20/20 - The Girl Who Looked Like Me

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

A 24-year-old woman vanishes; a stranger has a prophetic vision; police find a key that unlocks everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

. Your search wants a test for possible blood. In your heart, you're thinking something's wrong. I knew, knew, knew at that point that time was of the essence. She's gone. Like, we have to find her. She has to be in danger. It was just like, oh my God, what's going on? You went to Spartanburg. You wanted to see the location.

If you're looking for somebody, you got to go. You got to look for them. I remember just sitting outside of her house, in the car by myself, still not knowing what's going on. I want to know before I leave here, y'all going to tell me something. Either she did or we don't find her. You're Tamika's last known boyfriend.

Yeah. You've got to know that people are going to look at you. I told them, you're wasting time. Tamika's home is here, and then they find the car across town at this apartment complex, which made no sense. I saw this vision of someone looking through these woods or these bushes.

I knew it was connected to Tamika. Was that a real moment for you in this investigation? The key unlocks a door? We talked about her not being here at 25. You talked about her not being alive? Yes. Yes. What do you mean? When police entered this home on June 16, 2004, they find a disturbing scene.

A dog which has apparently given birth to a litter of puppies with no owner in sight. That discovery would trigger the search for 24-year-old Tamika Houston. You get a call from Tamika's aunt that she's missing. How frantic was she? In missing person cases, you learn from what the family, how the family reacts. And once I met with Rebecca and talked with her, I knew it was serious. My name is Steve Lamb. I was the lieutenant over the investigation bureau at the time.

I did not know Tamika, but I felt like that Rebecca knew something was not right. My sister Gabriella called me and she said, listen, she said, Beck, she said, I called her and she hasn't called me back yet. I was like, oh my gosh, Gabby, you know what? She hasn't called me back either. And what are you thinking? I panic at that point because it's one thing for her to ignore a casual message, but not a message like, Tamika, I need you to call me right now. So I picked up the phone and called the Spartanburg Public Safety Department to report her missing. So you get this call. What's your first effort to check this out? So our patrol division responds first. They check the residence.

Nothing unusual, knock on the door, check the mailbox, check with neighbors. I remember being on the phone, and they're telling me, you know, there just doesn't seem to be signs of a disturbance. Like, the doors are locked. Her car wasn't there, which I, you know, sort of like, oh, maybe she did just take a trip. To be honest with you, it was typical for her to, you know, go through a moment where she was just doing her own thing. So it didn't really raise

any red flags. Tamika's parents were divorced. Her dad lived in South Carolina and her mom, Gabriella, lived in Virginia. It wasn't unlike her to get in her car and drive from Spartanburg and show up at Gabby's doorstep with no notice. Showed up in Miami and called me and was like, hey, I'm going to come down for dinner tonight. We had family all up and down the East Coast. Just no one had heard from her. At what point do you go in? One of the investigators felt like there was an odor coming from the residence. Well, I knew that, you know, it was potentially a crime scene.

Honestly, I expected to find her in there, but she wasn't. They did a wellness check, and they found things in her home that were completely inconsistent with her personality. There was a dog inside and a puppy, and I think there were more puppies at one time, but they had died. The dog had drank all the water out of its bowl, eaten all of its food, drank all the water out of the toilet.

It was just obvious that she had not been there in quite some time. When law enforcement finally showed up at her house, her pit bull was there on the verge of starvation. There was only one puppy who was still barely alive. There's death inside. It's like a crime scene. The dog is telling us she's gone, she's missing. Go find her. That scared me. That really, really scared me because I knew Macy was like her child. It was just a horrific scene. Tamika's Aunt Rebecca, her mom's younger sister, lived in Miami. The two had been close since Tamika was a child. We're only seven years apart, so honestly, she was really more like a little sister to me. That's Tamika opening a present from her Aunt Becky.

Tamika opening a present from her Aunt Becky. Aw, thank you, Becky. Oh my gosh, I wanted this so much. She was full of personality. She was only 4'11", but when she walked into the room, you'd think she's six feet tall, because she just commanded the attention of the room. Me and Tamika actually met in junior high school. She had just transferred from another district, and I was assigned to her that day.

Kind of showed her around the school, became fast friends. What was the bond like between the two of them, Tamika and Zelda? Zelda and Tamika loved each other. They were, you know, thick as thieves right away. They were more than friends. They were sisters. At the time, Tamika lived with her father, Anthony, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she would eventually settle. She loved my dad.

They fussed, fight, just like any other father and daughter relationship. But I do know that my dad, he loved the ground that my sister walked on. My name is Antonia. Tamika was my big sister. I couldn't tell that she was much older than me. She was always playing the games that I wanted to play. They said my sister had a temper. She would snap on you in a blink of an eye. But she was a really good person.

She was free-spirited and very, very spiritual because she grew up in a church. She had a humble spirit. That was just, oh my God, that was just so different. She was talented. Oh, she had a voice, yes. Yeah, she could sing. She really could. She wanted to try for American Idol. Tell me about that. We went to American Idol.

God, that was an experience. Over 10,000 people packed into the Georgia Dome. You know, we were excited. We were happy to be there. And she made it through the first round. Her favorite artist was Lauryn Hill. She could sing her songs just the way that she sung them. And she made it through the first round. Her favorite artist was Lauryn Hill. She could sing her songs just the way that she'd sung them. And just like Lauryn Hill in Sister Act II.

I sing because I'm happy. Tamika does a rendition of His Eye is on the Sparrow at her aunt's wedding. His eye is on the sparrow. She sang at your wedding. She did, yeah. It's one of the most special memories we have. We talked about it for years, even before I was engaged to be married.

I'm going to sing at your wedding one day. He watches. He watches. He watches me. Everyone talked about her big voice in this tiny, tiny body that you just would not or could not ignore. You were just drawn to her. And people, strangers were drawn to her. She was a little, I think, too open-hearted to folks and a little bit too trusting.

She had a soft heart for people and for animals. Yeah, she loved animals. I'm not a dog person, but Tamika loved her dogs. And now, strangely, police have found her dog M, seemingly abandoned, with Tamika nowhere to be found. There was no way she would just up and leave her beloved dog to starve. In your heart, you're thinking something's wrong. I knew, knew, knew at that point that time was of the essence. She's disappeared. She's gone. Like, we have to find her. She has to be in danger. That's actress Erika Alexander shining on the red carpet

after starring in the Oscar-winning movie American Fiction. One day maybe you'll learn that not being able to relate to other people isn't a badge of honor. But so many remember her as that hard-charging lawyer in the 90s sitcom Living Single. Look, I'm the lawyer here. I know how to work the system. Erica's also an activist and a documentarian. In 2020, in the midst of protest over racial injustices in this country, she was approached about creating a podcast about

Tameka Houston's disappearance. And at the time I thought, actually, probably no, because I knew then that very few people would want to make something about a black girl. But then, of course, I said yes, thinking, well, if not you, Erica, who? Audible Originals presents Finding Tameka, hosted by Erica Alexander. Months of reporting leads to Finding Tamika, a 10-part true crime audio series executive produced by actor and comedian Kevin Hart and influential radio host Charlemagne Tha God. Kevin was on the same time that I was. He was like, man, this is a story that we need to amplify because of the epidemic of black women that go missing in this country. You really gave a lot of your life to this story. That's what it needed.

