Dateline Originals - Dateline: Missing in America - Ep. 3: Keeshae Jacobs

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

On September 26, 2016, 21-year-old Keeshae Jacobs texted her mother, Toni, to say she was going to spend the night at a friend’s house. She never returned to their Richmond, Virginia home. Authorities suspect foul play in Keeshae’s disappearance. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz speaks with Keeshae’s mother, Toni, and Natalie Wilson, co-founder of The Black & Missing Foundation. Keeshae is 5’3”, weighs approximately 100 lbs., with brown hair and eyes. She was last seen wearing black basketball shorts, pink and black Nikes and a pink scarf. She has several distinguishing tattoos: a rose on her right thigh, a flower on her right wrist, paw prints on her right thigh, and a leaf on her right foot. Her mother’s name, Toni, is inked with a heart on her left shoulder. If you have information, please call the Richmond Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit at [phone].This episode was originally published on August 2, 2022. 

It was an unseasonably warm day, and while the leaves were starting to turn their predictable shades of red and gold, the crisp fall chill hadn't settled in just yet in Richmond, Virginia. It was Monday, September 26th, 2016. That evening seemed pretty typical in the Jacobs household. 21-year-old Keisha Jacobs was getting ready to go out, while her mother, Toni, and her brother settled in for the night. Keisha did seem a little troubled as she headed out.

She'd had an argument with her boyfriend. She was pretty upset, but me and her brother seemed to talk her down. And then she was like, all right, Mom, I'm going with one of my friends' house. I'll be back tomorrow. Before leaving, Keshay vowed to be back bright and early to make her 25-year-old brother Davon a heaping stack of pancakes. Toni remembers the moment she watched her daughter walk out the front door wearing her go-to outfit, black basketball shorts,

pink and black Nikes, and a pink scarf. I was like, all right, just be careful. Let me know you made it there safely. Around 11 o'clock, Toni got ready for bed. She had to work the next morning. After her shower came a text message from Keshay. She texted me and told me that she was there. And I was like, just be careful. I love you. She's like, I love you too. The next morning came, and when Tony woke up, the smell of pancakes in a skillet was not filling the house. Quiche hadn't kept her promise, and she hadn't come home yet. Tony got ready for work and figured she'd hear from her daughter later.

Then when Tony's lunch break rolled around and she still hadn't heard from Keshay, her mama bear alarm went off, and she started calling. Those calls went to voicemail, and Tony knew something was wrong. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline. For Toni Jacobs, life from that day forward would become a sort of groundhog day. She couldn't have known that the growing worry she was feeling about her daughter

would evolve into urgent questions that would go unanswered for years and that she would personally have to take on the role of investigator. This is the story of one mother's desperate search, a mother who believes that six years later, her missing daughter is still alive. I just want her to know that mommy loves you so, so much and I miss you so much. I am fighting and I ain't giving up until I find you. She is the heart of this story, but it's her heart that's been broken several times. And I just kept praying that both of my children are okay. This is also a story that raises serious questions about how missing persons cases are investigated and reported.

Natalie Wilson is co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation. Race should not be a barrier to equal treatment under the law and media coverage. Listen closely, because something you hear in this podcast might trigger a memory. Maybe you know something that could make all the difference and change the direction of this case. When she sat down to talk with me, Tony was wearing a blue t-shirt with one word across the top, survivor. The morning after her daughter failed to come home from a visit with friends, Toni reached out to her over and over again. I just kept calling her phone. I called, I texted her brother and he was like, no, I ain't heard from her mom. She's okay. You know, she, maybe she just hung out with her friends or

whatever, whatever. I tried to explain to people that even though like Keshay phone was broke one time, she would use somebody else's phone to let me know she's okay or what's going on. Or she'll log on to Facebook and message me on Facebook and let me know, Hey mom, my phone broke. I'm still with so-and-so I'll give you a call. Or can you come pick me up when you get off work? And you weren't getting any of those messages? No, I didn't get anything. So by the time I got off work, I checked with her brother again. He was like, no, ma.

