True Crime with Kendall Rae - Where Is Tyarra Williams? Disappeared From Her Grandma’s Apartment

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Tyarra Williams was a 19-year-old college student who was going through a normal day – running errands, helping her mother, and having dinner with her boyfriend and brother at her grandmother's house – when she just disappeared. She said she was going to meet up with a friend named Travis, a name no one in her life was familiar with. Her phone's GPS had been turned off, she wasn't answering calls, and nothing was really making sense. Help Find Tyarra FB Page: https://bit.ly/36OvnpK Greensboro Crime Stoppers: 336-373-1000 Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

We'll get back to your podcast after this break. Actually, wouldn't it be great if this was your break? Right here in the podcast you love? You can connect your brand to your target audience with the help of Roger Sports and Media. As one of Canada's biggest podcast networks, we can help you explore advertising options within this podcast and so many others.

It's a chance to showcase your brand to listeners who are passionate about the content they're hearing. Learn more at RogerSportssports-media.com. Hey guys, and welcome back to my channel. Today we're going to be talking about a missing girl. Her name is Tiara Williams. In this case takes place in Greensboro, North Carolina. Tiara was born on June 18th, 1996, and she has another brother named Cannon. For the first seven or so years of her life, her parents were

together, but eventually when she was around that age, they split up. Tiara was very close with her family, very close with her mom and her brother and also her grandmother. I'm not clear on her relationship with her dad. I don't have much information about that. But after her dad left, she was very helpful to her mom with her brother. She was kind of like a second mother to him in a lot of ways. And she was known as a very nurturing person in general. She was just really friendly and caring to everyone she came across. So she was happy to be this figure in her family. In high school, thrived, she was doing very well, she

was very happy, she was dating a little bit, she had a couple odd enough boyfriends, but her mom was very protective of her and she closely monitored everything she did including her social media. And for her mom this was really because she loved DRS so much, she was just worried about her, wanted to make sure she was successful, she wanted a good future for her, but she kind of went a little too far with that, and eventually Tiara just decided she really needed some independence. The two of them started to kind of butt heads a little bit, they were arguing, not anything bad, but eventually Tiara did decide to move out, and it wasn't a terrible situation where she was angry and you know moving out because she hated her mom. She just decided to live with her grandma instead in her

apartment and this was yeah because she wanted some independence from her mom of course and that is kind of nice but also because she loved her grandma her grandma lived alone she felt like it would be better if they kind of split out so you know her brother lived with her mom and her mom, and she would live with her grandma that way. Everyone has someone to live with. And then her grandma also said it was because she loved her cooking a lot better than her mom. So it wasn't anything bad. She still saw her mom all the time, but at the time that she went missing, she was living with her grandma. At the end of that year in 2014, she ended up graduating from high school. And Dudley high school was where she went. And only a few months later, she started college and she was very excited about college.

She was planning to major in early childhood development at Gailford Technical College. She had wanted to work with children from a really young age. She loved children and when she was a junior in high school, she did some type of program where she worked with kids and that kind of sparked her love for, you know, working in children in general, but she also wanted to work with children with disabilities specifically. And this was a true passion of her, so of course she was excited to start college and get the ball rolling.

So instead of starting school in the fall, she decided to wait until the winter after the holidays had passed and everything, and she was going to be starting in January. So it was January 7th, 2016. Around 7.30 that morning, Tiara was getting ready to go over to her school and register and roll in all her classes, get her ID, do all of that. And even though that day can be a little depressing in my memory because it's like school's starting back up, it is still a little exciting to get all her stuff and feel like you have this fresh start. So she was motivated and she was ready to start college. Later that evening she went to her mom's house around 6 p.m. and she just

went over there to kind of hang out, talk about how her day went, fill her mom in on how college was going to be looking for her and everything. And according to her mom, Tiara was completely fine. That day she said that she was excited to start school, looking forward to the future, and her mom even said that the two of them could go shopping that week for textbooks and other school supplies, and Tiara was excited about that. So everything was fine. They continued to hang out for a bit, they ended up taking down her mom's Christmas tree, January 7th, you know, time to go, I don't like it in another week after that, to be honest. We'll get back to your podcast after this break.

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Learn more at roger-sports-media.com. Her brother was also at the house at the time and then eventually her boyfriend, Erin, came to the house as well. And then the three of them left her mom's place and went back to her grandma's place because she had dinner waiting for them. So this is Tiara, Erin, and her brother. Her grandma Vanessa was making beef stew and this was one of her favorites so she was excited to go over there for dinner. So she said goodbye to her mom and that would be the last time she would see her. So after the three of them had dinner, they went and were just chilling out on the couch. She was scrolling her phone. She was really into her phone, according to her family.