It needed sweat equity. If you know anything about Erica Alexander, if you've ever worked with her, she's hands-on. I hunted for clues and explanation with the family. I rode along with a detective who trailed the case, all with a goal to truly find out what really happened to Tamika. You went to Spartanburg. You wanted to see the location. Yeah. You needed to be there.

It was important to be there because everything took place there. Cool, Spartanburg! Spartanburg, it's a small town in the south. It started out as a cotton mill area. A lot of people come here to raise their families. So I would describe it as a place that you can call home. If you look at the statistics, I don't think Spartanburg is per capita anymore, violent than any other. But like every other jurisdiction, you know,

you're far more likely to be killed by somebody that knows you than you are a stranger. I remember just sitting outside of her house, in the car by myself, still not knowing what's going on. And then I heard that my sister was missing. We definitely thought like she would be walking down the street in a minute. I remember Rebecca calling and saying that they were coming here to meet with the police department.

It was just like, oh my god. What's going on? I booked a flight, and I had to come here. Rebecca, well-connected in the PR world, jumped in to use her experience in the media to help spread the word about her niece's disappearance. The first thing I did after landing was go directly to the police station. I remember being very fixated on getting the public information officer to do a press release. I remember saying, sure, wasn't going to leave the building until someone did some media stuff, and we did.

And I think just of her persistence that I felt like it was important. Tamika's mom, Gabriella, makes an emotional plea on the local news for her daughter's return. I know deep down in my heart that somebody knows something. But please, just we plead, just let us know where she is. We just kind of designed a flyer, and we're just putting up all around town. Flyers have gone up in her neighborhood to help police.

At the top, in bright red type, was the word MISSING. Below it, in black, all caps, TAMIKA ANTONETTE HOUSTON. Next to a description of her tattoo was a photo of Tamika. It's the Tamika everyone knows, confident, assured, and in control. What are you hearing from her friends around that time about her habits? A lot of her friends are thinking she's out of town. A lot of people originally are saying that that's not unusual. They thought she was going on a trip and all those little possibilities we have to run down.

Normally she would have told someone, some family member where she was going or if she was going somewhere. When she disappeared, Tamika was living alone. She had recently quit her waitressing job, and her family says she was trying to find herself. The reason why it took a moment for it to be discovered that she was missing, because she was at a crossroads. She wasn't working. She told her mom that she wanted to return to school.

She had broken up with her boyfriend. She had broken up with her boyfriend. She had broken up with her boyfriend. So it was kind of like a perfect storm of events. You're her last known boyfriend. How did you meet and what was special about her? My family had a corner store. It's called Shirley's Pantry. I leave the pantry and I saw Tamika and Tamika's 4'11". Small. Tamika's 4'11". Small. Yes, but thick in the waist.

Very thick in the waist. And I could see she was very attractive. As I was getting on my motorcycle, I heard a voice say, do you have an extra helmet? So I said, no, you can wear mine. It was like love at first sight. It was like a trust love, not just an attraction. Something deeper than that.

Tamika was someone who came into Terrence's life like a comet. He was newly separated, and her boldness and free-spiritedness was a breath of fresh air. I know that she was deeply in love with him and vice versa. I remember Terrence being a funny guy. Always joking, always laughing, and he kept my sister smiling. I do remember that. Terrence was actually the first boyfriend that Tamika was really serious about. Overall, he seemed to me to have a very kind heart.

He seemed very protective of Tamika. And it was Terrence who first raised the alarm about Tamika being missing. I got a phone call from Terrance who left me a message, actually. Hi, Becky. This is Terrance. I've been trying to get in contact with Tamika. Nobody seems to have heard from her,

so I just want to know what she said. That's all. Thank you. He said that he hadn't been in touch with Tamika, that she wasn't returning his phone calls. My instinct was that I know that one of the last conversations I had with her, she had told me that they had broken up.

So I thought that she was perhaps just avoiding him. But surely she wouldn't avoid me, so I'll just call her. Days with no word from Tamika, Rebecca contacts the Spartanburg Police Department asking them to conduct a welfare check on her home. So it wasn't unusual for her mother or relatives not to have heard from her for a while. Nobody was alarmed right away. Not right away. Not until we went to the house and Macy was in. Tamika's ex-boyfriend, Terrance,

kind of got the ball rolling, started calling people. He's the one who told everybody that he couldn't find Tamika. So it's a very ironic thing to be the person who calls Rebecca and the mother, Gabby, and says, I can't find Tamika. And suddenly the eyes start to turn toward you. You always look to boyfriends.

I mean, that's the first place you look. 2020 obtained never-before-seen law enforcement interviews. In this videotaped statement, Rebecca tells police that Tamika had shared some concerns about Terrance. He was staying up real late at night, not really sleeping, pacing the floor, you know, quoting scripture like excessively, that his actions were being directed by God. It just worried me. that his actions were being directed by God. It just worried me. According to talking to her friends and other people in the community,

those two were over. I mean, she was like, oh, well, we're not together anymore. And she started to cry about it. And I was like, well, you guys, you know, y'all will get back together. And she was like, I don't, she called me Zeke. She was like, Zeke, I don't know about that this time around.

I think I'm done. She and Terrance had a pretty volatile relationship. So you got the feeling that any place where there's smoke, there's fire. He admitted to that. She and he had had some domestic violence type issues prior. So that was the first person that we were interested in in this case. Her and Terrance had this domestic dispute. So it was all kind of thoughts going through my mind. Now, was Terrance involved? Did he do something and something had gone too far? Police want to know what Terrance knows,

so they bring him in for questioning. Lacey Peterson was 8 and a half months pregnant when she disappeared from her Modesto home Christmas Eve. Her husband, Scott, says he was out fishing when she vanished. Around the same time Tamika has gone missing, Scott Peterson is in the news. He's a suspect in the murder of his wife, Lacey. Scott Peterson attended this New Year's Eve vigil

for Lacey in Modesto, California. All the way across the country in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tamika's family is holding a vigil too. And all eyes are on her concerned ex-boyfriend, Terrance. We really worried about her. Been by Tamika's home, and none of her mail has been picked up. She hadn't called her mom. There's a vigil for Tamika. You attend this vigil.

