Going West: True Crime - Tyarra Williams // 274

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

In January of 2016, a 19-year-old woman vanished from the parking lot of her North Carolina apartment complex. When her grandfather received word that she was believed to have been abducted, he took the investigation into his own hands. This is the disappearance of Tyarra Williams. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. ABC: https://abc45.com/news/local/birthday-this-weekend-for-greensboro-woman-missing-for-six-years-investigation-police-active-search-tyarra-mother-stoneybrook-crimestoppers 2. The Crime Wire: https://thecrimewire.com/true-crime/Missing-Tyarra-Cacigue-Williams 3. Disappeared: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07BVBZ6PV/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s9 4. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/tyarra-williams-found-or-missing/ 5. Washington Times: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/21/police-man-charged-in-fatal-greensboro-apartment-s/ 6. Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/tyarra-cacique-williams 7. Tyarra's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044238919224 8. Deliver Fund: https://deliverfund.org/ 9. News & Record: https://greensboro.com/news/greensboro-police-identify-shooting-victim-charge-suspect-with-murder-update/article_bca1745d-888b-5291-a3ac-f93fea0813ea.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Big shout out to Jessica for recommending today's episode. I remember watching this case on that show disappeared on ID years ago. Great show. And so I'm glad we're finally covering it. Thank you Jessica for reminding us of this very tragic case. And thank you everybody for tuning in. We have some pretty exciting news that we're going to share with you guys regarding our Apple listeners probably sometime next week. So stay tuned for that. That has a right now there's really no updates. Are there? No not very many updates. Nothing new to share. So let's just dive right in my friends. This is episode 274 of Going West so let's get into it. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% In January of 2016, a 19-year-old woman vanished from the parking lot of her North Carolina apartment complex. When her grandfather received word that she was believed to have been abducted, he took the investigation into his own hands. This is the story of Tiara Williams. Tierra Casseque Williams was born on June 18, 1996 in Greensboro, North Carolina, which is about an hour's drive east of the capital city of Raleigh. Three years after she was born, Tierra was joined by a younger brother named Canon, and then, after about eight years together, Tierra's parents, Alan and Danielle,

did split up and her mom took care of the kids full time. Her mom, Danielle remembers Tierra being incredibly protective over her baby brother, calling Tierra her brother's bodyguard. And she also said that she adored being a big sister. So it seemed like being maternal came naturally to Tiara. Her friends described her as warm and nurturing, but that she also had a quick wit and a sharp and very sassy sense of humor. Tiara's family was very important to her, and in addition to her brother,

she was extremely close with her mom and her grandparents as well. And actually her grandma Vanessa lived right across the street from where Tiara lived with her mom and brother. So they could see each other whenever they wanted. Tiara, who was sometimes known by Tika, was such a social butterfly and so much so that when she joined Facebook, her mom, Danielle, was concerned about how many friends she had. So she told Tiara that if she wanted to have a Facebook, they needed to be some ground rules. One, that she would have to be friends with Danielle, and two, that Danielle had to have

access to her profile, which is a rule which later led them one step closer to finding out what happened to Teara on the night that she would disappear. Teara had hundreds of online friends, and her mom, Danielle, worried that it would distract her from her studies, or worse, get her into trouble if she befriended the wrong person. Both on and offline, she was known as bubbly and full of light. Continuing to explore her love of caring for others and especially children, Tierra enrolled in the early childhood development class in her junior year at Dudley High School right there in Greensboro, North Carolina. She really fell in love with this course and decided that that was what she wanted to dedicate her life to. Her mom remembered, quote, At last, Tiara loved children and children loved her. They were drawn to her.

