The case of a missing Detroit woman has gone unsolved for almost ten years. Tamala Wells was last seen on August 6 in the summer of 2012 when she left her home on Appleton Street in a Pontiac Grand Prix. While the Grand Prix was eventually found without Tamala inside, her family has been left twisting without answers for nearly a decade. There may be hope yet, however, as a new detective is assigned to the case, bringing in a new set of eyes and a completely different perspective than ever before.
When she disappeared, the missing Detroit woman left behind a void in the hearts of many of her loved ones, like her mother, Donna Davis, who has never stopped looking for her daughter. She told clickonDetroit last summer, “Everyday I get through with the grace of God. I wake up saying ‘Lord. This is the day that you made and I’m gonna be joyful in it. I’m gonna do everything that you desire me to do because I know that today the answer is coming.” Davis has hit the streets herself in search of her daughter, driving from her residence in Florida to Detroit so she can search vacant homes for signs of her daughter. Though Tamala’s boyfriend was questioned several times by police at the onset of the investigation, there have been no persons of interest named in this case, nor have any arrests ever been made.
“The worst part is not knowing. You know?” said Davis. “There’s a lot of people losing their loved ones to diseases, gunshots, all of that…and my heart goes out to them. I’m passionate. Because no one deserves to be taken from life. But at least they know where their loved one is. And I don’t. I don’t know. And that’s the hardest part.”
Tamala Wells is 5 feet 4 inches tall and 157 pounds. She was last seen wearing micro braids, blue jean shorts and a white shirt. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak-Up.
The case of a missing rideshare driver who has disappeared from Lafayette Parish, Louisiana is getting more attention following the news that the case will now be investigated as a homicide. Ella Quiana Goodie has not been seen since March 9, 2022, and according to Louisiana State Police, they will be shifting the scope of the investigation from a missing person search to a homicide investigation “based on investigative techniques and statements.”
March 9 was the last time any friends or family heard from the missing rideshare driver. Her sister-in-law posted on Facebook that Goodie was going to drive to Texas to drop off a rideshare customer, but no contact since then. One of the most puzzling aspects of the case has been the evidence yielded from traffic cam footage. According to Scott Police Chief, Chad Leger, the Audi was observed on Interstate 10 driving towards Texas—only to be observed 12 hours later coming back into Louisiana. However, the next day, the vehicle was also observed north of Dallas.
While adults have the right to go missing if they so choose, what is chilling and concerning about the case is the discovery of her vehicle multiple states away from her last known whereabouts. About a month after she was last seen, St. Joseph Police located Goodie’s black 2012 Audi Q5 in St. Joseph, Missouri, but no sign of the missing rideshare driver.
Since the inception of the investigation, there has been at least one person of interest involved in the case—Brandon Francisco. Francisco was arrested by U.S. Marshals on March 25 in St. Joseph where Goodie’s car was found on an unrelated warrant stemming from Rapides Parish. Authorities continue to search for the missing rideshare driver.
Goodie is a 5-foot, 3-inch Black woman who weighs about 170 pounds. She was last seen wearing a denim jacket and blue pants.
Throughout the Chicago area, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and scores of others are still missing their loved ones—young Black women and girls who have vanished without a trace, and have not been heard of since. Young Black women like Kierra Coles, the pregnant postal carrier who was last seen leaving her apartment building in October, 2018, or Sheena Gibbs, who was last seen at her home in Roger’s Park just last November. For some families, the wait for answers has been even longer and more excruciating, like the family of Tionda and Diamond Bradley, two sisters who vanished from their Chicago home over 20 years ago. However much time has passed, there is an entire group of missing women and girls whose families are being left to twist in the wind without closure.
Kierra Coles, the pregnant postal carrier who was last seen leaving her apartment building in October, 2018
To call the phenomenon of missing Black women and girls is a crisis is a total understatement. In 2020 alone, the total amount of women who were reported missing was 268,884. Almost 100,000 of those women were Black. It seems like a mathematical mistake that Black women only make up 15% of the population, yet somehow account for more than a third of the total amount of missing women. And yet somehow, families of missing Black women and girls have had to claw and scream to get a fraction of the attention given to cases of missing white women.