You're Tamika's last known boyfriend. Now she's missing. You've got to know that people are going to look at you. Yeah. I was prepared for that. Terrance was at that vigil, and some people were looking suspiciously at him. I know that Anthony, Tamika's dad, had strong feelings about that. I felt like maybe he wasn't being as forthcoming about information,

and I just wanted to make sure that he was telling me everything he knew, or if he wasn't going to tell me that he was at least being forthcoming with police. And now with cameras rolling, Terrance is ready to answer some questions. Yeah, I want y'all to tape it. Yeah, do that, man. Yeah, that's... Yeah. You know I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna shut the door. Ain't no problem, man. That's fine. Yeah. Good, good, good. We started following up on past history and interviewed him to see if he may be linked

to her disappearance. I'm, if you talk to anybody man that knows me, that knows me man, I ain't nothing but love man. I ain't nothing but love and I, you know what I'm saying, I have been for the last two weeks man, Scott Peterson. He was pretty open about the fact that there had been violence in their relationship. That's not something that most people volunteer. So the fact that he was honest about something that was inculpatory, I think, tended to make them believe him a little bit more

when he said, look, I haven't seen her. I understand why you're talking to me, but I didn't do it. I could disappear on y'all and make y'all do some work. My people been loading up, man. You want to leave here? I'm like, no, I don't wanna leave. I wanna know before I leave here, y'all gonna tell me something.

Either she did or we done found her before I leave. You tell police that even though you've broken up, that you still have feelings for her. We had to separate. We had to separate, but the bond, it wasn't going nowhere. I love her, man, and I miss her, and I want her to come home. Police have no evidence linking Terrance to Tamika's disappearance,

but he remains a person of interest. What must it be like to suddenly walk in a room, and people are saying that you killed your girlfriend or you could be a murderer? Where do you hide? Where do you go? You don't. Word of Tamika's disappearance spread through the community, with missing persons posters plastered everywhere.

One at this gas station caught the eye of a woman who noticed the description of a woman who noticed the description of Tamika's car matched an abandoned vehicle at her apartment complex. Sunday, I got called at home and said that patrol officers had found her vehicle on the other side of town. Tamika's home is here, and then they

find the car across town at this apartment complex, which made no sense. Yeah. No, not at all. And I think for a while it confused them. You find the car. What's your first assessment once you find it? We knew it had been there a while.

The windows was cracked. It had been raining in them. And we could not link her to being anywhere in that area. And there was really nothing forensic-wise. We recovered from that vehicle. It wasn't like there was her blood or DNA or anything. And now there's her car, but no Tamika. So I'm sure that sent fear through her family's heart. That was really tough.

Because when you're going through it, it's like your emotions, it's like such a range of emotions. Because through it, it's like your emotions, it's like such a range of emotions because at first it's like, oh my gosh, they found their car. You're thinking, oh, well, maybe she's just been staying with someone. So, oh, this is the break that we need. But then, you know, when we all descend upon, the police are kind of like, it kind of looks like this car has been here for quite a long time. It just makes you even a little bit more desperate. Kids, they used to say to me, like, your sister's dead. She's never coming back home.

Y'all need to stop searching for her. Finding Tamika's abandoned car was a blow to her family. But inside it, police make a key discovery. Her car was found at Barksdale Apartments and during the search of her car a key was located. It was a set I believe five or six keys. You can tell one's a house key, two of them's a vehicle key and maybe two more as locks. They didn't fit her house, they didn't fit her car, we didn't really know what these keys were for or where they had come from.

That led us in a little bit of the right direction and also into more problems. You find keys in this car that don't seem to belong to her. Correct. That was a critical moment. Yes. We had no clue where they went to. That was an added mystery that the police were dealing with at the time. Now that Tamika's car has been discovered abandoned, detectives want to go back and take a closer look inside her home. Once we found the car, that kind of started the case to be more suspicious that there may be something criminal involved.

I just remember being across the house. suspicious that there may be something criminal involved. I just remember being across the house. As it started to get dark, they were spraying the luminol and that very eerie, emitting purplish-blue light that you see coming from the house. And that was really difficult, because it felt very surreal. And it was terrifying, because you're like, what's going to be revealed?

No signs of foul play. No new leads at Tamika's house. But then... A 911 call sends police on a mission. attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Hear how a triathlete is attacked by a shark while training and manages to escape after being pulled underwater. And how a hiker in Alaska survives a 1,000-pound moose attack after the animal crushes her limbs. I Was Prey features audio from hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest, and Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. Her car was found abandoned on the north side of town. No one has seen or heard from her

in nearly a month. I want to make her know that we love her and we want her to come home. In the very beginning, where does this investigation take you? Are you getting any leads? Not really. We put out some stuff locally, media, and talked to families, neighborhoods, some community people here who knew Tamika, but really didn't have a lot to go on. And you get this 911 call. Yes.

Former 911? My brother just came to my house and told me that he killed his girlfriend and put in clean part lake you have a 911 call that talks about someone being put in the lake that's been killed and it's pretty much the exact same length of time the car had been sitting in the parking lot did it sound credible that somebody might have tossed somebody in this small lake it sounded incredible to, just the way the guy was talking. The Barksdale is the same apartment complex where police found Tamika's abandoned car. And it's just blocks away from Cleveland Park Lake.

Police get wind of a 911 call that happened about the time of her disappearance. You listened to it. What did you make of that? Who is making this phone call and they're talking about dredging the lake and doing all these things with lake it's just it just adds kind of to the desperation of the situation. We actually put some divers in that day, two local divers, and they couldn't find anything. And then we put a cadaver dogs were here as well, and they kind of cleared it.

That 911 caller was never identified, but police eventually determined it was not related to Tamika's case. case. You get a lot of calls, most of which turn out to be either innocently mistaken or crank calls. Someone had reached out to me and said that they were a psychic and they could provide me with information where Tamika was. And all I needed to do was Western Union them. And you did. I did. Just out of desperation.

Just out of desperation. And he gave me this ridiculous story of, you know, that she was being held against her will, and just very vague information. In hindsight, I know better. That's the downside of publicity. There are lots of crank calls. The upside is you get some really, really good information.

In fact, there were those who truly wanted to help the family. Like Elaine Painter, a local Spartanburg woman who says she sometimes has visions about people. My husband was leaving for work. He brought the newspaper in and laid it on the kitchen table. He said, this beautiful girl is missing. She's a young girl. We need to pray for her. So I looked at the picture and she had this captivating smile and these beautiful eyes.