And her grandma added, quote, she wanted to work with mainly small children and children with disabilities. She felt like they needed as much love as they could and that she could be the one to give it to them. Eventually, Tiara and her mom had a bit of a snag in their relationship, as many moms and teenagers do, during Tiara's senior year of high school, meaning that the two were kind of just bickering more than usual. Danielle described not being able to predict what kind of mood Tierra would be in, and

that sometimes they'd be getting along as usual, and everything was good between them. But other times they butted heads, and Tierra, who was very strong-willed and independent, complained that her mom Danielle was too strict and maybe possibly too controlling. Danielle admitted, quote, I stayed on her a lot. I can say that I was kind of hard on her. In a sense, I wanted her to be grounded and maintain focus in life. And all this was especially prevalent in Danielle's monitoring of her daughter's social media

use. But rightfully so, the family was protective of how much time Tierra was spending on social media and how many strangers had access to her, and I mean, they just wanted her to be safe really. In the words of her grandpa, Darryl, he said, quote, I think that she started having a large amount of people in her life on social media platforms that she would call friends, but they weren't friends. And also just a quick side note here, Darryl has been reported as both her grandpa and

her uncle, and no one in the family has explicitly cleared this up. But in this interview with Darryl, the narration refers to him as her grandfather, so that's what we're going to go with here. Indeed. So after high school, Tierra decided to move across the street into her grandma's home in the Stony Brook apartment complex on Webster Road in Greensboro. Because like I said, her grandma lived just across the street.

And although her mother claimed that this move was to gain some sort of freedom, Tierra trying to spare Daniels' feelings, claimed that it was simply because she was worried about her grandma living alone. And you know, I can kind of see this. It's like, even though she's just across the street, it does feel like she's gaining a bit more independence, not being so close to her mom. Well, especially because her mom and her have kind of a rocky relationship at this point, you can say, and because she is so nurturing and she loves her grandma and they don't

fight as much this is her way to gain freedom but also it like she's saying i do believe that she wanted to be there for her grandma too because she just seems to have that personality her grandma actually her name is vinesa she kind of put it more lightly and she joked that it was because tiara preferred her cooking over her mom's cooking. So after graduating high school in 2014, Tierra decided to take a gap year to focus on herself and decide where she wanted to go to school and what exactly she wanted to do in child

development. It was also around this time that she met and began dating her neighbor, 23-year-old Aaron Taylor, who is a young man who also lived in the Stony Brook apartment where her grandma's apartment was. So things seemed great between the young couple, and Tira's family met and spent plenty of time with this guy, you know, obviously given that he was so close. And Aaron and Tira's brother, Cannon, really formed a bond over playing video games together, sometimes even without Teara present, so he was definitely moving in to be a part of

the family in that way. In January of 2016, ready to start her journey to becoming a teacher, Teara enrolled in Guildford Technical Community College in Jamestown, North Carolina, studying early child development. Danielle described this time in tears life with fondness and excitement. She set up felt like the whole world was opening up for her, and she had never been so sure of what she wanted and how to get there. And to her mom's delight, she had even deactivated her Facebook, allowing herself more time to focus on schoolwork.

On the morning of Thursday, January 7, 2016, everything was normal when 19-year-old Tierra headed to Gilleford to finalize her enrollment and her financial aid paperwork, sign up for classes, and obtain her student ID. After this, she went to her mom's house to fill her in on how things went, and Daniel suggested that they go shopping for books, school supplies, and a laptop the following day. She remembers that Tierra was in good spirits, she was upbeat and elated for what was to come.

The Christmas decorations in Daniel's apartment were still up, and Tierra had promised her that if she could put up the Christmas tree, she would take it down. So while she and her mom visited and her brother Cannon and her boyfriend Aaron played video games on the couch, Tierra took the ornaments off the tree. Then later, Tierra, Aaron, and Cannon headed across the street to have dinner with Vanessa, who was making Tierra's favorite meal that night. After they ate, the boys watched a basketball game while Tierra was on her cell phone, something her grandma joked was, quote, part of her body, and around 8.30pm that evening.

