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TEEN GIRL TYARRA VANISHES FROM GRANDMA'S · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: A gorgeous young teen girl set to go buy books
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Speaker 1: in a laptop the next day for school with her mom,
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Speaker 1: vanishes from grandma's How does a teen girl just vanish
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Speaker 1: from her own grandma's home? Good evening, I mean to
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Speaker 1: see Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank
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Speaker 1: you for being with us.
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Speaker 2: Nineteen year old Tierra Williams from Greensboro, North Carolina, is
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Speaker 2: a recent high school graduate with a bright future ahead,
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Speaker 2: dreaming of helping young children, but those plans change when
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Speaker 2: she vanishes from her own apartment complex.
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Speaker 1: Where is Tiara? This girl has everything to look forward to,
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Speaker 1: just days away from starting school, getting her laptop, getting
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Speaker 1: her books, getting her backpack. So happy the world before her,
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Speaker 1: being cheered on by her family, her nuclear family, her grandmother,
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Speaker 1: her grandfather. Now she's just gone like that. Lots of
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Speaker 1: speculations surrounding the case of missing Tiara. What do we know?
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Speaker 1: Tonight straight out to an all star panel to make
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Speaker 1: sense of this girl's disappearance. Brian vis Gibbons joining US
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Speaker 1: Director Operations USP, a nationwide security leading a team of
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Speaker 1: investigators around the world to find and extract missing people.
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Speaker 1: Former Marine Iraqi war Vet Brian, Thank you for being
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Speaker 1: with us tonight. You know, when you think of all
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Speaker 1: the places in the world you're gonna vanish from that
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Speaker 1: you're going to go missing, being a grandma's house is
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Speaker 1: not one of them. If you are walking along the
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Speaker 1: street in high crime area, if you are traveling abroad
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Speaker 1: and you somehow wander into a bad area of town,
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Speaker 1: I mean, that's when you think, okay, that makes sense.
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Speaker 1: But vanishing from grandma's house that's the last place you're
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Speaker 1: seen alive. That's very unusual, Brian.
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Speaker 3: Not totally. What's so unique about this case is that
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Speaker 3: this was a very standard night. It seemed that Tiara
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Speaker 3: was together with family and her boyfriend, enjoying time together,
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Speaker 3: with no specific or you know, potentially dangerous scenario playing out.
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Speaker 3: There was no big night on the town planned. And moreover,
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Speaker 3: she had plans the next day, as you mentioned at
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Speaker 3: the beginning of the show, to purchase books a laptop
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Speaker 3: to begin her college experience. So this was a regular,
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Speaker 3: routine night. Vanishing from grandma's house makes this very very unique.
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Speaker 1: Dave meg joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter, I find
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Speaker 1: it very disturbing that so many young women her age,
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Speaker 1: young girls go missing in the Greensboro, North Carolina area.
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Speaker 1: What happened, well, Nancy.
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Speaker 2: In this particular case, Tiara Williams is with her boyfriend Aaron,
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Speaker 2: and her little brother and they're having dinner at grandma's
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Speaker 2: house at her apartment. At they had plans that evening
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Speaker 2: to be together to play video games, watch TV. Okay,
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Speaker 2: So at eight o'clock that night, as they're getting ready
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Speaker 2: to leave Grandma's house or her apartment, Tiarra says, Hey,
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Speaker 2: I'm going to go meet up with a friend, and
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Speaker 2: she names the friend Travis, just going to see him
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Speaker 2: for a few minutes. I'll be back in an hour. Well,
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Speaker 2: she didn't come back in an hour, and nobody knew
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Speaker 2: who Travis was. So that's where everything went crazy.
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Speaker 1: Nancy.
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Speaker 2: She's with her new boyfriend, Aaron, her little brother, and
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Speaker 2: she goes to meet at a friend that nobody knows, and poof,
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Speaker 2: she never returns.
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Speaker 1: Tierra Williams, a teen girl, vanishes from Greensboro last scene,
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Speaker 1: leaving her grandma's place wearing a black North faced jacket,
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Speaker 1: a pink shirt, dark blue Levi jeans, and a blue
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Speaker 1: knit cap. The reality is this seemed to be a
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Speaker 1: very safe area where Grandma lived there in Greensboro. To
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Speaker 1: Dave Matt, Crime Story's investigative reporter, what can you tell
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Speaker 1: me about Greensboro, North Carolina.
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Speaker 2: You know, Greensboro, North Carolina is a huge metropolitan area.