I moved the paper over and I just put my hand on her face and I prayed that they would find her alive. I just pray a lot. I'm not a psychic. I don't read cards. I saw this vision of someone looking through these woods or these bushes. I knew it was connected to Tamika. Come home.

Elaine felt her vision was too powerful to ignore, so she calls police. We have that quite a bit. On major cases, people feel like they know some information in some fashion or form. We listen to everyone who contacts us. We were around a few places, and she knew some things about some areas of that we've had major crime scenes. They stopped by this lake. He said, do you think she could be in the lake?

I said, no, she's not in the lake. You won't find her body in water anywhere. He said, do you think she was shot? And I said, no, she wasn't shot. There was a lot of blood. I guess I thought I was just going to ride over there and I was going to see this guy looking through some bushes and say, okay, case solved. But I would go back home crying every time because I thought God sent me to find her. I couldn't. So what am I doing?

I'm wasting their time. This painter was very humble, amazing lady, was just trying to help out in the case. And I wanted to listen to her. Police are actually open to Elaine's help. And months later, she goes on another ride along with them after she says she has a new and very specific vision. I could see blood, her crumbled body on the left side of the closet. A closet? Police aren't sure what to make of this. I can't stop searching.

But they do know that time is of the essence, and Tamika's Aunt Rebecca is doing everything she can to push for more public attention. You're a PR exec. Your husband's an NFL player. If anybody should be able to attract attention, I would think it would be the two of you. Yeah. But yet you're struggling to get the message out. Right. I was used to the media being, you know, enthralled with these stories. I assumed that I was gonna

be able to get that sort of attention for Tamika and I could not have been more wrong. It's hard to beat the media for getting a face out there. Whatever leads it could generate, that's what she was after. I need all eyes looking for her. Anything that I could, anyone I could reach out to, I was. While Tamika's case did get local news coverage, Rebecca noticed that some other missing women were getting widespread national attention. 27-year-old Lori Hacking went for her morning jog and never returned. Tamika was missing, actively missing. I had really had no leads on where she was,

that it was pretty devastating to see Lori Hacking's case become a national story really overnight. And you're being met with silence. Yeah. How frustrating was that? Extremely frustrating. But her persistence pays off. Tamika's case is now getting noticed by John Walsh's America's Most Wanted. Tamika Houston is a young woman who disappeared down in South Carolina.

Will the spotlight on her case now lead to finding Tamika? As the seasons changed, Rebecca continued to use her PR skills to advocate for Tamika. She focused her attention on Fox's Saturday evening primetime hit, America's Most Wanted. You had gone to America's Most Wanted. You had gone to America's Most Wanted. Yeah. I got the attention of a young associate producer at the time, Tiffany Cross, who said that she was drawn to the story because Tamika looked like her. Her case file had kind of made it through a lot of producers and landed on my desk.

And as soon as I read the story and I just looked through the notes and I talked to her aunt, Rebecca Howard, this was a story I knew I could own. Tiffany advocated for our stories. It was officially greenlit. And that October, Tiffany was off to Spartanburg. I just wanted to get on ground and understand who the people in this community were and what they could tell me about Tameka. When you're thinking about national publicity, America's Most Wanted, why did that matter? Brands. Brands matter.

That's a top shelf brand. But also that means that they have the audience. The audience is looking. It gives them assurance that maybe if they think they know something, that they should call it in. And that's huge. I'm Tom Morris, America's Most Wanted. The unique thing about America's Most Wanted is we worked alongside law enforcement.

The first person I met in law enforcement on Tamika's story was Detective Steve Lamb. All the leads that we've chased down had run into basically a dead end. I think they helped with the case putting it out on a national level. Steve Lamb seemed very dedicated to finding out what happened to Tamika. We started just building flow charts of family and friends and people that she had dated or had relationships with and we started seeking out all those individuals to communicate with them. with and we started seeking out all those individuals to communicate with them. One name that kept coming up routinely when I got on site was Terrance. The community and family fell out. Terrance was a person of interest in the case.

Terrance says he expected police to suspect him, but not his own family, especially an aunt who helped raise him. So I asked her, why haven't you gotten with me and called me and prayed with me? She looked me in my face and she said, we thought you did. That must have hurt. That must have hurt. I tore my heart out of my chest. Terrance was very offended that people thought he had something to do with Tamika's disappearance.

I told Terrance we wanted to speak with him. I armed our reporter with tiny lipstick cameras, and we set off in a car behind him and sent him to talk to Terrance. You're telling me you did not have anything to do with it, correct? Exactly. Exactly. At one point, he even got down on his knees,

talking to our reporter, trying to plead that he did not do this. Why do you agree to talk to America's Most Wanted? I wanted the story to get out. I'm thinking, like, OK, America's Most Wanted, they're stable. They have good researchers. They have good, you know. But y'all come with this, so I'm like,

y'all didn't come to help find her. You came to get a confession. You're wasting time. Of course, you always look to boyfriends. But if there's nothing there, at a certain point, you have to move on. Over time, we felt like that he was not involved in her disappearance. One thing that I've always thought about Tamika and I always wanted people to know is that she was a very spiritual person. Tamika knew that she

would not live long. We talked about her not being here at 25. You talked about her not being alive? Yes. Yes. What do you mean? Um, she knew that something tragic was going to happen to her. You're saying she didn't think she was going to live long? No, she knew. I didn't say think. She knew she wasn't going to live to be 25. Knew. We had these conversations.

Spartanburg detectives with the America's Most Wanted team in tow are now focusing on those keys found in Tamika's car. They told us about it, and then we filmed them finding the keys. Matching the key was basically finding a needle in a haystack. And it's that key that begins to unlock the mystery into Tamika's disappearance. We're able to trace it back to an apartment complex.

But even then, the odyssey was just beginning. We go through with management, knocking on the door. Detectives go from door to door for making a shocking discovery. Detectives go from door to door for making a shocking discovery. Investigators found a really big bleach stain, which is Latin for uncovering something up. In the very beginning, where does this investigation take you? Are you getting any leads? People knew that Tamika had gone missing. Was that a real moment for you in this investigation? People knew that Tamika had gone missing.

Was that a real moment for you in this investigation? You finally, the key, unlocked the door? I thought I'd be in the middle of something like this. Seeing it on TV, but you know, not in real life. That was the key piece of evidence that they needed to figure out what exactly happened to Tamika. And that was just the beginning.

People had seen her here. Yes, had seen her and thought that she had dated someone. Entering apartment 215, Fremont Apartments. The investigators found a really big bleach stain, which is Latin for uncovering something up. And his explanation for the stain was that it was red Kool-Aid.