After all, the amount of media attention given to the Gabby Petito case felt like a constant stream of breaking news updates beamed directly to our smart phones—a constant barrage of television interviews with experts in missing persons, full visibility of Gabbi’s face, and a fierce pseudo-evangelism in the smallest details of her disappearance. A nation-wide manhunt was launched for the person of interest in her disappearance, and police were unyielding in their search.
Meanwhile, Karen Phillips, the mother of Kierra Coles, has been unable to get updates in her daughter’s case in two years. “Because she’s the color she is, that evidence don’t mean nothing…Every time they call, they’re on vacation. They have more vacation than anyone that I know.”
In a virtual caucus led by Congresswoman Robin Kelly last month, Mayor Lori Lightfoot “And in Chicago, we just have to be honest and say we don’t have a good track record on this topic of finding missing Black women and girls, supporting their families and survivors, solving homicides related to Black women. We absolutely must do better.”
In effort to supplement the search for their beloved daughter and friend, the family of Sheena Gibbs has begun a GoFundMe campaign to raise the monies necessary to fund an independent investigation into her disappearance—a course of action that many families of missing Black women and girls are forced to take when they cannot get the attention or resources their case deserves through typical channels like the media or law enforcement. Even if every family was able to reach their funding goal for the costs of these comprehensive investigations, there are still only a finite amount of private investigators in the world, and hundreds of thousands of missing Black women and girls whose families deserve answers and closure.
Sheena Gibbs, who was last seen at her home in Roger’s Park just last November.
Sheena Gibbs is described as 5’9”, 180-pound Black woman with brown eyes and black hair. Sheena was getting ready to leave for a trip to Davenport, Iowa to care for her mother, who has been hospitalized. When Sheena spoke to her family on 11/03/2021, Sheen advised that she would be arriving in Davenport the following day. No one has seen or heard from Sheena since. You can support her family’s GoFundMe campaign here.
Kierra Coles is described as a 5’4″, 125-pound Black woman with brown eyes, black hair, and a medium-brown complexion, police said. She has a tattoo of a heart on her right hand and one that reads “Lucky Libra” on her back. Anyone with information about Kierra Coles can call the Area South Special Victims Unit at 312-747-8274 or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455.
An Illinois family is asking for the public’s help with any information that might lead to the whereabouts of their 20 year-old daughter, Keriaye Michelle Winfrey. Keriaye was last seen in Mt. Vernon, IL on January 9, 2022 around 3:00 P.M. in the area of the Family Life Church shelter.
When her mother arrived at the shelter to pick her up, Keriaye was nowhere to be found. Her family described this disappearance as very uncharacteristic of her, and knows she would never just vanish without calling or letting someone know where she was going.
At the time of her disappearance, Keriaye Winfrey was like many 20 year-old young women—simply trying to navigate her way through young adulthood and find her direction in life. Keriaye loves kids and has a dream of opening her own daycare. Her family described her as having a friendly, albeit quiet, demeanor. Before she disappeared, she liked to spend her free time reading and spending quality time with her family—especially her siblings, to whom she is very close. After months without answers, her family is still twisting in the wind. Now her family is following the course of action many families of missing persons take by hiring a private investigator to conduct an indepedent search for Keriaye Winfrey. They are trying to crowdfund the monies for the investigation by starting a GoFundMe. If you would like to donate to the fund for the search into Keriaye’s disappearance, you can do so here.
Keriaye is 20 years old, stands at 5’4”, weighs approximately 115lbs, has short black hair, brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a black shirt, blue jeans, royal blue Nike shoes, a black and white jacket, and was carrying a small purse. If you have any information on Keriaye’s whereabouts, please call investigators at 317-675-6701.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is asking the community for help to find a missing Indianapolis woman who was reported missing on February 4th, 2022. Paris Williamson, a successful Black insurance agency representative, was reported missing after she did not show up to work for a week, according to her sister, Lauren Seymour, “That was very unlike her not to go to work because she loves her job. There were just a lot of red flags.”