He saw that I was worried. Tony began calling all of Keshay's friends. They was like, Miss Tony, we're going to call around and check and see if anybody heard or seen Keshay. And I was like, okay, thank you. Just give me a call back. And I'm sitting there waiting. That's a Tuesday and nothing.

So I'm calling her friends and they's like, no, we still ain't heard nothing. It made no sense to Toni. Her daughter hadn't even gone far from home, in a city she'd always considered safe. Toni Jacobs grew up in Richmond. It's a city where the present meets the past in nearly every way.

And it's in the past where we will begin. That's because Richmond is where Toni decided to start her own family some 30 years ago, raising Quiché and her brother Davon. Edgar Allan Poe, who lived in Richmond for a spell, once wrote, we loved with a love that was more than love. And in talking with Toni,

this could have been written about her adoration for her daughter, Keshay Unique. And Keshay, well, she was unique from the beginning. It all started with her name. They told me it was a girl and I really wanted a boy because, you know, I had that impression that girls was going to give you a lot of hell. I'm sorry. So I was scared. But once I came to terms, I was having a girl.

She's going to be unique. It's just I don't know. It just that's what popped into my head for her. She's my unique baby. In Toni's memories, there's always a sparkle in Keshay's eyes, especially when she was cheek-to-cheek with Toni, who, in photos taken at Keshay's graduation, was beaming ear-to-ear with pride. Toni and her kids were a close-knit trio. Keshay is my baby.

As much as she wanted to act like she was grown, she still acted like a baby. I only had two kids, but you would have thought she was the oldest because she always acted like she ran stuff. But she was a very sweet and loving person. Keisha loved to give hugs. And I used to tell people all the time, she can make you feel so special and so loved because she hugged you so much. And I used to have to tell her, hey, can I put some of those on layaway for later?

Because you overwhelmed me with the love for today. Yeah, she was the homebody. She was very family-oriented, liked to be around family a lot, and treasured when we spent time together. She used to be my little sidekick most of the time. You took her everywhere with you? If my friends were cooking, Keshia was going because she was greedy,

and she liked to eat. So, yeah, yeah. She liked to go places with me. She liked being around me and my friends, so yeah. As Keshia grew older, she liked to go places with me. She liked being around me and my friends. So yeah. As Keshay grew older, she began to think about her future. She liked kids and kids like Keshay. But she always loved being around kids.

So that's where I saw her at. Back in 2016, one duty Keshay never took lightly was keeping a close eye on her brother, even though he was four years older. She wanted to make sure Davon stayed safe after returning home. He was incarcerated for a short period of time, and she was excited that he was home. So that was her main focus, like her best friend, her brother was home, and her main priority was making sure he stayed out of trouble. Toni says she was never concerned about Keshay getting into any trouble. Her daughter, the homebody. I didn't have to worry about her going out to the clubs or anything like that.

Keshay was the type of person that she would be happy in a pair of basketball shorts and a tennis shoes and a t-shirt. What Toni did worry about was the company Keshay sometimes kept. I just used to talk to her and be like, hey, just be cautious. Everybody that's sitting your friend is not your friend. A real friend would try to make sure you stay on the positive and the up and up. So she may have one or two that were okay and then she had some that was like questionable. There was one young woman Toni warned Keshay about in particular. Call it mother's intuition. It was just something about the girl.

I can't even put my finger on it. But I didn't think she was a good friend to Keshay. In fact, that girlfriend was one of the last people to see Keshay the night she went out. She and Keshay's best guy friend. The last night that I saw Keshay, one of her other best friends picked her up, which I trust Keshay with him like 100%. But the female, no, I did not care for her. You didn't care for her, but she was 21 and she's allowed to choose her own friends.