Red Kool-Aid. Red Kool-Aid. Which is amazing in a way, because this leads to the discovery which leads them right here. I thought you had to be a monster. You said that this case touched you like no other had. Why? Because I know how much black girls don't matter. There's a woman out there who's hopeless, and we don't know what happened to her. Family members say Tamika would never leave her pet home alone.

The weeks turn into months. The search goes on. No sign of Tamika. I still had so much hope that she's going to pop up. She's going to pop up. Tamika's black Honda CRX was found here at the Barksdale apartment complex. But there was no sign of a struggle, no blood, no Tamika.

They find Tamika's car, and then they find these keys. What did you learn about those keys? I look at keys all the time and I never think about what's on them. Sometimes there are things that identify them. You think that that's just the key brand, but it turns out that the key maker had a code. maker had a code. AA-14. That's the number on the keys that they found in the car. And they weren't Tamika's keys? No, they weren't. But that code was important. Fate must have been on Lieutenant Lamb's side that day as he stepped into one of the local key shops. Well, Fate and Fate.

We just decided to go to a local locksmith who had been here for decades and show him the keys to see if he had any ideas. And one of the keys had a stamp and it was a code that he recognized that he had created. It was crazy. Again, AA-14, it told him that he made the key but also through his files suddenly boom he can tell you where those keys fit. When this particular key was brought to us we knew it was a Housing Authority key so we then cross-referenced it and we saw the AA-14 matched the Fremont School

apartment. That code told him that it was made for the Fremont school apartments. Which is amazing in a way, because this leads to the discovery which leads them right here. How do you even begin to figure out where these keys go to here? We just went to management and told them what we were doing, and we were allowed to try the keys. With Tamika missing and the clock ticking, the question is, could she be held inside that apartment complex? We tried every single apartment, and the last one opened.

Was that a real moment for you in this investigation? You finally, the key unlocks the door? Yes, it was great for us. I think it was one of the key unlocks the door yes it was i mean it was great for us i think it was the turning one of the turning points in the case it opens like a storage room and as it turns out when somebody moves out in those apartments they just swap locks from a apartment that's empty or another room and they just swap the locks between the two rooms and they keep no record of it. When he tried the keys and the door opened that was the key piece of evidence that they needed to figure out what exactly happened to Tamika and that was just the beginning. It didn't fit an active apartment but at

least we knew we were in the right apartment complex at that point. We processed it just to make sure she was not being held down there, but it turned into nothing. Had Tamika had any connection to this apartment building as far as you knew? Loosely, we thought that we didn't have anything for sure, but now once we started talking to people in the apartment complex and things, people began to know who she was. People had seen her here?

Yes, had seen her and thought that she had dated somebody named Chris that lived here. Tamika's best friend Zelda had actually met Chris, but only one time. The last time she saw Tamika. She knocked on the door and she had a guy with her. Tamika. She knocked on the door, and she had a guy with her. And they came in, and she was like, hey, Zelda, this is my friend Chris. And I was like, hey, Chris.

And he was kind of standoffish. I'm like, where did he come from? She was like, oh, he's just my friend. His demeanor was really odd. I'm like, who is this guy? Chris Hampton was another boyfriend of Tamika's. And he had a little bit of a record. He was out on a bank robbery.

It was a probation. He had actually called the FBI when they were working that bank robbery, saying he hadn't done it, that it wasn't him, but they were already showing his pictures. What had you known about Chris Hampton? Anything? Nothing. From my understanding, he was relatively a new person

kind of in her universe. I was her aunt. We did have a very sisterly relationship, but I think she would look to me for approval. If she just met somebody that she wasn't really sure about, by the time that she lets me know that she's dating someone, it would be more of a serious type of relationship. So I had no clue whatsoever that she even knew this person.

She was one of the people she had dated in the past that we put on the list that we were trying to contact and interview. We determined at some point that Christopher Hampton had been a tenant in an apartment there at Fremont Apartments. So he very much became a person of interest. Detectives begin talking with Christopher Hampton, who tells them that the last time he saw Tamika, she wanted to borrow money before heading to Myrtle Beach for bike week back in May.

I was assigned as an FBI special agent to the Tamika Houston matter. We had information that we wanted to confront Christopher Hampton with to see whether he could validate that information, whether he would cooperate with questioning. And you don't remember when you let her borrow that money? I told you last time, it was like a couple of days before bike week started. Did you see her at any point after that? No, that's the last time I seen her. He was wanting to be helpful and was trying to get the last information that he remembered

when he last saw her. This was your girlfriend? Nah, we just, you know, she was one of the girls I was messing with. He shared that he had a girlfriend that was pregnant. And so that becomes a point of confrontation in these interviews. Is Tamika aware of this? How does she feel about that? She was, you know, I had a baby on the way and she was pregnant.

My baby mama. and she was pregnant. My baby mama. She was pregnant. Do you have anything to do with her death? No. I don't know nothing about that. She was one of the first I mess away, you know. I hate you know she messin' up,, you know, I got life to live. I never thought I'd be in the middle of something like this. I seen it on TV, but, you know, not in real life. I got a mother and a father and an entire family that doesn't know what happened to this little girl. Yeah, but, you know, and it can't seem to happen to her. What if she come back, you know?

That's right. It's Christmas time. While police have no evidence on Christopher Hampton they want to keep him talking then a letter written on Christmas Eve offers detectives a gift they weren't expecting what's inside would break this case wide open and instantly I mean I knew why is this guy telling us he rented a carpet cleaner? As the seasons change and the months go by, Tamika's family marks a heartbreaking milestone, her 25th birthday. birthday and on Christmas Eve 2004 Christopher Hampton writes a curious letter to law enforcement so mr. Hampton addressed a letter to myself on December

24th he says in the letter I went to my apartment and found that somebody had come into my apartment and poured beer on my floor, smeared mayo, ketchup, hot sauce, flour, and all kinds of other stuff all over my bedroom floor. And in this letter, he talked about he had rented a carpet cleaner. And instantly, I mean, I knew, why is this guy telling us he rented a carpet cleaner?

He's telling us this because he thinks we know something that we don't know. He goes on to say, I saw Tamika last the day before I rented the cleaner. We felt that it was very unusual for someone to write a letter to law enforcement about unusual damage in their apartment and ring a steam cleaner right after the last time they saw someone missing. I remember Steve bringing me the letter and my thought is, we have a missing young woman that you were connected with and you want us to believe it's ketchup? Keep talking.

Keep writing. That letter raises suspicions about what might have happened in Hampton's old Fremont apartment. So detectives, check it out. Which apartment then? Far corner. Back here. Far corner, top apartment.