Tierra popped up from the couch and informed her boyfriend and her brother that she was stepping out to meet a friend, which was information that was news to them as she hadn't mentioned that she was going to meet up with anyone. It had been a particularly dark and chilly night, but Tierra said that she was just going to quickly catch up with a family friend named Travis, who also resided in the building, and that she would be back in about an hour, so neither Aaron nor Cannon questioned her actions. Tierra supposedly headed to her friend's apartment while Aaron and Cannon went to Aaron's apartment to play video games. About an hour later, at 9.30 pm, Tierra still had not returned home.

So Aaron went back to, you know, Tierra's grandma Vanessa's apartment to just wait for her while texting and calling her to make sure that she was okay, but she didn't respond. So obviously this isn't the most alarming thing. She said she was going to be back in about an hour, an hour past, she's still not home, but she's apparently with a friend of hers. So yes, it is a male friend. So maybe that struck her boyfriend, Erin, as a little odd that she's still with this guy over an hour later. But this is somebody that she knew so I don't think he really was too too worried just yet. I mean, but also this this guy Travis also lives in that building.

Yeah, so she's she's in the same vicinity. Right. But then the next morning came she still hadn't gotten home, but Aaron had to leave for an appointment and just hoping that she had maybe fallen asleep at her friend's house or that her phone had just died, he still waited to hear from Tyra. But when a few more hours passed without word from her or sign of her, his mild concern grew to full blown fear. He called Vanessa to let her know that he had not seen Tiara and that she hadn't come home either. Now Vanessa and Danielle, knowing this was very

unlike her, immediately started calling around to friends and family, just hoping to pin down Tiara's last known whereabouts. Strangely, her purse, which contained her wallet and her ID, were still in her bedroom at her grandma's apartment. But more suspiciously, she had left her phone charger behind. And that's when Danielle claimed that she knew that something was wrong. Because if she had been going anywhere for more than a few hours, her mom knew that her charger would have accompanied her.

And part of me also thinks like, oh, well, maybe this friend has the same phone that she has. He could give her a charger. But still, it's like nobody has heard from her. Her phone is off, which like her grandma said, as Heath relayed, her phone is attached to her body. You know, she's always on her phone. And actually, her mom added to that quote, her phone was her lifeline.

It was also out of character for Tearaierra not to answer her calls or texts, and they were going straight to voicemail, meaning her phone was either dead or it had been turned off. Danielle remembers quote, we started calling and her phone was going straight to voicemail, which was completely unusual for her. She never turned off her phone or allowed it to go dead. And that's when Aaron informed Tears' mom and grandma that she had been heading out to meet a friend named Travis,

assuming that the two women knew him or at least knew of him. This sent chills down Danielle's spine, who responded, quote, we don't know a Travis. Danielle and Vanessa reported her missing and police were immediately alarmed, unfortunately already suspecting foul play based on the circumstances. Figuring out where she had been and who she had been with that evening was the logical next step, and thankfully, Danielle still had her daughter's Facebook login information and could do some sleuthing of her own. And by the way, even with her deactivated account, her mom could still log in and it would just reactivate

from there. So for anybody wondering about that, her mom could go into her account still. Right. It's not like she it was completely deleted and you couldn't ever get any of that back. Yeah, the deactivation is like kind of putting your account on pause. Right. So she combed through all of Daniel's friends, hoping for more information of the person that Tierra had referred to as Travis. But she wasn't friends with anyone named Travis, and also found that many of Tierra's

friends on Facebook used fake names or nicknames, which complicated this search, obviously. However, she did find messages tucked away in Tierra's private message folder from an ex-boyfriend of hers. Danielle explained that it seemed as if Tierra was ambivalent about seeing and speaking to him, but apparently he seemed particularly keen on reconnecting with her. Danielle's suspicion was that Tierra had been using this made up Travis' name so that her family and her new boyfriend wouldn't know that she was talking to her ex again. So on Monday, January 11, 2016, four days after Tierra had last been seen.