Exactly. And that's why I tell people, you'll never know everybody that your children are friends with. After a full day with no word from Keshay, Tony tried desperately to catch some shut eye. All the while hoping and praying her phone would ring and wake her up with Keshay on the other line. Well, there was no sleep to be had. Her gut feeling and her heart would not allow it. I'm frantic. The next morning, I put my clothes on.

I'm like, something's wrong. I know something's wrong. So I have to do something. So I just started knocking on people's doors. No one said they'd seen or heard from Keshay. So Tony's sister convinced her to report Keshay missing. She went to the local Richmond police station and found it's closed that time of night. I'm knocking on the door. Nobody's coming to the door. So I literally had to call 911 for somebody to come to the door. And then when I get in there, I tell the police officer,

I was like, hey, my daughter's missing. And the police officer tells me, well, she's 21. How do you know she just don't want to be found? That is something the families of the missing often hear when someone who's above the age of 21 vanishes. To law enforcement, they look at it as this person is an adult. They can come and go as they please voluntarily, so they don't look at it as a big deal. Missing persons isn't a crime. Natalie Wilson from the Black and Missing Foundation, whose mission is to bring awareness to missing persons of color. You think missing persons cases overall are not taken as seriously by law enforcement as they should be, and missing persons cases involving people of color even less so. There's this stereotype that these individuals are bringing it on themselves and no one will care if they're missing but their family members. And we have to change that

stereotype or that narrative that these are our missing daughters and sons, our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and they're valuable members of our community. And that's what Toni Jacobs says she experienced that night at the police station. The officer she spoke with pointed out that legally, Kishe was an adult. Crying and pleading with the officer, Toni says she pulled out her phone to show him past text messages from Kishe. I hear from her every day, all day long, and something's wrong. So he went ahead and took her information. He told her a detective would reach out the next day.

So far, she'd learned that Kishe's best guy friend dropped her off at a house with the girlfriend, that same girlfriend Tony didn't trust. So that day, Tony began her own investigation and knocked on the door where Kishe's friend had left her. That's where she met someone who she believes knows more than he's telling her or police. Tony Jacobs had her daughter Keshay's friends take her to the two-story red brick row house where Keshay's best guy friend told Tony he'd dropped her off Monday night.

The house was bordered by two other row houses in Richmond's quaint Church Hill neighborhood. Tony cautiously walked through the gate in the short white picket fence that blocked off the modest front yard. She made her way down a short sidewalk, leading to the porch's concrete steps, which were covered in chipped, rusty red paint.

At the top of the stairs, she stood between two white, weathered columns on the front porch. Toni was a mom on a mission. She took a few steps and knocked on the white front door. The door swung open, and in front of Tony stood a man in his 30s, a decade older than Kishe. He said his name was Otis, and when Tony asked him about Keshay, he said he knew nothing about her disappearance.

In that moment, Tony's worry was in no way diminished. He told me that he had saw Keshay that Monday about five o'clock, but it didn't add up because I was like, no, Keshay was at home at five o'clock on Monday. So right off the bat, he's lying to you. Right. Then he changed the time to 6 and then 6.30, 7 o'clock. And I was like, no. Her brother was like, no. And I called the police right then and there.

Tony remembers how almost immediately four police cars pulled up, responding to her call about this new information on her missing daughter, and the officers walked inside to look for Kishe. After a brief walkthrough, however, they came out and gave Tony the news. Kishe wasn't there. Still, Tony did not have a good feeling about the house where her daughter had been last seen, or about the man who called himself Otis. After that, Tony, her family, and friends started plastering flyers throughout the Churchill neighborhood, handing them to every person they saw, asking if they'd seen Quiché. The flyers carry a photo of Quichiche smiling, information about when and where she was

last seen, and some key details about her appearance. Brown eyes, brown hair, and some distinguishing tattoos. A rose on her right shoulder, a flower on her right wrist, paw prints on her right thigh, a leaf on her right foot, and the name Tony inked with a heart on her left shoulder. Mark Robinson was a city hall reporter for the Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper and lived just a few doors down from where Kishay was last seen. He looked up during one of his walks and saw Quiche staring back at him from a flyer. She disappeared on a street that I walked on every day in a neighborhood that I was living in.