We didn't have a warrant. Big lady opened the door, let us in. We didn't tell her why we were there, but other than trying to investigate a crime. The investigators found a really big bleach stain, which is Latin for I'm covering something up. We felt like there was enough to execute a search warrant in that prior apartment he lived in. Entering apartment 215 Fremont Apartments. When we were processing Chris's apartment we would walk through doing a videotape document

what it looked like before and after. Straight across the hall, it's your first bedroom. We used Blue Star to spray on the carpet. And you spray in the dark, and if there's human blood there, it will illuminate and it hit in his bedroom area and in his closet area. Blood was found underneath the carpet.

Once we pulled the carpet up, there was large amounts of blood. It soaked through the carpet and was just on the floor. And a lot in the closet. You find blood in the apartment? Yes. But is it Tamika's blood? We didn't know at that time, but eventually we did.

Over the course of a few days, we linked DNA back to her. With this latest development, Tamika's family now is struggling to keep Hope alive. When you find out that there is blood in this apartment, what goes through you? At that point, I was, um, I resigned at that point. In your gut, you know. I felt up until that point I had a lot of hope,

but I think that's when I knew that we weren't going to see her again. That same day, Lieutenant Lamb gets an unexpected call from Elaine Painter, the woman who said she had visions about Tamika's case. The night that we found the blood in the apartment, she called me on the phone and said she knew something good was happening in the case. There's no way she could have known that. Tomika's blood had been found in a closet, just like Elaine Painter says she had seen in her vision months earlier.

Police would later take her inside that apartment. And we walked up these steps and they opened the door and I saw a closet. I knew that was where she died. There's potentially a big break this morning in the case of a missing 24-year-old woman who disappeared last year. Investigators now say they found blood in a former apartment of a person that they've been questioning. This is a video of the first interview that I had done with Chris.

This is shortly after the blood was found in his apartment. What's that look like to you, Chris? That's some kind of stain, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. It is. That's underneath the carpet in here. What kind of stain? That's blood. See in here. What kind of stain? That's blood. See this letter right here that you wrote?

In that letter you talk about cleaning the floor, alright? And what this is, is a crime scene. Yeah, I don't know about that. When I interviewed him, he was uncooperative. He didn't want to acknowledge anything. Whatever happened to Tameka happened right there in your apartment. Yeah, I don't believe that. Listen to me. I don't care if you believe it or not. I'm telling you. All right?

No. My county apartment had all kinds of damn flyover and stuff on my floor, like beer. People poured beer on the floor or something. All kind of like ketchup and stuff like that. No, I ain't got nothing. I ain't with that. He doesn't want to accept the facts for what they are, that this is blood residue. This is not a kitchen condiment. Well, her blood is all over your floor.

How do you know that blood? It could be anybody's blood. No, it can't be anybody's blood. How long do you think we've been doing this? You don't know that we can tell one person's blood from another blood? I'm dying. You ever heard of DNA? Yep.

I'm telling you the girl died in your apartment. I'm not wishing you watching around there. I'm telling you that. That's a fact. Watching that now, one reason I would chuckle is the fact that I know I'm lying to him at that point. We didn't know for sure that that was Tamika's blood. We believed it, but we didn't know it. We're trying to press him to produce Tamika's body. You're willing to wait this whole charge yourself? I have to because I don't know what's going on. He locked me up just to solve the case of him.

I'm not looking for a body to hang this charge on. I'm looking for it to be his body. The solicitor's office didn't want us to charge him until we had the body. At that time, I don't think we had ever tried a no-body case. If you don't have a body, it's definitely not a slam dunk. I was the circuit solicitor, which everyone else calls district attorney. The goal is not an arrest. The goal is a conviction. So we're trying to identify him as the killer. Then unexpectedly, somebody else surfaces saying she too had been in Hampton's apartment. There's no reason why she should be in that room.

Tom Morris has the story of a young woman with a big voice and a big heart. She may have followed her heart into some big trouble. Tamika Houston has been missing for 10 months when the America's Most Wanted segment airs. We decided to come to Spartanburg to see what AMW could do to get some answers for Tamika's family. The tenant had cleaned up what he thought was ketchup when the prime lab techs went to work, and they didn't find ketchup.

It was Tamika's blood. America's Most Wanted was this show that was interactive. We'd love to hear from you. You can call 1-800-CRIME-TV, ask for me or the detectives. People would watch the show on Saturday night in real time and anyone could call in with a tip. And where are you located? The show's got a hotline in their studio

in Washington, D.C. Can you describe it? Where trained employees and law enforcement are at the ready in case a lead comes in. America's Most Wanted. My name's Steve Lamb. I'm from South Carolina. We would have cameras there.

You would even cover law enforcement walking around from phone to phone. And sometimes they'd say, hey, I have something. And you would give the phone to the detective, and they could talk to the person. America's most wanted. Go pass this information to mama. Lieutenant Lamb said they waited, and calls started to come in.

And somewhere near around midnight, they got a call from a young woman. Someone here locally who felt they may know some information. You move the dresser. She is a young juvenile that had a relationship with Hampton and had went over to his residence close to the crime scene time and had been with him that evening. Said they go back into his bedroom.

She said that he spilled Kool-Aid in the floor. I got an investigator here locally in Spartanburg to meet that individual that night. She knows exactly where that stain is. That kind of helps seal up some information in reference to the case. The caller is just 15 years old. Police bring her in and interview her on camera. This is the first time that video is being shown publicly. We blurred her and altered her voice.

When I looked at the show tonight, the America's Most Wanted, they said, they was talking, they said that whoever it was said that it was ketchup. That stain did not look like no ketchup. It looked like that was liquid that had been poured. It looked like it was coming from the closet. She said the dresser was pulled in front of the closet door. She knew something that we had not released. We had no further evidence pointing

to where Tamika might be. And the fact that this 15-year-old girl made a link, a connection between blood on this person's floor in his apartment was interesting to us. And he didn't have no cover on his bed. It was just a brand new bed. She had visited his apartment and he had what appeared to be a stain that could possibly have been blood, but he tried to explain it away.

And his explanation for the stain was that it was red Kool-Aid. Red Kool-Aid. That's what he told me. I get goosebumps. There was no reason why she should be in that room. In a way, you're grateful, but then again, you're horrified. The witness is implicating Christopher Hampton at the crime scene and calling into question his explanation

about that carpet stain. I knew at that point they were zeroing in on him. National media coverage matters in missing persons cases. It's not just any coverage, it's prime time coverage. Because although it may take a village to raise a child, more often than not, it takes a nation to find a missing child, or anybody for that matter. In the early 2000s, there was a lot of missing white women that got outsized attention.