Danielle provided the police with a conversation that Tierra had with her ex boyfriend on Facebook. According to her grandfather, who again is Darryl, he said, quote, he was not a guy that she should have been hanging around with. Danielle remembered him as a bad boy and said that Tierra was unfortunately drawn to that side of him. So with this new information, police gained access to her cell phone records and found that her phone's most recent ping was in or around the Stony Brook apartments at 8.30pm, around the time that she left her grandma's apartment to meet with this mysterious Travis. So after that, there were no outgoing texts or calls, and her phone had either died or

more likely had been turned off. As soon as police uncovered that tear as phone had likely been turned off around the very time she left her grandma's apartment, they knew for sure that something had happened to her. So, the Greensboro police brought tear as ex-boyfriend, who they believed could have been this Travis person, in for questioning in regards to her disappearance. And to this day, he has not been publicly named for fear that it will, you know, like impede on the investigation, and while police have not stated whether or not he's even a suspect, it's likely that this is why he's being kept anonymous. So we can't confirm if his name

is anything close to Travis or where that name comes from. So when this guy was questioned, he told police that he had neither seen Tierra that night, nor had he been talking to her again. When police told him that Danielle had seen their conversation and handed it over to them, he changed his story up a bit and admitted that they had been talking again and that he actually had seen her the night that she had disappeared. But that he hadn't seen her after she stepped out of his car. So obviously this really doesn't look good.

I mean, anytime somebody changes their story after they've been caught in a lie, it you know it's it's obviously suspicious well that's a big lie to i have not been speaking to a recently and i did not see her that night to yes we have been in conversation and yes i did see her that's i completely different right so according to him the two had been texting and catching up and had agreed to meet in the parking lot of the stony brook apartment complex when he came by around 8.30pm, Tierra got in his car and according to him, they talked for 20 or 30 minutes. Travis claimed that she got out of the car and walked back across the parking lot towards her grandma's

apartment after this, and he hadn't seen or heard from Tierra since. This timeline did make sense, but it didn't explain what happened to Tierra after she apparently left his car. And contrary to his initial interaction with police, he was compliant in allowing them to press him for further information. To me, what sucks about this is that she seemingly just vanished into thin air, so he can seem cooperative and compliant. But without any evidence against him, he can be these things and still be guilty of something, especially considering, like we just said, he flat out told them that he had not seen her

orbans speaking to her when that was not true. So I understand that some people may be worried about being wrongfully accused for something, so they feel like they have to lie, but this just feels like a terribly dumb thing to lie about. I mean, it absolutely makes him look more suspicious, but he did allow investigators to search his phone, though strangely, his location data had been turned off and was unable to be tracked, meaning that his account for the night couldn't be verified. How convenient. Yeah, very convenient.

So, police also searched his car, which he claimed T.R. had been in, but did not find any trace of blood or even T.R. as DNA. Well, I think this is suspicious in itself considering he said she was in his car, and yet there's not even a shred of DNA to prove that. Like, does that mean he cleaned it? Because DNA is passed so easily. I mean, yeah, I assume that at some point he did clean his car, but to be able to get all of the DNA

out of your vehicle, I mean, that's a pretty big task. Yeah, it's weird that there's that none of her DNAs are for sure. So from here, both Tierra's family and investigators heavily focused their search on the Stony Brook apartment complex, convinced that someone living there had seen, heard, or even been involved in whatever happened to Tiara.

Peppered in with the sprawling residences of the area, as well as a strip mall, a tennis court, and a pool that belonged to the apartment complex, there's a small wooded area that would have been convenient for hiding a body or possibly items connected to a crime. So police, alongside volunteers and Tierra's family, knocked on doors and asked questions and combed the areas surrounding the apartment complex to no avail. In the meantime, Tierra's social media was thoroughly scrutinized. No connection or message was left out of the search. And thus, another ex of Tierra's came into consideration based on their past interactions