Sounds pretty typical for, you know, a teenage or young adult girl. But the boys were just watching TV. She was just scrolling and they were just relaxing. But suddenly at 8.30 p.m. She gets up and says, hey guys, I'm gonna go meet with my friend named Travis. And this was weird because neither of them, Canon and Aaron, knew of anyone named Travis in her life. And Aaron didn't say anything. He didn't question her even though he didn't know of anyone named Travis. He just let her go. And that's kind of strange. I have to say, I feel like Josh would question me a little more if I just said I was going off to see some guy named Travis, but you know, they're young. She had probably a lot of friends. I could see how he would just want to, you know, be chill and let her go. Not question her too much. He said she'd only be gone for an hour and they thought that she'd only be gone for an hour.

So they just decided to chill there for a little bit longer. Eventually they went over to Aaron's apartment to play video games over there while they waited because she was taking a while. But then 930 came along and there was still no sign of TRS. So Aaron decided to go back to her grandma's house and wait for her there because he was getting worried.

But then 1030 came, 11 30 came. There was still no sign of her. He calls her, he texts her several times, and there was no response. The next morning rolls around, 7 a.m. There's still no sign of her. And as soon as her grandma woke up and her what was going on,

and there was no sign of her, she started to freak out rightfully so. So she called Tiar's mom, and she started to freak out rightfully so. So she called Tiar's mom and she started to freak out as well. They kept calling her phone but it just kept going straight to voicemail, which was a really bad sign because she always had her phone. If she could answer that phone, she would. And that made them think that something really bad had happened when she left the house. And they were trying to figure out who this Travis person was that she said she was going gonna go meet.

PR's mom said that at first she tried to think, you know, maybe it's possible that she's just hanging out with her friends, she's just being an irresponsible teenager and not answering her phone, but she knew that that was so unlike her daughter and not only that, she had left her purse with her brand new ID there. It just didn't make any sense. Also, she left her phone charger behind

and this is something she always took with her because she. Also, she left her phone charger behind, and this is something she always took with her because she always wanted to make sure her phone was charged. I know a lot of people that do that, so she's gonna be gone for several days or she's like going away with friends somewhere, she's gonna bring her phone charger. The around 1230 that day, Tiara's mom Danielle,

goes and meets with Erin, and she kind of questions him about, you know, why didn't you say anything when Tiaris said she was gonna go meet some guy named Travis? Didn't she think it was odd that you didn't know who this person was? You didn't have any further questions? I mean, it is a little weird.

And basically he said he just didn't really want to be up in her business, didn't think too much of it. And of course, he feels bad now. So at this point, they feel like the best option is to get into her Facebook account. See if she has anyone named Travis on her account and then they can start there. So Danielle actually does know the password luckily,

so they are able to get in. And when they log in, she has no Facebook contacts under Travis. But one thing that they did find on her Facebook were a few messages with an ex-boyfriend. And so her mom thought maybe it's possible that Travis was just a cover name for the ex-boyfriend, which obviously she wouldn't tell Erin if she was going to see her ex.

And by this point, they start to panic a lot. And this is when Danielle decides to go ahead and make a police report. So police went to the last place that she was seen, which was her grandmother's apartment, and they looked around and didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Police, you know, asked if there was anything going on in her life that maybe she would want to run away from, is she fighting with family? Is she in any type of trouble?

Trying to see if there's something else there, but there was nothing. Everything was fine in her family. Everything was fine in her life. In fact, like I said, she was excited to start school. She was excited to get her life going and eventually work with kids with disabilities. She felt like she was following her passion.

She was happy with her family and her boyfriend. None of it made sense. The next day rolls around and her family and friends spend the whole day putting up flyers anywhere that they can, telling as many people as they can to be on the lookout for tiara. And they even talked to a couple people in the Stony Brook apartment complex where her grandma lived and no one had seen tiara that day and it wasn't until three days later

her on January 11th that the police moved this to their crimes against persons department but the police really don't have much to work with other than the name Travis which Danielle is telling them that there's a good possibility this is like a cover for her ex-boyfriend. Now, we really don't know that much about the ex-boyfriend. His name has not been released. There's not that much info out there about him, but according to their family, he was always the one reaching out to her. He was the one that was more into the relationship with her. She was kind of always like trying to get rid of him a little bit and he just kept coming back. I mean, we all know a guy like that. But she was one of those people that would stay in relationships