And it was very frustrating to be a black woman working in newsrooms and seeing how different stories stayed on television consistently. I was like, listen, you guys are ignoring black women at their expense. In this country we have 40% of missing persons cases are persons of color. Why is it when you turn on your television you only see white faces? Tomorrow marks one week since 18-year-old Natalie Holloway vanished on the last day of her senior class trip. I was reporting on that case in Aruba, yet I had not heard of Tameka Houston.

Right. You're reporting on Natalie Holloway, and you're a black woman and don't know about it. Like other reporters, I too was covering all kinds of stories, often about missing people, women in particular. Not realizing some of the people who weren't being covered. What did you hear back when you said, it seems that you're ignoring black women?

There's an ABC News reporter who did write a story about the disparity in which missing black women versus missing white women are handled by media. That was the first bite that I got. Why did it matter that she didn't make front page news? That's the gold standard. A national conversation about a missing person is the difference between sometime not only being found, but never being forgotten.

It's just hard and very devastating for me. Everything I'm hearing, it's not good. So, of course, it's killing me. She's not out there. If something has happened to my daughter, I just want to put her to rest. While Tamika's parents are grieving, Christopher Hampton, in custody for violating his parole for that bank robbery, is busy making calls from jail.

Hello, this is a call I call from. Okay. Like this one to a call I call from. Correct. Like this one to an ex-girlfriend. But it was a piece of paper in there, and it had one of your yellow notebook things. Mm-hmm. And it had fingerprints and blood on it. Yeah, I don't know anything. She contacted us and said she had some belongings of Hampton's.

Christopher Hampton's ex-girlfriend turned in his wallet. Lieutenant Lamb was going through it and found a drop of blood on a photograph in the wallet. There was some smudge marks that looked like blood and a partial print. We do the testing on this to make his blood. At this point that was enough to convince the solicitor's office to go ahead and let us charge him. You have her blood in his wallet. You have her blood on the floor of an apartment that he used to live in.

It's no longer a question of who did it. It is now a question of what happened. There was still the outstanding question of, well, then where was Tamika? What happened to her? And only Chris Hampton had those answers. It's been 15 months since Tamika Houston's disappearance. Now armed with hard evidence, solicitor Trey Gowdy is ready to have police arrest Christopher Hampton for Tamika's murder. I remember talking to them about, you need to be there when he's released.

When they picked him up, what you really want is, you want answers for the family. Where's the body? He was scheduled to be released on his parole violation, and they assured me, listen, we're going to be there to pick him up, and we're bringing him in to question him. You're about to see potentially a resolution here. Somebody's about to be arrested. It's really a tough situation to be in because you just, like, until you know, know, there is kind of maybe that small sliver of hope that

one day she'll just walk through that door. Because there's no body at this point. Yeah exactly so it's it's tough it's you want to know but then you don't want to know. We made arrangements the morning that he his release that we would be there and over the course of our ride back, he was nervous that we were going to put him in front of cameras. So we went to another location. We got cheeseburgers from a local restaurant and I made sure that we asked for a ketchup bottle, not two little packs. We want a bottle. We were sitting there talking, and the ketchup bottle's on the corner of the table.

And I said, don't knock that off on the floor. And he kind of laughed about it or snickered about it. And I think that was kind of the turning point for him. He stood up, and he said, let's go. And I said, where do you want to go? And originally, I thought he meant the jail. But he said, I'll take you to where let's go. And I said, where do you want to go? And originally, I thought he meant to jail. But he said, I'll take you to where she's at. My God.

Tamika, is this where fate, faith, and fortune unfortunately meet? Have we finally found you? How did you handle that news that he was going to lead police to her body? Major Lamb, I remember him calling me and saying that he finally said that he was going to lead them to Tamika. I said, okay, I'm on the next flight there. When I got the phone call, I think I just lost it. Yeah, it was tough. It was just me and my dad when we found out.

And I just remember him screaming to the top of his lungs. And then that's when I knew my sister was never coming back. We get in our vehicles and he drives us across town, the interstate, into another small town outside of our jurisdiction. Miss Houston was found in a wooded area, a good bit of brush and undergrowth in the area, but some clearings as well. We get out of the vehicle and we walk about 100 yards into the woods and he points out where it is. It turns out Hampton had made a cross with tree branches

and laid them on top of the makeshift grave where he'd buried Tamika. As if I'm going to fashion a cross and put it there is somehow going to mitigate what he's done. Ms. Houston was buried in a shallow grave. And some of the remains of Mrs. Houston had been scattered about the area. There were a couple bones on the surface that they saw at that time and it was in Spartler County. Multiple law enforcement agencies were at the scene. When I

arrived that night they are still processing that scene and trying to collect her remains. It was gut-wrenching at that point. You just know you felt so remote and you felt like she's been out here alone for all this time. You feel really helpless. I open my arms for your embrace. But all I feel is empty space. I remember walking down into deep woods and I mean, by this time, we were surrounded by trees. So come back to me.

Come back to me. Watching the pain on my sister's face, it felt like she was in physical pain. It was really just difficult to see her going through that. And I'm standing there, and my eyes are full of tears. And I remember looking down because I felt like I was stepping on something. And I reached down and picked it up. And it was actually one of her bones.

reached down and pick it up. And it was actually one of her bones. Family came and found a couple bones that had not been picked up. And so for me, that was a really sad situation. So I told them I'd just do it myself. That part of it, excuse me. It was supposed to be clear first before we got there. And yet, through it all, something extraordinary starts to happen. The family begins their long goodbye, and quite naturally, in this unholy yet sacred setting,

an impromptu ceremony develops at the site. The family had put up a little cross and flowers there at the grave site. You had hoped it would be a different outcome. You do have an answer now, but it's be a different outcome you do have an answer now but it's certainly not the answer you wanted wasn't the answer we wanted it's such a loss like I've missed her so much but how did Tamika end up dead and why? Christopher Hampton, back in an interview room, is ready to confess. I know.

I didn't have to pay. I snapped, man. I just... This makeshift gravesite deep in this wooded area near Tiger River is where Spartanburg investigators say Christopher Hampton led them. Deep into the brush, investigators say Hampton showed them where he dumped Tamika's body. The body just recently identified after a long, grueling investigation. After Christopher Hampton leads authorities to Tamika's remains, he then sits down to tell investigators what he says happened the day Tamika died.

We returned back to the police department to interview him in reference to the case. He tells a story of an argument over money, and he's ironing clothes for work. Kind of tell him what happened. She said, she wanted to borrow the money. I said, I ain't got it right now. I got a ticket coming up, I got to pay. I said, and plus, my baby, she's going to be born. I got to buy some stuff for her. Okay. Tell him what happened.

She got mad. She said, well, God, she says, you always talk about that baby. You make enough money, you can give me some money now. She yop, yop, yop, yop, yop, yop, yop. She stood up, and she was like, yop, yop, yop. So I just... What happened?