via Facebook message. 25-year-old William McKenley Spencer III, better known as TREI, had dated Tierra casually, but had, according to Tierra's family, broken up with her because Tierra was, quote, too demanding. Now Tierra was approaching the relationship casually, and Tierra was, in Daniel's words, crazy about Trey. She would drop anything she was doing to hang out with him. So naturally, Trey was also questioned in connection with Tierra's disappearance, but

claimed that the two hadn't spoken recently and seemed shocked and saddened by the news that she was missing. A week had passed since anyone had seen or heard from Tiera and her family was getting desperate. Greensboro crime stoppers released a missing poster that was put up all over the city, and law enforcement issued a press release as well as put up billboards in the area. But her family decided that this just wasn't enough and they took the investigation into their own hands. So they set up their own hotline for people to call in tips that the family themselves

would investigate. And I also want to say they had a seemingly good relationship with the police and the police seem to be doing everything that they could do but there are certain things that the police can't do because of their own personal restrictions as i'm going to get into uh... whereas her family had a little bit more flexibility even something as basic as like a jurisdiction so there was actually a former bail bondsman and he used everything that he had learned in his career to chase down leads.

Meanwhile, Danielle created a Facebook group for information that is still active today. Shortly after the family hotline was established, Daryl received a tip from a man in High Point, North Carolina, which is a city about 17 miles or 27 kilometers southwest of Greensboro. This guy basically said that he had seen a young woman that he thought was Tierra walking down a sidewalk in a residential neighborhood clad in a dark colored jacket. He claimed she seemed disoriented and possibly drugged. Then another tip came in from someone having seen what seemed like the same young woman walking on textile drive in Greensboro just about 10 minutes from the Stony Brook Apartments. At this very same time, police received two devastating tips, and these are separate tips,

that Tierra was deceased, and that her body was buried in a storage lot of semi-trucks and tractor trailers owned by J.L. Rothrock, which is a trucking and transportation service. And crazy enough, the lot is directly across the street from the Stony Brook apartment and tucked behind a string of auto parts stores. Police did thoroughly investigate these claims and even searched the lot for evidence, but they continued to come up empty-handed. Then, the family received their most alarming tip yet.

Someone from Jessup, Georgia, about six hours away from Greensboro, called and raised suspicions that Tierra may have been trafficked and was being held against her will. The woman who called was a server at Waffle House and had seen Tierra's missing poster, and she claimed that she had seen a group of young women come into the restaurant on multiple occasions with one man late at night to eat. The young woman, whom she was convinced was Tierra, was quiet and soul-in, always keeping to herself. So with this tip, Tierra's grandfather, Darryl, immediately drove the six hours to Jessup to assess the situation, waiting outside of the waffle house all night.

But for multiple nights in a row, the group failed to come in, so instead, Darryl canvassed every motel in the area, searching for this group. He eventually found them when a hotel manager recognized here as picture, shown to them by Darryl, and pointed out that a girl staying in a group at the motel bore a striking resemblance. When Darryl and the local police approached that room that they were staying in, they found a pimp and multiple women, one of whom did resemble Tierra, but sadly, it was not her. And this claim, as well as others to come, is actually a big reason why we wanted to cover this case right now because, for those who don't know,

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and there are estimated to be over case right now because those who don't know january is national human trafficking prevention month and there are estimated to be over twenty seven million people both children and adults who have been human or sex traffic around the world and in the u.s. which is an insane amount of people yes it is and before we continue on to your story i wanted to share a few human trafficking indicators that everyone can just generally be on the lookout for, and this is on the States website.

