What the heck? And Jenna goes, you know, obviously I was confused and I was sad, but in her words...
what better place to be sat than at a pet rescue? So she takes the volunteer up and is like, okay, show me some other dogs, whatever. And so she was walking to the aisles and she specifically wanted one that was good with cats because she already had two cats. And they show her a couple of dogs and she's like, you know, it just didn't feel right. So I keep walking down the aisles and I get to the very, very end of the aisle and there's this kennel with like a panel over the door. And the sign on it says, my kennel is covered because I'm anxious. To which Jenna said, I mean, same. I love you for that because I feel like my kennel needs to be covered on most days too. Yeah.
And this is a dog that the rescue had named Rover. And it was a sweet little red hound mix with these little white spots that made him look like a baby deer. And he was just as nervous as a baby deer. But after some time in the play yard where he sniffed literally every inch of the place, Jenna was like, he's the one. I'm going to take him home. So she named him Buford and took him home that very day. And obviously, like, when you get a rescue, you usually get a file a little bit about them. And she found out that he had been rescued from a kill shelter and moved to this new rescue. And he'd actually been adopted out twice before, only to be returned. And the last time...
was just the day before Jenna went to the rescue to talk about Mulder. He wasn't even there when she applied. Isn't that wild? Meant to be. Meant to be. Did he have, like, why so many people return him? What was the issue? Well, even when Jenna took him home, Buford initially didn't adjust well. His anxiety was through the roof. He was super destructive. He ate everything. He tore stuff off walls. And, I mean, even Jenna's partner was like...
Maybe we should rethink this, but Jenna was determined to help this sweet guy. And she talked to her vet about, you know, medicating his anxiety as well as hiring a trainer who literally worked with him like five hours a day every day of the week to really work him through all of his anxieties and all of his behavioral issues. And now he's like the best ever. According to Jenna, he loves going camping and to the dog park and basically everywhere. And Jenna is actually a scuba instructor, which is incredible. And do you ever go with her to the diving quarry and just hang out while she dives? It's like a match made in heaven.
Of course, this handsome dude has an Instagram at Hound Dog Buford. So I don't know about you. We're all going to follow. Ashley, I'm going to send you some pictures right now because he is the sweetest. Oh, I'm already looking at his Instagram. Don't you worry.
Oh, the ears. I know. And I talked to Jenna and she asked us to highlight Gigi's of Columbus, Ohio. They're the people who rescued Buford from the kill shelter he was originally at. And, you know, did really, really great work with him and are doing really great work in that area. So we're going to link to that for you guys to check out. We're going to link to his Instagram and post a whole bunch of pictures of this guy because he is so handsome. And that will all be on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And good for you, Jenna, for not giving up on this sweet little boy. I know, those ears.
Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Lowe explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.
When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.