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Speaker 2: Guildford Community College is located there in Greensboro, which is
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Speaker 2: where Tiara wanted to go to school and was planning
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Speaker 2: to attend school at the time. The Stonybrook apartment complex
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Speaker 2: in Greensboro, as you can see here in these photos,
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Speaker 2: a big apartment complex. But you know what, Nancy, it
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Speaker 2: is a safe area. It is an This is not
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Speaker 2: a high crime area here. We're dealing with a very domestic,
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Speaker 2: very quiet area for them to be living in. Greensboro,
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Speaker 2: North Carolina is in between say, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Charlotte.
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Speaker 2: It's Greensboro Winston Salem High Point in that triad area.
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Speaker 2: A beautiful, beautiful place, home of place like Wake Forest
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Speaker 2: University and other community colleges in the area.
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Speaker 1: Take a look at this girl. Have you seen her?
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Speaker 1: The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are very, very murky. Joining
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Speaker 1: US forensic psychologist and renowned TV radio trauma expert consultant
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Speaker 1: Karen Stark at Karenstark dot com. Karen, thanks for being
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Speaker 1: with us tonight. Let me just stay at the beginning.
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Speaker 1: The grandma is not suspected of anything. She is the
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Speaker 1: one that made the dinner, had everyone over, the family
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Speaker 1: was loving it. The mother, Tierra's mother lived a few
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Speaker 1: doors down from the grandma. The whole family lived there,
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Speaker 1: the nuclear family and extended family. There were just a
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Speaker 1: few doors apart, and they had all gotten together for dinner.
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Speaker 1: It was after that that she goes missing. And the
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Speaker 1: dichotomy of those two things is very disturbing, as if
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Speaker 1: she had dinner, she stepped out and was never seen
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Speaker 1: alive again.
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Speaker 4: Nancy, that contrast between being there with her family and
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Speaker 4: an usual family evening, just enjoying everybody, and then she's gone,
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Speaker 4: and it's such a contrast. It's like, what could it
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Speaker 4: possibly be? They were all expecting her to come right back.
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Speaker 1: Another part of that, Karen start is it makes it
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Speaker 1: harder for the family to digest and to act on
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Speaker 1: what's happening. How many times have you heard people say, well,
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Speaker 1: I just talked to her, she was just here. It's
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Speaker 1: hard to take that in and then act move forward
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Speaker 1: as it relates to what you've.
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Speaker 4: Learned impossible to make sense of it, Nancy. And it's
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Speaker 4: the kind of thing that you know, the family will
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Speaker 4: go over and over again in their mind trying to
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Speaker 4: understand what happened, that dichotomy that we're talking about, because
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Speaker 4: they're stuck. They don't have an answer. Something is missing,
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Speaker 4: something is gone, they don't understand what's going on. It's
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Speaker 4: really really difficult to overcome that, and I'm sure they
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Speaker 4: have not.
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Speaker 5: We started Calleen and her phone was going straight to voicemail,
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Speaker 5: which was completely unusual for her. She never turned off
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Speaker 5: her phone or allowed it to go.
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Speaker 1: GEG that is Daniel Williams. This is Tiara's mother from
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Speaker 1: our friends at w x l V. You know that
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Speaker 1: is a very strong indicator right there, Brian Fitzgibbons. People
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Speaker 1: and their cell phones are rarely parted, and we have
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Speaker 1: gotten so much evidence digital evidence, like tracking a cell phone.
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Speaker 1: Here's a great example in the Alex Murdlaud double murder trial.
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Speaker 1: His phone was tracked with his dead wife Maggie's stone.
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Speaker 1: Briefly then his car, which has a NAV system, shows
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Speaker 1: his car scratching out of the murder scene, slowing down.
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Speaker 1: It even shows his electronic window front seat passenger side
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Speaker 1: go down. When he slows down, you know, he's throwing
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Speaker 1: her phone out the window, because that is where they
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Speaker 1: found Maggie's phone. It was traveling with him until that
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Speaker 1: slowed down. The window goes down according to the nav system,
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Speaker 1: and that's where her phone is found. The window goes up,
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Speaker 1: and he scratches off to hide out at his mother's
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Speaker 1: house about forty minutes away. So there's that type of
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Speaker 1: electronic digital evidence, but there is also evidence of routine,
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Speaker 1: routine evidence. This girl never turned her phone off, she
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Speaker 1: had it on at night, when she charged it, she
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Speaker 1: had it with her at all times, and now suddenly
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Speaker 1: it's going straight to voicemail. And when that happened, when
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Speaker 1: the family's frantically trying to find her, they knew something
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Speaker 1: was wrong. She had broken her routine. How many times
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Speaker 1: have you seen that happen?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we've seen this happen together a number of times
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Speaker 3: on cases that we've covered. You know, Nikki Chang Sale McCain,
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Speaker 3: her sister is trying to get a hold of her phone,
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Speaker 3: going right to voicemail messages turning green. This is a
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Speaker 3: very similar pattern to that where you know family said,
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Speaker 3: Tiara would never leave even without her phone charger. This
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Speaker 3: is how aware she was of keeping that phone charged
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Speaker 3: and on and connected to friends and family. So for
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Speaker 3: the family to discover that her phone charger was left
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Speaker 3: at home shortly after they realized something was wrong, that
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Speaker 3: raised an immediate alarm, you know.