So one is someone living with their employer, poor living conditions, multiple people living in a cramped space together, someone's inability to speak to an individual alone, someone's answers seeming scripted or rehearsed, someone's employer holding their identity documents, signs of physical abuse, submissive or fearful behavior, unpaid or paid very little, and then under 18 years old and in sex work. So if you recognize someone in any of these situations, you are advised to dial your local emergency number, so 911, etc. or the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which is available in the US, and

that number is 1-888-373-7888. So back to Teara's story. So by his own estimation, Darrell had covered thousands of miles and spent countless hours searching for his niece, only to find dead ends. Tips trickled in from all over the country, and Darrell remained convinced that Tierra had been abducted from the parking lot that very evening, and was even a victim of sex trafficking, possibly with Travis being behind it. He continued to supplement the police investigation with his own investigation, diving into the city under belly of cities all over the country,

just hoping for a lead as to where Tierra had been taken. Detective LD Ferrar, who works in the crimes against person's squad handling Tierra's case, explained, quote, Daryl was going into some of these places that I would not necessarily be accepted into because I'm a police officer. I was extremely grateful to him for running his own investigation. In the months following Tierra's disappearance, Daryl made searching for her his full-time job, saying, quote, I was going to places across the country that actually had motels and nightclubs and strip clubs

and what we call outside tracks where people are being trafficked. Daryl even offered up $10,000 as a reward for information that led to Tierra's whereabouts. It's just so heartbreaking that Daryl has to go through all of this to trace down these leads in these city areas looking for tiara. I mean it's just it's heartbreaking but I you know it's also so commendable. I absolutely agree and I'm just glad that he is doing this not because the police aren't doing their jobs which in some other cases we do see where it feels like the police are really falling short and the family has to

take it into their own hands but der is taking it into his own hands because he feels this personal responsibility to look for her and do everything he can to find her. And I mean, just how much he's doing is crazy and just goes to show how much her family loves her and misses her. Yeah. And we do see this in a lot of cases that we cover where families are out there doing everything they can, spending every single penny that they have to find their loved one, and it appears that this is exactly what Darrell's doing here.

So on June 13th, 2016, over five months since Tierra had last been seen, a relative of Danielle's reached out to the family after an odd encounter at the local DMV in Greensboro. The woman claimed that she had seen a young woman who looked like Tiara was Crossing the parking lot to enter the DMV now calling out Tiara's name the young woman turned around and this Relative was stricken with the likeness the young woman then told this relative that she was not Tiara But that she needed not Tierra, but that she needed prayers and asked the relative to please pray for her. It was such an odd interaction that the woman called Danielle to report it, and Danielle checked in with

law enforcement to review the security footage and to ensure that the young woman was in fact not Tierra. But Danielle herself watched this footage and confirmed that it was not her daughter. So over the years, much of the blame had fallen on Tierra's boyfriend, Erin. And Daniel herself claims that the day that she found out that Tierra had not returned home, she put culpability on Erin, wondering why he had just watched her go out to meet with another man with no questions asked. Which I mean kind of feels a bit unfair in that situation because it's not like Aaron was doing anything wrong. She said she was stepping out. He was playing video games with Tierra's brother.

Yeah, I think you can think of it either way is that a lot of guys would be very protective of that and say, well, who's this guy that you're going to see? Sure. And he didn't do that. So I think her mom is looking at it from like, you were her man, you're supposed to protect her. And that makes sense, especially for somebody who's so frustrated with the fact that her daughter's missing, say you're her partner

You're her boyfriend like why didn't you question this why was it weird to you? Why were you looking out for her? Absolutely, even though it's not his fault right and absolutely I totally totally get that But I'll just have to say that not everybody is a jealous partner But Aaron didn't take any of this lightly and said that the guilt took a tremendous toll on him. In his words, he said, quote, I was at my lowest. There was nothing else to live for. I felt suicidal.

I felt deep depression. I felt anger. It was a sad day every day. Grappling with both the loss of his girlfriend and the shame that he felt it not stepping in to help her and what could have been a different story if he had, Erin said quote, I wish I would have asked who she was going with. That's one thing I regret every day. I would trade anything to go back and do that day over again. Danielle actually claims that Tierra wasn't entirely happy in the relationship when she

disappeared, and that she had been thinking of ending things between them. She apparently thought of Erin as more of a friend, saying that their relationship had basically run its course, and that they were looking for different things. Which makes sense as to why she was potentially meeting up with her ex-rat, you know, at the very least, another guy. Right, it does. And Aaron was of course, you know, understandably saddened by this, but also didn't hold it against Tierra saying that he just wanted her to come home.