Mark describes the Churchill neighborhood as quiet, filled with historic row houses. It's where founding father Patrick Henry spoke the famous words from his Revolutionary War speech, give me liberty or give me death. It's also an area where neighbors can keep an eye on things from their front porches. And Mark Robinson says everyone regularly checks on one another. If there had been any sort of altercation or argument or anything out of the ordinary that happened outside of the house, somebody would have taken notice of that and almost certainly said something about it. Apparently, no one did. Then, as Tony continued to scour the area with single-minded determination,

someone handed her a phone with a woman on the other end of the line. She offered information that made Tony's heart sink deeper into her chest. The woman told Tony she knew this Otis character, and the woman proceeded to share her story. She basically told me that he beat her and refused to let her leave and did sexual things to her. Yeah, he beat her bad. And when you heard that, you think that's what happened to my daughter? I broke down because he probably did the same thing to her.

You know, then that's when it kicks in, your worst nightmare. That was my worst nightmare, hearing that. I'm already dealing with my daughter being missing, and this is not her. But the fact that the last person to see her has done this to somebody else, it kind of broke me down. Do I believe he may have something to do with Keisha's disappearance? Yes. The police hasn't named him a person of interest or say he has. I don't know. I don't know anything but his first name and I don't even think that's his real name. To Tony, Keeshay had never mentioned

that man or ever going to that house before. Even so, Otis seemed to know Keshay. The strange thing is when I went to that, because I had her friends take me to that home and when I questioned him and he was like, do you know Keshay? He was like, yeah, I know Keshay. I know Keshay always come over here with, and then he named that female friend that I don't care about. What do you think's going on here? Why was she going to that house? Because she was with that best friend, the one that I didn't care for. And I found out later that that best friend had romantic interests with this man.

Then Tony finally got a call she'd been waiting for, not from Keisha, but from a detective with the Richmond police. I reported Keisha missing officially on that Wednesday morning, like two o'clock in the morning, one, two o'clock in the morning. And I didn't hear from them again until that following Monday. Except for that visit to the house where she met Otis, Tony hadn't heard a word from police since reporting her daughter missing. And on that day, the officers who arrived only looked for Keshay inside the house without finding her. In fact, Tony says it would be a full week after Keshay disappeared, and five days after Tony went to police to report her missing,

that she received that call from a detective. Natalie Wilson from the Black and Missing Foundation says it happens all the time. Law enforcement's assumptions costing critical time. Time that can't be recouped. She says Kishay's case looks like so many others that have come her way. There were so many clues lost, so much information wasn't able to be captured because Kishe's case was not taken seriously in the beginning. Toni believes police were not alone

in downplaying her daughter's disappearance. I still had people coming up to me thinking Keshay ran away or she off with a boyfriend. No, that's not my daughter. She didn't have to run away. Somebody told me one time that she was pregnant. My daughter was not pregnant.

As Tony's search for Keshay continued and she pleaded with police for answers, reporter Mark Robinson pitched the story to his editor, even though it veered from his normal beat at City Hall. He ended up writing a Mother's Day feature about Tony, hoping to include some intel about any new leads on the case. Except the seasoned reporter ran into roadblocks when he tried to pry any information from the police. I sent a list of questions to the police

department that they said they would respond to, and then ultimately they provided a sense or two in response, but did not address the questions. Why do you think it is that Richmond police have sort of circled the wagons on this story and not sought more help from the public? If they do have a suspect or a person of interest, they haven't named them, and they haven't made much headway on the investigation in recent years.

And I think that they haven't provided additional information because they don't know what happened. While police have never publicly named a suspect, they did divulge that foul play was suspected in Kishe's disappearance. Except, they didn't say that until Kishe had been missing for more than a year. On November 30th, 2017, Richmond police issued a statement. Quote, Kishe's family understands the scope and magnitude of this investigation. This is not a young lady that just decided to run away or move to another state.