I just turned around and turned around. They have a little disagreement, and he turns around, hits her with an iron. I didn't have so bad a snap, man. I just turned all the way around. So I understand which side we're taking. On this side. Based on the crime scene, detectives aren't sure about Hampton's story. I think there was considerably more damage

than what probably would have been caused by just getting hit in the head with a iron. Did you go check her, or did you just? I panicked, man. I got a body job. You panicked and you left. I got a body job. When you heard about Chris's confession,

when you heard him say that he killed her. I was really angry. It seemed so violent and so senseless. He said it hit her, and he didn't know what to do, and then left and came back. He felt like she'd be up and gone. She wasn't. So he panicked and wrapped her up in a comforter off the bed

and put her in the closet. He had such little regard for her life that he dragged her in the closet and moved a dresser in front of the closet. It was almost like he wanted it out of sight, out of mind. It didn't happen. Hampton tells them he places a dresser in front of the closet door, just as the 15-year-old witness had described to police. You're dealing with the psychology of someone who could take a life

and then be with this underage girl, and this body is in the closet the entire time. He said he wrapped the body up in his bedding and carried her out to the car. He goes to Walmart and buys a shovel. The sun's coming up and he decides to drive down this dirt road, take her in the woods and he digs a grave. Okay, what do you do next?

I bury her in there. Like, put dirt back on top of her. Put her out in the woods, buried her in the woods. Horrific. Did you put anything else on top of her? I crossed with her. Like what do you do with the tree and the cross. Was you doing that just as a, like a burial for her or something?

Why'd you do that? I mean, that's... I guess I was... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. He is confessing to a homicide. He is confessing to a homicide, and his intent is to make the event sound as unintentional as possible. And we didn't believe that to be true, because he'd gone to great effort to dispose of Ms. Houston's body. Months later, he returns to the gravesite, removes some bones as well as Tameka's skull and takes that and disposes of it at another location. This is a diagram that I made after we had finished processing the scene. This shape in the middle is the burial site.

One of the most interesting things on this to me is this is a fence and you have this creek right here. What I think actually happened was because this her jawbone was the only bone that was found on the other side of this fence, I think he likely took the skull, like he said. She couldn't be identified or to cover up some kind of horrific damage to it and threw it in this creek. I just kind of thought that you had to be a monster to do something like that to someone after a period of time. Tamika's life reduced to a pile of bones, picked, plucked, and spread apart by animals, weather, and worry.

Gone. Missing. Now found. Christopher Hampton placing Tamika's body in the woods. The vision Elaine Painter says she had spot on. That was who I saw looking through these bushes. And it seems Tamika had one more message to share via Elaine. When I was very, very early in my pregnancy, and literally the only people who knew that I was pregnant with twins was me, my doctor, and my husband. Elaine called me, and I had a couple of miscarriages previously. And she's like, Rebecca. And I could tell she was struggling a bit. She says, I'm seeing Tamika, and I keep seeing her.

And she's holding these two blue bundles. And I'm like, really? I said, I don't have no idea what this means. I did not know that she was pregnant with twins. Maybe God was saying that it's gonna be okay, that you're gonna get to keep these. I was just blown away because, I mean, again, only, and I knew what the sex would be of my twins.

Twin boys. Yeah, twin boys. And two blue bundles. Two blue bundles. And so this day I always feel like Tamika, she's watching them and she's around. With the sound of the song, Some Way, Somehow, a memorial service for Tamika is held in South Carolina. These people gathered here at Foster Chapel Baptist Church in her honor.

Tamika Houston is later buried in Fairfax, Virginia, just a few miles from her mother's home. I was so confused on why she had a clothes casket. I was really confused. I'm like, I want to see my sister. And that's when my mom, she kind of explained it to me, like, it's not much in the casket. Christopher Hampton is finally headed to trial. But there's a turn of events in the courtroom.

I was shocked. And on the 20th anniversary of Tamika's death, her Aunt Rebecca gets a welcome surprise. Nearly two years after Tamika Houston went missing, her former love interest Christopher Hampton is heading to trial. missing. Her former love interest, Christopher Hampton, is heading to trial. It felt like it was going to be, you know, a really tough couple of weeks in Spartanburg, but on the first day of trial, he ends up pleading guilty. I was shocked. I was shocked. Are you guilty of the crime of murder? Yes, sir. I don't know why he pled guilty. He wound up getting the exact same sentence that he would have gotten had he gone to trial and lost.

Mr. Hampton, the sentence of the court is that you be committed to the State Department of Corrections for life. I was really emotional that day. And he really didn't show any remorse. Life without parole. If anyone deserved life, it had to be Christopher Hampton. To this day, those who knew and loved Tamika still wonder about the motive for her murder.

Hampton says she was upset that he was saving money for his unborn child. She wasn't like that. She wasn't, those are your children. No, those are our children. That's how she was. That's why her story doesn't make any sense. My sister was, she cared a lot.

I couldn't imagine her saying that at all. I don't know if I'll ever get the true story of what happened. So I'm trying to learn to just come to, to just be at peace with it. and to just come to, to just be at peace with it. Her family was just beginning to accept a dark new reality. Life without Tamika.

You said that this case touched you like no other had. Why? Because I know how much black girls don't matter. And I want to always be a reflection of how much value that they had to me. What do you most want people to know about this woman that you loved? With her death, I've met so many women. I've met so many fathers. I've met so many fathers.

I've met so many sisters and brothers. They still haven't found their loved ones. So I know she's putting me on a higher mission. The lack of media coverage about Tamika's case led to the creation of the Black and Missing Foundation You advocate with the Black and Missing Foundation Is it still a struggle to get the stories of women of color noticed? It can be But I think there is more of an awareness of it

Is that Tamika's legacy? I do believe that. I do. On the 20th anniversary of Tamika's disappearance, we brought her best friend Zelda and her Aunt Rebecca together. They hadn't seen each other for years. Zelda!

Don't do that. I'll try not to. Honey, don't cry. I love you so much. Don't cry. It's so good to see you. I miss you all the time. You are the best friend ever. I know.

You know that? And she sung at the wedding. So beautiful. You miss her. I know. He's high. He's on. And I know he watches me.

It just makes me think about what my sister could have been. And it was just so unfair that her life got smashed from her. He watches, he watches me What a deeply moving report tonight, Deborah. A quick note here. 2020 did reach out to Christopher Hampton for comment. He did not respond. So far, David, his appeals have been denied.

For more on this case, you can listen to Erica Alexander's Audible original series, Finding Tamika. It's available now. That's our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Debra Roberts. And I'm David Muir. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.