that were bad because she felt guilty for the other person. It was kind of one of those situations. Her mom thought maybe he was a little obsessed with her. Maybe it's possible that because they were already chatting that he had kind of roped her back in. Please start to look into this guy a little bit and they were able to determine that T.R. cell phone had last pained in the area of the apartments where she was last seen. However, there were no new texts or calls made from that phone, and it was believed that her cell phone last pained in that area

before the battery died, and it was no longer traceable. The police were able to get in contact with her ex-boyfriend and bring him in for questioning, and when they brought him in, he said that they hadn't even been talking lately, which made him look even more sketchy because they know that they had. The police told them that they know that this is a lie. They saw the Facebook messages. We know that you guys were talking.

And after that, he completely changed his story. He gave in. He said, not only was I talking her, I actually saw her the night she went missing. He said that the two of them were texting and that she left the house to go meet up with him. He said that they met up around 8.30 like she said she was going to and they talked for about a half hour. And then at around 9, she got out of his car that they were talking in and started walking

back towards the apartment complex that her grandma lived in and that was the last time that he saw her. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background,

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playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in evidence, any hair left behind by Tiara, any blood, but there was no signs of anything. So that kind of left them at a dead end because this was a little sketchy, but he really didn't seem like he had done anything. And unfortunately there were no security cameras in their apartment

complex to capture her walking and confirm that she walked back to the apartment. So police started looking into her life further into her past and they found that at one point she was dating this guy named Trey. So they were able to get in contact with Trey and he was cooperative with the police and he said he had no contact with her in a while and there was no evidence of any contact. Also, her mother believes that it was definitely not this guy. She said that he's a good guy and that he would have never harmed her. So, there were really no good leads to work with. And after a week had gone by, they decided really go to the media and see if they could rally the help of

the community. And luckily, the media decided to work with them and were really great about pushing the story. They covered it all the time, all the updates. They were also able to set up a Facebook group and had a lot of community help on there as well, and they also have their own hotline which is run by TR's grandfather Darrell. And within 10 days of the hotline being open, they got one call that they thought was going to help them out. It was a sanitation worker calling from the town about 17 miles away from Greensboro, and the man said that he saw a woman who looked like Tiara in this area. And then another call actually came in from a woman saying that she saw someone who looked like Tiara walking along textile drive in Greensboro.

And their family believes that these two sightings could possibly be related. But Darrell actually thinks that there could be someone holding Tiara hostage. They still believe this to this day. But at the time, they thought that maybe this person was taking her out and maybe they are someone who is in the North Carolina area. She could be under someone's control and just be under drugs and being forced to do things and be kind of just taken around kind of as a shell of herself. So this definitely left Darrell feeling a little more hopeful. Then eventually police got a call that was pretty scary. It was

an anonymous tip saying that her body could be located in a tractor trailer lot and this lot was across the street from the apartment complex that her grandma lived in. So police of course went in search of the area. They brought cadaver dogs and they found nothing. On February 8th the police did another extensive search in the area. They searched as many streams and little bodies of water as they could, but everything was frozen over because it was the freezing time of year. This made a lot of areas just unsearchable for the time being. They would literally have to wait until the water thawed out to hopefully find her body. I mean, how depressing is that to tell the family? So then on February 20th, that same year, that guy, Trey, was found dead. He was found shot to death in his apartment, and at first they thought maybe these are connected, but it turns out that this was just a roommate dispute and an argument that sadly ended with Trey losing his life. So no leads came from that either. So then April comes

along, and Danielle ends up getting a message sent to their Facebook page. The message was from a waiter who worked at a waffle house in Jessup, Georgia, which is 400 miles away from where they lived. And this person was confident that this was Tiara and that this person came into the restaurant several times per week. She said that she was always with a group of other people, but she kind of looked like she wasn't really part of this group or wasn't enjoying herself and she was always with a group of other people, but she kind of looked like she wasn't really part of this group or wasn't enjoying herself and she was always there. So they start to think that maybe she's stuck with the wrong crowd. She's with a group of people that are

dragging her, keeping her there. She doesn't quite know where she is and she needs help. So Darrell goes there and he ends up staking out the place for days, sitting in his car just watching, hoping that she'll show up. And after this, strangely enough, this person never came back. But this person who had contacted them was persistent that this girl really did exist and that she came in all the time. It was very strange that she wasn't showing up. So Darrell believed her and he went ahead and checked out all of the nearby hotels and motels near the waffle house to see if maybe this group of girls was staying there. He brought flyers that had Tierra's face on them so that he could show the staff at the