It is not her character to not call her family or friends in 14 months when she would reach out to them every day. Detectives have worked diligently in an effort to locate and find Ms. Jacobs. We hope that publicizing our belief that she was met with foul play might prompt others to come forward with information that will help solve this case. Tony says she knew there was foul play from the get-go, not only because of her conversation with Otis, but also, she says, because police told her they discovered something

when they searched that red brick row house. She says it was DNA evidence. They told me they found blood. But not enough to suggest that Keisha had died there. Right, Right. Like, they said it could have came from a struggle or something like that. Why did it take a year and two months for Richmond police to ask for the public's help if they believed Keisha had met with some kind of violence?

The answer is that we don't know. Because they're not talking. All we can say is that police acknowledge something happened to Keshay inside that house. That's what I kept telling them and they made me frustrated. I think they just don't want to hear it because once you found your DNA

and then you had this person of interest that did this to somebody else, that would have been the radar, period. And I'm not even in law enforcement. That was a radar for me. Hold on. He did this. He may know something about what happened to my daughter. And they've questioned this guy, Otis. They said they tried to question him a couple of times, but first time they said right before they got there, he was on suicide watch or something. And then a couple times after that, they said he was on medication. He acted like he didn't know who they were or couldn't understand what they was talking about. You've been left with the impression, speaking with police, that their suspect is this guy Otis, but they don't have a case yet.

Yeah. But I knew he was a suspect from the day I met him. Turns out the man called Otis was soon in the wind. Tony couldn't find him. We wanted to speak with him, but we couldn't track him down. And if Richmond police located him, they didn't tell us. So what about that boyfriend Keshay was arguing with before she left Tony's house that night? Once Keshay went missing, he showed up at the house. He knew my son, and I think he was a little bit afraid of my son because my son was like,

you know, that's my little sister. If I find out you did anything to her, you know, I think I'm going to jail for the rest of my life type thing. And he was like, I'd never do that. I care about Keshay. You know, we had an argument and I was wrong. But to say I would do anything, you know, no, I wouldn't do that. You don't have any suspicions about her boyfriend?

No, I didn't have any at all because I've been around him and saw him interact with Keshay and the fact that, you know, he came and talked to me. And ever since then, I think he's, well, he reached out to try to check on me. If nothing more to say, mom, keep your head up. She's coming home.

As for Keshay's girlfriend, the one Tony thought of as a bad influence. I do believe she knows more than what she's telling. I think she knows more about this man than she's letting on. The police say they questioned her. But so far, no quiche and no charges against anybody. Exactly. Now, as bad as this is, our story gets worse. Tony's string of heart-wrenching tragedies wouldn't be over yet. Just a couple of months after Quiché disappeared, Tony received a knock at the door.

On the other side was another crushing blow. Fall faded away, and the trees were left bare. A cold gush of wind breathed a paralyzing chill through the foothills overlooking Virginia. As snow blanketed the remnants of the last season, it covered the ground with a fresh, clean slate. This was back on January 8th, 2017, a little over three months after Keay Jacobs vanished. I get a knock on the door. My nephew tells me that somebody told him that my son, they want me shot. I was like, what? They want me shot?

I just talked to him not that long ago. Like a recurring nightmare, just as when Keshay went missing, Toni grabbed her phone and tried to call her son. There was no answer, and she had a bad feeling. I couldn't sleep that night. Something didn't feel right. And I just kept praying that both of my children were okay, but I was just praying, I think more for Keshay because she wasn't home. I just talked to my son.