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Speaker 1: And then there's the digital evidence too, Brian Fitzgibbons, you
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Speaker 1: have tricked people found missing people all over the world.
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Speaker 1: How big of a role does for instance, cell phone data,
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Speaker 1: digital data play.
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Speaker 3: In that It's going to play a tremendous role in
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Speaker 3: any case. And unfortunately here it seems as though that
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Speaker 3: phone was turned off or destroyed shortly after Tiara left
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Speaker 3: her family. How do we know that right?
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Speaker 1: Why do you say that?
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Speaker 3: Law enforcement has released that they had the last known
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Speaker 3: location of her phone was near the grandparents' house.
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Speaker 1: Okay, wait a minute, Bryanfu's Gibbons. Police have placed the
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Speaker 1: last known ping of her phone right there at grandma's.
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Speaker 1: That's just whatever happened happened immediately. Now, explain how they're
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Speaker 1: getting that ping? How does it work? It's really uncontrovertible.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, law enforcement is going to get very accurate cell
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Speaker 3: phone data. This is through a subpoena. This is something
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Speaker 3: that you know, only law enforcement is able to do,
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Speaker 3: and they're going to access that data from the cell
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Speaker 3: phone carrier to know exactly where was the last known
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Speaker 3: location that this phone was on. Now, in Tiara's case,
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Speaker 3: you know, we lose that digital trail when the phone
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Speaker 3: goes off. The good one bit of good news was
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Speaker 3: the family did have access to her Facebook account to
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Speaker 3: access friends lists, messages and things of that sort. But
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Speaker 3: it becomes very difficult when that digital trail goes cold,
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Speaker 3: when the phone is turned off or destroyed.
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Speaker 1: Can you tell, byf Has Gibbons, if the phone has
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Speaker 1: been destroyed or just turned off when you call it,
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Speaker 1: when you try to ping it, can you tell?
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Speaker 3: You know, some data based on apps that report to
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Speaker 3: the cloud, that may investigators may be able to find
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Speaker 3: out what when the phone was last on, last connected,
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Speaker 3: and what its state was, But it's very difficult. There's
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Speaker 3: not going to be much of a difference in the
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Speaker 3: phone being completely turned off or destroyed. They're not going
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Speaker 3: to be able to tell that necessarily from the data.
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Speaker 1: So the family knew immediately when her phone went straight
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Speaker 1: to voicemail that something was horribly wrong. Now, let's analyze
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Speaker 1: that she Tiara was at the grandma's place. The family
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Speaker 1: was there, Grandma fixed a made a big meal for them,
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Speaker 1: and then within moments she's never seen again. Now I
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Speaker 1: find that curious. Who would know she was at that apartment?
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Speaker 1: Who would know that she was stepping out? That she
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Speaker 1: did step out? Was it a crime of opportunity? Whatever
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Speaker 1: happened happened immediately after the dinner. Now, what's the likelihood
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Speaker 1: of that just really grabbing her off the street outside
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Speaker 1: her grandma's house? What about it? Brian?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, very very unlikely that this was a random act, right,
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Speaker 3: You know, you have to believe that this whoever is
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Speaker 3: responsible for Tierra's disappearance, that she was well known to them,
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Speaker 3: that they knew her routine, that she had some kind
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Speaker 3: of plan to meet up with them. This was not
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Speaker 3: the circumstances that you would typically see some kind of
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Speaker 3: random act of violence.
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Speaker 1: Straight out to Dave Mac joining US Crimes Toys investigative reporter,
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Speaker 1: Dave Mac snatched off the street outside grandma's What can
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Speaker 1: you tell me about? Very unusual, but the high numbers
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Speaker 1: of young women believed to be sex trafficked out of.
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Speaker 2: Greensboro, Nancy. The city of Greensboro over the last decade
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Speaker 2: has a number of young African American women who have
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Speaker 2: just vanished. And when you start digging into the situation
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Speaker 2: of these disappearances, they tend to range an age of
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Speaker 2: younger women and they just vanish out of thin air.