In a strange and sad development, William McKinley Spencer, the third, better known as Tierra's ex boyfriend, Trey, who he discussed, was shot and killed by his roommate shortly after Tier of Vanished. On February 20, 2016, so about a month and a half later, Tray's roommate, Lemuel Lee Harris Jr. shot and killed Tray over a dispute at the Georgetown Manor apartments, which is just about 20 minutes from Tier of Grim was apartment, and the Georgetown Manor apartments is where Lemuel and Trey lived. Lemuel then dumped his body in the nearby woods, but was apprehended and sentenced to life

in prison. For a time, of course, her family suspected a link between Tierra's disappearance and Trey's murder, but so far none have been established. Tierra's family, especially her mom, Danielle, believes that Tierra is still alive. Although over seven years have passed, Danielle holds out hope, saying quote, My motherly instinct tells me that she's still alive, and if she could be home, she would be. On June 18, 2022, Danielle Penn on Facebook, quote,

today is your 26th birthday. It's so hard to believe that the last time I laid eyes on you, spoke to you, expressed my love to you, you were only 19. We have not given up on this mission to find you, to find answers, to find somebody who truly knows something. It breaks my heart to even try to fathom what these last six and a half years have been like for you. I pray for you, for answers, for closure to this cruelty that has been forced upon you. I lay here, I think of all the milestones and life experiences that you've missed out

on because of someone else's cruel intentions. To the evil in this world, everything done in the dark comes to light, and just because you don't see us or hear us doesn't mean we are not still here, looking, watching, searching. There will come a time you will have to answer to your sins. Tiara, we love you and we are still trying. Tiara is not believed to be a runaway and foul play is highly likely. Again, police have not announced any public persons of interest, but Tiara's ex-boyfriend who we have said is Travis, remains a probable

suspect. According to Deliver Fund, which is an organization aimed at ending human trafficking, it's estimated that between 15,000 and as many as 325,000 women and children are considered victims of sex trafficking in the United States every year. But because there are a few studies and statistics backing this up, the figures are extremely variable. And as Daryl stated, Motel's are magnets for sex trafficking, making it easy to come and go without being suspected of illicit activity.

According to the Deliver Fund website, it says quote, in all of these instances, these women may be indebted to the PIMP or organization and have no funds, contacts, or language skills to use to flee. Her family remains hopeful that she is alive and will come home to them. And until then, please remain sure that someone in the Stony Brook Apartments knows what happened

to Tierra on the night of January 7th, 2016. And obviously, human trafficking is heavily believed in this case, but it's also possible that she was murdered. You know, obviously I know her family is really hoping that she's alive, but just because there wasn't blood found in Travis's car doesn't really mean that he didn't possibly potentially kill her. Right. And this investigation is still ongoing. And that's why we don't know Travis's name. That's why they're still working on it to this day. And hopefully we're going to have answers. Exactly. Well, Tierra Williams was five feet five inches tall and weighed 120 pounds when she was the last scene in 2016.

She's African-American and has brown hair and brown eyes. On the night she disappeared, she was wearing dark blue Levi's brand jeans, a pink shirt, a blue knit hat, a black North Face jacket, and white Jordan sneakers with blue and green trim. Her ears and left nostril are pierced and she has a small berm scar on her right wrist. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of tear Williams, please contact the Greensboro Police Department at 336-373-2222 or Greensboro Crime Stoppers at 336-373-137-3-2-2-2 or Greensboro Crime Stoppers at 3-3-6-373-1000

Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Again, January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. I know we're at the tail end of January, but it's still really important to share Tierra story and stories like it, so please, please do so by posting about her missing poster, by posting about our episode Just to spread the word on her case. So hopefully her family can get some answers very very soon

Thank you guys so much for checking this one out All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc 1 tbc sdmdc

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