Instinctively, Tony put on her shoes and demanded her nephew take her to where he said Davon was shot. By the time I got there, the police was right there. They was like, you can't go back there. I was like, I need to go back there. It's like I knew that's my son. And he was like, well, the coroner just took the body. I was like, that's my son. I need to talk to somebody right now and let them know that's my son. Without being able to see him with her own eyes and desperately hoping she was wrong, Toni went to that same police precinct

and started banging on the doors until someone answered. And then her worst fear was confirmed. He's gone. He's gone. He was like, how do you know? I was like, I just know. I just know. He's gone. And the detective came and he was like, Ms. Jacobs, I'm sorry. And I was like, I know. Tony's 25-year-old son had been shot to death just before 11 p.m.

at a Motel 6 in Richmond after a struggle. I think I know the answer to this one. I'm going to ask you anyway. You don't suspect that the death of your son and the disappearance of your daughter are in any way connected? No, no. No, you just have maybe the worst luck ever. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think, right? But yeah. Yeah. They're not part of the same thing.

No, the police investigated and they was like, no, it had nothing to do. Those are two separate incidents. Davon's shooter claimed self-defense but was convicted of his murder. He's in jail now. He went to trial.

The first trial was by jury and they gave him 15 years and then the judge overturned it. Before the man could stand trial again, he was given a plea deal and a five-year sentence behind bars. It didn't surprise me because when he murdered my son and when they finally caught up with him because he ran, the judge gave him house arrest and let him out on bond for murder. Do I have faith in the system? No, I don't. I don't. Keshia disappeared in 2016. Davon was killed in 2017. And those were Tony's only two children.

Today, while Tony may not put much stock in the legal system she says keeps failing her and her children, her faith that Kishe will come home remains constant. It's that faith that keeps her hope alive and the belief her daughter is still out there waiting for her to find her alive. Along her journey, Toni has also gotten support from the Black and Missing Foundation. Here's the foundation's co-founder, Natalie Wilson. We're there with her. She is part of our family and we are lock and step with her. And whatever support she needs from us, we are there for her. But it's keeping Keshay's profile in the forefront because Toni believes her daughter is still alive and she's waiting for her to come home.

And we want to honor that and we want to help bring Kishe home. And the only way that we can do that is through the media and media coverage and keeping her story in the forefront. There's so many missing people of color in the U.S. Kishe's story was featured on the docu-series Black and Missing. Natalie Wilson says publicity like that series can bring resources to missing persons cases like Quiché's. We believe that visibility has been instrumental in the Richmond Police Department adding a new detective to the case. So again, it's putting pressure on law enforcement to do their job. Thank you for calling Black and Missing Foundation.

Natalie's nonprofit foundation has been at this for 13 years. She and her co-founder, Derrica Wilson, have helped hundreds of families find their missing loved ones. Forty percent of the population of missing persons are of color. And media coverage is vital because, one, it alerts the community that someone is missing. And they can be vigilant as they go about their day to help find that missing individual. But it also puts pressure on law enforcement to add resources to the case. In Keshay's case, she has Tony fighting for her, and that could make all the difference. This dogged mother keeps pushing, searching, prodding, no matter how many days, months, and years pass. Do you think Keshay's still alive?

I feel it in my heart like she is. Everything in me telling me she is. Before I found out my son was deceased, I knew something was wrong. I felt it. I felt it in my heart. And it found out. I was thinking it would be Keshay, but I found out it was him. But everything else in me is telling me she's alive and I have to fight. Like, I have to find her and she needs me to find her and I can't give up. And then, as I was sitting there talking with Toni, she unveiled her own theory, one she's built over the years. It began with that story, the one she says she heard from the mysterious girl on the phone while Tony was posting flyers for Kishe.

The caller claimed Otis had held her against her will and assaulted her physically and sexually. Tony believes Kishe met a similar fate. When the guy owed us, his intention was to keep him like he was going to do to the other girl. He abducted her, held her, you know. But when everybody came looking for her, he was

like, I got to give her away because he ran. He ran. And they caught him somewhere up in Maryland. I believe that he gave her to somebody. So she was trafficked. That's what you think? That's what I believe. And all these years, she hasn't been able to get in touch with you?