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Speaker 2: We've got one woman in particular, Mss Carmichael. She actually
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Speaker 2: has children. She's pumping gas in her car pretty much,
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Speaker 2: and the next thing you know, she's gone. So this
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Speaker 2: has been a really big situation in Greensboro. But think
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Speaker 2: about it geographically speaking, if you were going to snatch
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Speaker 2: somebody in a major metropolitan area, Nancy, and you've got
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Speaker 2: options to take off towards other cities down a major highway,
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Speaker 2: you've got that. In Greensboro, there's a lot of ways
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Speaker 2: to get out of town and head out in a
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Speaker 2: hurry and be gone. You can be in Virginia in
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Speaker 2: a matter of an hour or two. Same thing with
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Speaker 2: heading to Tennessee or South Carolina. I mean, this is
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Speaker 2: an area that offers opportunities to get out of the
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Speaker 2: area very quickly.
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Speaker 5: Well.
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Speaker 1: The prevalence of human trafficking in North Carolina, it stems
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Speaker 1: from a lot of factors. For instance, the existence of
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Speaker 1: major highways that run right through the state. You've got
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Speaker 1: a transient military population. You've got, of course, sex oriented businesses,
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Speaker 1: massage parlors, you name it. There are rural agricultural areas
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Speaker 1: with a high demand for cheap labor, and you factor
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Speaker 1: that all in together, you have girls going out looking
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Speaker 1: for jobs. The next thing you know, vanished off the street.
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Speaker 1: There are multiple unsolved cases now of young women vanishing
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Speaker 1: out of Greensboro, North Carolina, believed to have been sex trafficked.
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Speaker 1: You were referring to Marisa Carmichael. She is one of
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Speaker 1: many believed to have been sex trafficked, and it can
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Speaker 1: happen in the most unusual circumstances. For instance, we investigated
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Speaker 1: the case of a young girl who vanished out of Texas,
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Speaker 1: North Texas. She went with her father to a Mavericks
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Speaker 1: game for father daughter bonding. At halftime, she said, Dad,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to the bathroom. Well she never came back.
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Speaker 1: She didn't come back. She didn't come back. They scoured
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Speaker 1: the stadium after the game was over. Well, immediately the
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Speaker 1: dad raised the alarm. They started looking for her during
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Speaker 1: the game, couldn't find her. Checked, all the bathrooms, checked,
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Speaker 1: all of the concession stands. Nothing. Finally, Dad starts going
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Speaker 1: through the video surveillance and sees his daughter being taken
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Speaker 1: out by two men he did not recognize. As it
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Speaker 1: turns out, a specialist was combing the internet weeks later
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Speaker 1: and sees recognizes this young girl's face, Natalie Kramer on
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Speaker 1: a prostitution website. She had been sex trafficked and was
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Speaker 1: being held at some hotel. God only knows what she
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Speaker 1: lived through. She lived, she lived to tell the tale.
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Speaker 1: But it was just like that. That's scary, Karen Stark.
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Speaker 4: It's always possible. Of course it is, because we know
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Speaker 4: that it's rampant. It happens all the time now, and
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Speaker 4: so why not. That's a big possibility. Since it was
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Speaker 4: just like that, she went out and then gone her phone.
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Speaker 4: Whatever was happening, we don't know, but sex trafficking is
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Speaker 4: a possibility.
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Speaker 5: The day before, she spent most of that day getting
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Speaker 5: getting her books and making sure all of her financial
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Speaker 5: aid was in order. She was meeting with a friend
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Speaker 5: and she was supposed to be bat within an hour.
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Speaker 5: She wouldn't have not come home. She always came home.
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Speaker 1: From our friend's w x Selve meeting a friend. Meeting
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Speaker 1: a friend where at the dairy Queen McDonald's, the mall?
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Speaker 1: Who where? When? Why? Dave Mac meeting a friend? What happened?
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Speaker 2: Well, Nancy, you know, the whole meeting a friend was
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Speaker 2: very vague and but it did have an end to it.
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Speaker 2: You know, she didn't say I'll be back later, she
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Speaker 2: said I'll be back in an hour. Remember, now, Tiara
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Speaker 2: is with her new boyfriend, Aaron, and her little brother
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Speaker 2: and they have plans to go back and hang out,
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Speaker 2: watch TV and play video games. So her boyfriend, Aaron
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Speaker 2: doesn't think anything odd when Tiara says she's going to
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Speaker 2: meet this friend. And the only time it became an
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Speaker 2: issue was when she didn't come back within an hour.
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Speaker 2: Because Tiara, from a very early age, Nancy was that
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Speaker 2: girl you could count on. She was the girl who
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Speaker 2: did what she said she was going to do. And
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Speaker 2: so when she doesn't show up within an hour, already
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Speaker 2: it was a question mark, where did she go? Who
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Speaker 2: did she meet? And how can we find out?