There were other red flags in the absence of Paris Williamson. Her father, Lane Seymour, told WIBC that Paris’ phone had stopped ringing before her disappearance, going only straight to voicemail. Her mail was also sitting uncollected in her mailbox, “To leave mail in her mailbox, which she is very private. She had her license and some other W-2 forms, which were soaking wet. I know she would not just take off and leave.” Lane Seymour also commented that his daughter’s personal brand of professionalism was completely incongruent with a week-long failure to call into work. “She does not miss work without calling in, and she definitely would let us know if she were going to be gone for a long period of time.”
The last confirmed contact Paris had with her family was on January 30. However, the family received a tip that someone may have seen Paris at the Horseshoe Casino in Shelbyville, Indiana—a report that concerned her family. “We were concerned about the report we got back when she was in the casino, because she was with someone who seemed a little bit older than she was. And she seemed bothered from what the person was reported to us,” said her father.
The family continues to circulate flyers and call upon the power of social media to get the word out about Paris’ disappearance in the hopes of kicking up new leads for law enforcement to pursue. Paris’ family made it a point to underline that she is in no way estranged from her family, and she would not just disappear on them in this way. “She is a beautiful young lady with a great heart and we just want her home,” said Seymour.
Paris Williamson is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing around 170 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She may be driving a 2008 Chevrolet Impala with an Indiana license plate reading 394NFV. That vehicle was last seen traveling southbound at Emerson Avenue and County Line Road on January 31, 2022. Anyone with information on her disappearance or whereabouts is asked to call 911, contact the IMPD Missing Persons Unit at 317-327-6160 or call Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.
The family of Sheena Gibbs, 40, is still searching for answers months after she vanished without a trace back in November of 2021. The former home health aide was preparing to embark on a trip across state lines to visit her hospitalized mother in Davenport, Iowa. When her family last spoke to her, she informed them that she would be arriving in Davenport the following day, but no one ever heard from her again.
Sheena Gibbs is beloved by family, friends and the Rogers Park community which she has called home for nearly two decades. Loved ones describe Sheena as kind, joyful, strong-willed, positive, creative and someone who could easily connect with people from all walks of life.
Most recently, Sheena worked at UIC performing COVID test scheduling. In the past Sheena worked as home health aide, a youth worker and a professional dance instructor.
Sheena survived cervical cancer at 25 and has been an outspoken advocate for young survivors. In 2019, Sheena’s poetry was featured by the Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University as part of their Cancer Survivorship Institute to support youth survivors.
Sheena is passionate about social justice and spent years volunteering as an HIV/AIDS educator, ESL teacher, peace activist and raising money to bring clean water to drought-stricken areas of Africa. She worked with organizations like the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, 1000 Wells Project, American Friends Service Committee and the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.
In years prior to her disappearance, Sheena had an avid interest in West African, Jamaican and Hip Hop dance. She was a professional dancer and as an instructor, she taught kids about diverse dance traditions and cultures.
Sheena grew up near Davenport, Iowa and was very close to her mother and regularly visited family who live there. Sheena attended Truman College, Northeastern Illinois University and Spoon River College, where she was VP of Student Senate and graduated with honors.
At the time of her disappearance, Sheena was last seen near Greenleaf and Sheridan in Rogers Park in Chicago, Illinois. According to Tarver, Chicago police had been unable to use the tracking features of Sheena’s phone to track her movements because it had been turned off. Because she was on her way to care for her infirm mother, Chicago police are considering Sheena’s disappearance as a “high risk” case. Cases treated as “high risk” typically involve suspicion of foul play or death that is either imminent or has already taken place—a fact that has plagued Shenna’s family. “Some of the things that go through my mind, I don’t even want to speak out loud because I just want to hope and pray that she’s safe somewhere,” said Tarver.
Sheena is a 40-year-old Black woman with a dark complexion, 5’9”, 180 lbs with black shoulder length hair and brown eyes. She was last seen at the intersection of Greenleaf and Sheridan in the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago’s north side.
Those who’ve seen her or have a tip should contact CPD Area 3 SVU at (312) 744-8266 or Black & Missing Foundation at 877-97-BAMFI or email her family at
HelpFindSheena@gmail.com
There is a GoFundMe for Sheena’s family where you can support them in this turbulent time. All funds raised by this GoFundMe will go to the family to mitigate the financial impact of the case, as well as fund an independent investigation into Sheena’s disappearance.