different locations and one of these managers actually did recognize Tierra. He said that there was a man that always stayed at his hotel that was clearly a pimp. He always had a bunch of girls around him and that he was sure a tiara was one of them. So of course he calls the police because this is illegal, and the guy at the hotel tells them about the man and they end up busting this guy, and they found him with a bunch of girls like the manager had said, but none of them were tiara, and this guy said he had never seen tiara before. And they believe that one of the girls was confused as Tiara. They were very similar looking and it's quite possible that she was the one that was at the

waffle house and the girl was just confused. So it ended up being a huge letdown. But they did not give up and tips continued to come in from all over. And many of these tips were people saying they think that they saw her somewhere or that they saw an ad online that looked like her. And at this point, police are really starting to think that she was abducted and sold into human trafficking. So her grandpa Darryl made it his mission to find her if she was in this world. He drove all over the country visiting clubs, strip clubs, and other underground places where sex trafficking often takes place. And he even offered up a Zone Cash Award of $2,000. But after months of this, after months of trying to find her, there was nothing to work with still.

By May of 2016, the water was starting to thaw, so they could look for her body in some of those streams and they did carry out some searches. Unfortunately, they did not find anything and their family became pretty desperate at that point. Eventually, they decided to take a second look at Erin, her boyfriend, you know. It was kind of odd how he just let her go that night. And Tiara had said several times that her and Aaron weren't on the same page all the time that sometimes they would argue. Sometimes their relationship was just kind of rocky and they didn't want the same things.

Apparently Tiara was already starting to say to people that she wanted to end the relationship with him. She just didn't know how. Like she didn't see it going anywhere but he was such a nice guy. She just didn't know how to end it. Aaron said that he was shocked. They were pointing fingers at him and at first he felt kind of betrayed about that but he understood that if he was in her position, he would want to do everything. He could find his child so he understood that he was one of the last people that saw her. But Aaron said that he had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance, that he was incredibly distraught when he first found out that she was missing.

He said that this was one of the lowest points in his whole life, that he was experiencing true depression over missing her. And at some points, he was so angry and upset about the situation that he considered taking his own life. He said that, of course, he does have regret about not asking T.R. and more about this Travis guy not falling up. He was just trying to be the chill boyfriend and quickly they were able to roll him out as a suspect, which leaves the family with pretty much nothing. However, on June 13th, they did get a tip from a family member that thought that they saw her at a DMV in Greensboro. Apparently this family member saw her in the parking lot and when

she called out to her trying to make contact with her, this person said that she didn't know who Tiara was but that she would pray for her. And she just felt like this was really odd so they reported to the police and they ended up pulling the security camera footage from the DMV and they were able to determine that there was a girl that looked like Tiara there that day but it was not Tiara. So this was just another letdown for their family. Within the next year, tips started slowing down and their family started to feel worried that people were forgetting about Tiara or that maybe they would never find her. Danielle is still very suspicious about her ex-boyfriend, the one that she had seen that night. I feel like that's

the most suspicious person too, but that's only because there's nothing else to work with. The police have no evidence that it was him. Absolutely nothing, so it leaves them kind of stuck. Investigators still believe that someone in the apartment complex knows something, that someone saw something, or someone could have abducted her from right in the complex, the stony, broke apartment complex. So if you have any information about this case, please call the Greensboro Crime Stoppers unit at 336-373-1000. That's 336-373-1000 and I will also link their Facebook page below. I just feel so bad for this family.

Having no answers like this is so hard. That's just so incredibly frustrating. I truly can't imagine how they are feeling every day or what it's been like for them since she went missing. She really seems like a wonderful person. She's beautiful. She had a really bright future ahead of her. She should be with her family. I feel like the place are really on the right track with the human trafficking thing. It sadly sounds like one of those cases to me, but if that's true, that means she could still be out there. She could be being held captive somewhere or with some sketchy group like that,

you know, the group that was hanging out at the waffle house, you know, just because she wasn't actually in that group doesn't mean she's not in a similar situation. So please be on the lookout for Tiara. Share her photo anywhere you can or share the story. That's all really, really helpful. And please go check out their Facebook page. I know their family will appreciate the extra support and the following, that's what really keeps these families

going because these searches can be so, so exhausting, especially when you have so little to work with. That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendal Ray.

I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.