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Speaker 1: You know, Brian vas Gibbons, Dave Mac just brought up
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Speaker 1: something very critical to the case. You look at the risks,
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Speaker 1: does the victim lead a high risk lifestyle. For instance,
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Speaker 1: when I was a prosecutor, that was a high risk
19:28
Speaker 1: lifestyle because I would be out chomping through housing projects,
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Speaker 1: driving all over Atlanta, every area of Fulton County, very
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Speaker 1: often alone, in all hours of the day and night.
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Speaker 1: I could be in a drug infested area. I could
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Speaker 1: be in a brothel. I could be in a crack
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Speaker 1: house looking for witnesses, finding witnesses, interviewing witnesses, subpoenaing witnesses,
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Speaker 1: you name it, taking photos the night before twelve whatever,
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Speaker 1: that's high risk. For instance, a sex worker high risk,
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Speaker 1: a drug addict high risk. It depends on what you're
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Speaker 1: doing your lifestyle. This girl had a low risk lifestyle.
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Speaker 1: So when she says, hey, I'll be right back, you
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Speaker 1: don't think anything of it. You think nothing of it.
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Speaker 1: She'll be right back. For Pete's sake, she was headed
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Speaker 1: to college. So explain to me why when she said, hey,
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Speaker 1: Grandma be right back, nobody thought anything of it. It's
20:27
Speaker 1: not like Grandma was careless or negligent.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, because this is a young woman who, by all accounts,
20:37
Speaker 3: had good relationships with her family, was consistent with her education,
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Speaker 3: was now looking forward to studying this early childhood development
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Speaker 3: track to go on to be a professional. This was
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Speaker 3: somebody who had things in their life seemingly in order
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Speaker 3: and was consistent that would aunt raised the alarm leaving,
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Speaker 3: you know, to go meet up with somebody that this
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Speaker 3: wasn't uh. There was no routine of being gone for
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Speaker 3: days or weeks at a time. By all accounts, there
21:13
Speaker 3: were no red flags in Tiara's life to lead the
21:17
Speaker 3: family to have any immediate concern. When she said she
21:20
Speaker 3: was popping out for a little while, we.
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Speaker 5: Started Calleen and her phone was going straight to voicemail,
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Speaker 5: which was completely unusual for her. She never turned off
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Speaker 5: her phone or allowed it to go dead.
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Speaker 6: She was still in our apartment complex when she was lasting.
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Speaker 6: She was walking through from one side of the apartment
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Speaker 6: complex to the next.
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Speaker 7: We don't know what.
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Speaker 6: Was she was going to say, I hope we find her.
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Speaker 6: I hope find her.
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Speaker 1: From our friends at w X Selvy and w XII.
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Speaker 1: So the phone pings right outside Grandma's house and she
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Speaker 1: is last seeing right outside Grandma's door within the apartment complex.
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Speaker 1: Is that right, Daves.
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Speaker 2: Mac Absolutely, Nancy. It's an amazing thing when you get
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Speaker 2: right down to it, that it doesn't seem like she
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Speaker 2: left the apartment complex on her own, certainly, but I
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Speaker 2: mean she goes out in the apartment complex to meet somebody.
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Speaker 2: She didn't indicate this before. She didn't tell anybody that
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Speaker 2: she was leaving, but just said she was going to
22:18
Speaker 2: see a friend for a little bit. But apparently she
22:21
Speaker 2: was right there in the parking lot of the apartment
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Speaker 2: complex for the entire time that she had left.
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Speaker 1: Dave Matt, I know that she was spotted by a
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Speaker 1: witness within the apartment complex. What about security.
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Speaker 2: Cameras, Okay, Nancy, the security complex or the apartment complex
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Speaker 2: does not have any available security cameras that showed her
22:43
Speaker 2: in the parking lot, in a car or anything else.
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Speaker 2: But you mentioned the pings okay of knowing where she
22:50
Speaker 2: was because, as you said earlier, Tiara Williams had her
22:53
Speaker 2: cell phone with her all the time and usually had
22:57
Speaker 2: a phone charger to make sure she was always connected.
23:00
Speaker 2: Did something interesting that came out in this, Nancy, is
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Speaker 2: that when they when trying to figure out who she
23:05
Speaker 2: was meeting, her mom, Daniel immediately went to Facebook. You know,
23:09
Speaker 2: we've talked about how socially active she was. Something you
23:12
Speaker 2: recommend all the time is for parents to not use
23:16
Speaker 2: to make sure they have access to their children's Facebook
23:19
Speaker 2: accounts and other social media. You know, no safeguard, no
23:22
Speaker 2: no way that they can just travel on their own.