I didn't have phone calls where people call me or somebody be on the phone and don't say anything. Or I didn't have phone calls where people ask and confirm that it's Keisha on the other end of the line, but she's optimistic. So what about Tony's theory that Kishe was sex trafficked? Natalie Wilson says it's more common than you think. And she cites research on that very subject from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. We do know that young women and girls of color are trafficked at a very high rate than any other population. There's a study that says that sex traffickers believe that trafficking a black girl, you get less jail time or no, no jail time. In your experience, does law enforcement take seriously enough the nexus between missing people and trafficking.

They're very dismissive of the cases of missing people of color. And there's a lot of work to be done. And I think if they worked hand in hand with sex trafficking units, they will see that there's a correlation between missing persons and sex trafficking. And so here we are, six years later and no quiche. Her case is still open and considered active with the Richmond Police Department. And while over the years they've made public pleas for information,

they rarely speak with the media with any new information or otherwise. They say they need anyone who saw something or may have seen something or may have information about the case to come forward, and they have really placed the onus on making any headway on the case or what may have happened to Kishay on that participation from the public. The last public statement about Kishay's case by the Richmond Police Department was on September 26, 2018, two years after Kishay vanished. The police chief at that time was quoted in a press release. Quote, Kishay's disappearance remains an active investigation within the Richmond Police Department. The detectives have made good progress in this case, but we're still hoping to get more information to get the family the answers they need.

Unquote. Since then, no one in the department has spoken publicly about her case, and they declined Dateline's request for an interview. They did say it's still an open investigation. These days, Toni says she's working with a new detective with the Richmond PD, the third set of fresh eyes

on her daughter's missing persons case. The detectives I'm on now, they're looking at the evidence and the information and they're like, okay, this should have been done. This should have been done. But it wasn't done. Because it's been going on almost six years now, I don't know if those same avenues are open.

But I think, I believe in my heart that they're still trying to find Keshay, at least from the conversations that we had. No matter how many years pass, how many seasons change, Toni continues to cling tightly to the only thing she has left, which is hope.

Your son's dead and your daughter's missing. How do you go on? I don't believe I fully mourn my son's death because I still have to fight for Keisha. So the fact that she's still out there, that pushes me. It pushes me and I have to do what the mother has to do

and I have to fight for my daughter because it's apparently no one else is going to fight for her like me. And one day, Toni says she knows when Keshia comes home, she will finally get one of those hugs she put on Leigh away, it's time for me to catch them in because I be needing a whole bunch of hugs and love from her. Toni had a special message just for Keisha, her unique baby, who has Toni's name and a heart tattooed on her shoulder. I just want her to know that mommy loves you so, so much. And I miss you so much. And I am looking, I am fighting, and I ain't giving up until I find you. So tell that person who ever got you, wherever you at, my mama coming because I'm coming.

I'm coming. And now a sad update to this story. since we last spoke with Tony two years ago. In July 2024, Richmond police confirmed a man has confessed to involvement in Kishay's disappearance. His name is Otis Tucker, and yes, that is the same man Tony believed was involved all along. Tucker is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of a different woman in Florida. He recently told police he was with Keshay at the time of her death and disposed of her body. He did not admit to killing her. Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said Tucker disposed of her body

in a way that meant police were unable to find it, and they have not found it. The chief also noted Tucker's admission comes after an agreement, quote, not to use it against him in any future court proceedings, unquote. For that reason, police will not charge Tucker in connection with Kishe's disappearance or murder. Tony Jacobs told us in a statement that, After seven years of uncertainty, heartache, and relentless searching for my daughter, we finally have answers. As we begin to process the devastating news, please keep my family in your prayers. Unquote.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelinemissinginamerica.com. There you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Missing in America is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Jessica Knoll is the producer of this episode. Jonathan Moser is the audio editor. Logan Johnson is associate producer. Matthew Winter is the assistant audio editor. Susan Nall is senior producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Liz Cole is executive producer.

And David Corvo is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Bryson Barnes is technical director. Sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Nina Bisbano is Associate Producer.