23:25
Speaker 2: Daniel Tira's mother access to Facebook page because she could.
23:30
Speaker 2: She knew who Tiara was talking to and when all
23:33
Speaker 2: through high school and even after. So that's where there
23:36
Speaker 2: was the ability to track where Tierra Williams went with
23:40
Speaker 2: her phone.
23:41
Speaker 1: This teen girl, Tiara Williams last Saint Stonybrook Apartments off
23:45
Speaker 1: Webster Road near Randolman Road, Greensboro, North Carolina, eight thirty
23:51
Speaker 1: p m. It had just turned dark January seventh. She
23:56
Speaker 1: walked away from grandma's, said she would see friend who
24:00
Speaker 1: lived in the complex and we'd be back in one hour.
24:04
Speaker 1: She did visit the friend's apartment. It was on her
24:09
Speaker 1: way back to grandma's when her GPS signal on her
24:13
Speaker 1: phone stopped. It indicated her phone was turned off, the
24:17
Speaker 1: battery died, which never happened, or the phone was destroyed.
24:22
Speaker 1: Now who is Tiara? She had just graduated from high
24:28
Speaker 1: school and was starting classes at Guildford College. She registered
24:33
Speaker 1: for classes in early childhood development. The next day was
24:38
Speaker 1: a shopping trip with mom for her school books and
24:41
Speaker 1: a laptop, but that never happened. That term of college
24:46
Speaker 1: began one week after she disappears. She has never left
24:52
Speaker 1: home without warning. She has never once been out of
24:57
Speaker 1: touch by phone with family and friends. She is absolutely
25:01
Speaker 1: missing under suspicious circumstances. Her case is unsolved. Straight back
25:08
Speaker 1: to you, Dave, Max. So we know she visits the
25:10
Speaker 1: friend in the apartment complex, her grandma's apartment complex. We
25:15
Speaker 1: know she leaves. It's not just a friend's word, but
25:18
Speaker 1: the GPS in the phone shows she had left, and
25:22
Speaker 1: then everything stops right there. Where do we think she went? Then?
25:29
Speaker 2: Well, what we know? You mentioned that all of a sudden,
25:32
Speaker 2: the phone's off, There is no more GPS, It stops
25:35
Speaker 2: right then. Well, you know, Nancy, the immediate search for Tiara,
25:40
Speaker 2: it began within twenty four hours and began looking everywhere.
25:44
Speaker 2: The first searches were door to door in the apartment complex,
25:47
Speaker 2: because that's where they had her in the apartment complex
25:50
Speaker 2: parking lot. Nancy, we know that she did get into
25:55
Speaker 2: a car, and we know that she talked to some
26:01
Speaker 2: but according to what we know, she got out of
26:04
Speaker 2: the car and vanished into thin air. The searches all over.
26:09
Speaker 2: You look at that apartment complex, it's huge.
26:11
Speaker 1: They did.
26:12
Speaker 2: The searchers went door to door, They put up flyers,
26:14
Speaker 2: they searched the wooded area you see the trees. They
26:16
Speaker 2: went everywhere in there any sign of Fiara Williams. They
26:20
Speaker 2: were just looking for any scrap of information they could find.
26:23
Speaker 1: It was January seventh. Danielle Williams, Tierra's mom, was on
26:27
Speaker 1: the phone. She and her teen girl Tiara, were taking
26:33
Speaker 1: down their Christmas tree. She had dinner with Grandma that night.
26:38
Speaker 1: Family dinner, she told her mom she planned to meet
26:42
Speaker 1: a friend at the apartment complex just a few doors down.
26:46
Speaker 1: Mom says, Tiara peeked around the corner said hey, Mama,
26:51
Speaker 1: I love you, be home in an hour. That's the
26:54
Speaker 1: last she was ever seen. Now, Dave Matt, you bring
26:59
Speaker 1: up a disturbing fact that we know she was in
27:02
Speaker 1: a car. How do we know that?
27:05
Speaker 2: We know that because Nancy. There is a person that
27:11
Speaker 2: came into play. It was the name. The name is Travis.
27:14
Speaker 2: This is not a name that was known to Danielle's
27:17
Speaker 2: friends and family. Nobody knew who this Travis person was.
27:22
Speaker 2: But you know, I mentioned a minute ago that Tiara's
27:23
Speaker 2: mother had access to her Facebook page and could get
27:26
Speaker 2: in there. She used her Tara's Facebook page and looking
27:31
Speaker 2: through messages, private messages sent back and forth, was able
27:35
Speaker 2: to determine that this Travis person was an ex boyfriend
27:39
Speaker 2: and that was somebody that they were all familiar with.
27:44
Speaker 2: So in tracking back where Tiara had gone, this Travis
27:48
Speaker 2: person and again we do not know his real name
27:51
Speaker 2: even now, Nancy, but that is the person that Tiara
27:56
Speaker 2: met with that night in the parking lot of the
27:59
Speaker 2: apartment complex.
28:01
Speaker 1: So nobody in the family knew Travis. No one had
28:05
Speaker 1: seen him, nobody knew who he was.
28:07
Speaker 2: They didn't know the name Travis, Nancy. This was a
28:10
Speaker 2: name that was used that they didn't know.
28:15
Speaker 1: This was an Why did you say it's an ex boyfriend?
28:19
Speaker 2: Because she didn't want people to know she was talking
28:21
Speaker 2: to an ex boyfriend and mom found it out when
28:25
Speaker 2: she got into the Facebook messenger and saw who she
28:28
Speaker 2: was talking to and realized that that person that was
28:31
Speaker 2: being called Travis was actually this ex boyfriend. So saying
28:36
Speaker 2: that nobody knew the name Travis, she didn't have any
28:38
Speaker 2: friends named Travis. There was no Travis anywhere. It was
28:41
Speaker 2: the combination of the messages that mom found on Facebook.
28:44
Speaker 2: Realizing there was communication between Tiara and this ex boyfriend
28:49
Speaker 2: and reading those messages led her to the car where
28:53
Speaker 2: they were able to put two and two together that
28:54
Speaker 2: the ex boyfriend was being called Travis in communications.
29:02
Speaker 1: Karen Stark forensic psychologists joining US TV radio trauma expert Karen,
29:08
Speaker 1: You've got to ask why did she hide Travis from
29:13
Speaker 1: her grandma and mother? Look, have you ever dated a
29:16
Speaker 1: guy you weren't exactly proud to bring home for Sunday lunch?
29:20
Speaker 1: Because haven't we all? He's not who your parents want
29:24
Speaker 1: you to date. They don't want you to be together.
29:27
Speaker 1: They think he's a bad influence. That guy. I'm betting
29:30
Speaker 1: you that's who Travis is. That's why nobody knew about.
29:33
Speaker 4: It without a doubt. I really have to agree with that, Nancy,
29:38
Speaker 4: because she's so close to her family, she's always in
29:41
Speaker 4: contact with them, she never turns off the phone. But
29:44
Speaker 4: here she's in communication with somebody and it's a fictitious name.
29:51
Speaker 4: So who is this person? This alias? It has to
29:54
Speaker 4: be somebody that the family suspects didn't like. We'ren' happy
29:58
Speaker 4: with something bad at happened and she did not want
30:02
Speaker 4: anyone to know. She didn't want them to know. That's
30:05
Speaker 4: why he was using that name. And she got in
30:09
Speaker 4: a car, so it was somebody that she knew. She
30:13
Speaker 4: wouldn't just get in a car. This is a really
30:16
Speaker 4: you know, good girl, sticks to what she says. So
30:20
Speaker 4: there's someone that the family wouldn't approve of, and she
30:23
Speaker 4: hit it and that's not unusual.
30:26
Speaker 1: So Dave matt let me ask you this. If she
30:28
Speaker 1: has been communicating with Travis, we'll call them Travis too.
30:33
Speaker 1: If she's been communicating with him, certainly police would be
30:36
Speaker 1: able to follow that digital trail and find him themselves
30:40
Speaker 1: and question him.
30:42
Speaker 2: And they did. And Nancy as is the biggest red
30:46
Speaker 2: flag to me of every story. When somebody involved in
30:50
Speaker 2: the case lies, you got a problem. And this so
30:55
Speaker 2: called Travis person. When detectives approached him and talked to
30:59
Speaker 2: him the first time, he said, oh, I haven't seen her.
31:02
Speaker 2: I have not seen her in a while. And it
31:05
Speaker 2: was only after he was presented with evidence that they
31:09
Speaker 2: had not just been in communication, but that she was
31:12
Speaker 2: planning to see him. That's when Travis, allegedly that's when
31:16
Speaker 2: he admitted, oh oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we did meet
31:19
Speaker 2: in the apartment complex. We were in my car for
31:21
Speaker 2: twenty or thirty minutes, but then she got out and
31:24
Speaker 2: walked back towards her grandma's.
31:25
Speaker 1: What without her phone?
31:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. That's the that's the part that
31:30
Speaker 2: you know, Nancy, this whole thing a minute. Somebody lies
31:32
Speaker 2: about who they were with and when they were with him,
31:34
Speaker 2: you got a problem. So he did change that story.
31:39
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't want.
31:40
Speaker 1: To either, Dave Matt As you and I have discussed
31:42
Speaker 1: many times, Dave, if you add facts to your story,
31:46
Speaker 1: I always attribute that to oh yeah, I remember X,
31:49
Speaker 1: Y and Z now, or the questioner didn't ask you
31:54
Speaker 1: the right questions. The questioner must be thorough. But when
31:59
Speaker 1: you begin to change your story, that's a problem, going
32:04
Speaker 1: from no, I haven't seen her in months to oh yeah, right,
32:07
Speaker 1: I saw her the night she disappeared off the face
32:09
Speaker 1: of the earth, And to you, if it's Gibbons, isn't
32:12
Speaker 1: it true? For instance, on My Life three sixty, if
32:16
Speaker 1: I look up the twins, I can see their phone moving.
32:20
Speaker 1: It will tell me. It will show little feet if
32:22
Speaker 1: they're walking, it will show that they're in a car moving.
32:26
Speaker 1: It will show if they're in a building, it shows you.
32:29
Speaker 1: So that is through digital technology, and it can actually
32:35
Speaker 1: show their route even if they're in transit. So clearly
32:39
Speaker 1: police can look and see where that phone last pinged.
32:43
Speaker 1: Is it where he said they were in the car?
32:46
Speaker 1: Did the phone move as if it were being transported
32:49
Speaker 1: in a car. We can tell all that. Plus he
32:52
Speaker 1: says a different story when pressed. That's not good.
32:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, not great at all when you know you're being questioned.
33:02
Speaker 3: This individual is being questioned by police about a missing
33:06
Speaker 3: person who he was potentially the last person to be
33:11
Speaker 3: in communication with her, and he's immediately confronted with that
33:15
Speaker 3: fact that police have those communications and access to those
33:21
Speaker 3: text messages that were sent over Facebook messenger, and he
33:25
Speaker 3: has to change his story to admit it. Right, So
33:29
Speaker 3: this is, you know, an obvious, an obvious thing to
33:34
Speaker 3: highlight this investigation that this person needed to be looked into.
33:39
Speaker 7: We're still piecing together a timeline, if you will, of
33:43
Speaker 7: everything that she was exactly doing before she went missing,
33:47
Speaker 7: and you know, just trying to make a determination is
33:49
Speaker 7: where she could have gone or who she may have
33:52
Speaker 7: left with a hope.
33:54
Speaker 6: To see her come home soon, healthy, unharmed. So we
34:01
Speaker 6: can rebuild our family, rebuild her and just move forward
34:07
Speaker 6: in life.
34:08
Speaker 8: We want to find this young woman and we hope
34:10
Speaker 8: that we find her in good shape. And unfortunately, we
34:14
Speaker 8: don't currently have any active leads that we're pursuing because
34:18
Speaker 8: at this point those leads have been exhausted.
34:21
Speaker 2: We're looking to check a double check and triple jack.
34:25
Speaker 3: We believe in miracles and God, we ask for a
34:28
Speaker 3: miracle this day.
34:31
Speaker 1: We may need a miracle to find this girl. Where
34:35
Speaker 1: is Tierra? That from our friends at w x I I,
34:41
Speaker 1: w F M Y, and w x l V. Tonight,
34:47
Speaker 1: the question looms, how does a teen girl go have dinner,
34:53
Speaker 1: family dinner, gather around the table at Grandma's and then
34:57
Speaker 1: it's never seen again. If you know or think you
35:02
Speaker 1: know anything about the disappearance of Tiera Williams, look at her,
35:08
Speaker 1: please dial Greensboro PD three three six three seven three
35:14
Speaker 1: two two two two or hotline three three six nine
35:20
Speaker 1: eight seven zero three three three. There is a twelve
35:26
Speaker 1: thousand dollar reward a twelve thousand dollar reward for information
35:33
Speaker 1: leading to the whereabouts of this teen girl, Tiera Williams.
35:39
Speaker 1: We remember an American hero Officer Brian Durman, Lexington County PD, Kentucky,
35:46
Speaker 1: just twenty seven, killed in the line of duty after
35:50
Speaker 1: serving two years, leaving behind a wife now widow, Brandy,
35:55
Speaker 1: and a little boy, Braden. Sentenced to life without dat
36:00
Speaker 1: American hero Officer Brian Durman. Thank you to our guest,
36:05
Speaker 1: but especially to you for being with us tonight. Nancy
36:08
Speaker 1: Gray signing off, I'll see you tomorrow night, and until then,
36:12
Speaker 1: good night friend.