Play the episode “Taking Teekah” of the Dateline: Missing in America podcast below and click here to follow.
Read the transcript here:
You could feel the energy the moment you walked in.
Laughter echoed off the walls. The smell of burgers and fries hung in the air.
Bowling balls rumbled down lanes, followed by the clatter of pins.
This was a Saturday night in Tacoma, Washington.
Josh Mankiewicz: “There were a lot of people there that night.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Oh, yeah. At least 350.”
January 23rd, 1999. The neon sign read “New Frontier Lanes.”
That glow drew people in on a damp, chilly evening.
Theresa Czapiewski was one of them.
Theresa Czapiewski: “So we get there and we get our shoes and we go to our lanes.”
Theresa was there with two of her daughters, her boyfriend, some family, and some friends.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And Teekah sees the video games.”
Teekah was Theresa’s two-year-old. She picked out a game over in the bowling alley’s arcade.
Theresa Czapiewski: “It was my turn to bowl, and I told my brother and my boyfriend, ‘Make sure you watch Teekah so nobody, you know, nothing happens to her.’”
Theresa bowled her frame. And something did happen.
Theresa Czapiewski: “She was gone.”
That was more than two decades ago.
The search for Teekah began that night.
And it still is not over.
Theresa Czapiewski: “My kids have suffered for 26 years not knowing where their sister’s been.”
I’m Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline. This episode is “Taking Teekah.”
Please listen closely because you or someone you know might have information that could help solve this case and finally give Teekah’s family the answers they’ve been searching for.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I’m going to do my part to find what happened to my daughter.”
Tacoma, Washington, is a city of contrasts.
Industrial streets buzzing with life, Mount Rainier a quiet giant in the distance.
In one house on Tacoma’s east side, life was anything but quiet.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Tell me what it’s like having all those daughters around?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Whoa. I could say that, you know, a lot of emotions going on in the house and different attitudes, but they’re my everything.”
Theresa, by every definition, is a “girl mom.”
Back then, she was 27 and raising five daughters on her own.
Katarina Johnson: “It was always fun times in the house.”
That’s Katarina, Teekah’s older sister. Back in 1999, she was 6 years old.
Katarina Johnson: “She was such an energetic little girl. She had the prettiest, big, brown eyes. She was so loving and just always wanting to be around her big sisters or around her mother.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “She slept with Mama. She went with me everywhere. I couldn’t go nowhere without her.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “That’s why you took her to the bowling alley.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Exactly.”
Theresa says that Saturday started out normally.
Theresa Czapiewski: “Me, and my boyfriend, and um my three daughters, we went on posts.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “He was in the military then?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Yes, he was in the military. And on our way home, we stopped at Taco Bell to get the kids some food.”
Theresa says her eldest twin daughters were already with their godmother. She dropped Katarina off with her aunt before the evening began.
Katarina Johnson: “I can see how, um, four or five kids around, you know, when it’s bowling, it can be a lot, so —.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “So maybe you wanna park some of them somewhere else for the night.”
Katarina Johnson: “Right. Right.”
Theresa got her youngest two, Teekah and Tameeka, ready for a night at the bowling alley.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Tell me what Teekah was wearing that day.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Green Tweety Bird shirt, white sweats, and white and black Air Jordans. And her hair was up in a ponytail.”
New Frontier Lanes seemed the safest of places.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Was that a place you regularly went?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “The week before, I went and I took my twins. There was nobody in there, so I wasn’t worried. So I said, ‘Well, hey, we’ll go back the next week.’ I wish I would’ve never went, ‘cause that’s when the nightmare started.”
By around 10 p.m., the big group was settled at their lanes.
Theresa kept an eye on her 10-month-old, Tameeka, who sat in her carrier — and on Teekah, who ran back and forth between her and the arcade.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And she seen her uncle go up there and her uncle was playing the game, and he won a stuffed animal, and he gave it to his niece. And Teekah, you know, she gave it to her baby sister.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “So he gave it to Teekah and she gave it to Tameeka.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Yep. Her sister still has that bear.”
Then Teekah spotted a racing game.
Josh Mankiewicz: “And she was at that driving game when you went to bowl?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Oh, yeah. She was there. I seen her.”
Theresa says that’s when she told her boyfriend and brother to watch Teekah while she bowled.
Her attention was diverted for maybe 15 seconds.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And I turned back around, and I looked up and I asked them, ‘Where is Teekah?’ And they were like, ‘She’s up there.’”
They assumed Teekah was still playing in the crowded arcade and just couldn’t see her.
After all, she was quite small.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I went up to the game, looked in between the games, around the corner. I went to the end of the bowling alley and went into the bathroom down there. She was nowhere around.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And you’re getting a little bit more frantic every second.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Oh, yeah. ‘Cause I know my baby wouldn’t leave me.”
Theresa rushed into another bathroom and ran right into her sister-in-law.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And I asked her, ‘Have you seen Teekah?’ And she said, ‘No. She’s not in here.’ And so, I went up to the announcement desk, ‘cause there was an officer there — he was off duty — and I told him, I said, ‘My daughter’s gone.’”
The officer got on the PA system — telling everyone to watch for a 2-year-old in a green Tweety Bird shirt.
Twenty minutes later, he called for backup.
When officers from the Tacoma Police Department arrived, Theresa met them outside.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I was with the officer at one corner of the entrance, my sister-in-law comes to me and said, ‘Hey, that woman has your daughter.’”
That’s when things took another frightening turn.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And I was like, ‘What do you mean she has my daughter?’”
Theresa Czapiewski was outside the bowling alley, talking with officers about her missing two-year-old daughter, Teekah.
That’s when her sister-in-law told her a woman had her daughter.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And I was like, ‘What do you mean she has my daughter?’ ‘She has your baby in her car. And she’s getting ready to leave.’”
Theresa was living a nightmare, frantically looking for Teekah.
And then suddenly that nightmare had a new dimension: Someone had grabbed her other daughter, Tameeka.
Josh Mankiewicz: “We’re not talking about Teekah here. We’re talking about Tameeka.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “We’re talking about Tameeka — my 10-month-old, at the time.”
In the chaos of the search for Teekah, a woman had gathered up Tameeka and was about to leave with her.
Theresa ran to the car and saw her daughter Tameeka with a woman who had been sitting behind their group in the bowling alley earlier that evening. Someone who had made Theresa and her brother uncomfortable.
Theresa Czapiewski: “She was asking us, ‘Can I hold your baby?’”
The woman asked to hold her brother’s baby.
And he let her. But, then…
Theresa Czapiewski: “She wouldn’t give my nephew back to him. And so, he told her, ‘Give me my son or we’re going to have problems in here.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “That’s very alarming.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Very. Very.”
Her name was Rita Miller. She was in her 30s.
And now she had Tameeka.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And she took her to her car.”
Rita had strapped Tameeka into her car and was ready to drive off.
Theresa Czapiewski: “And I told her, ‘That’s my daughter, give her back.’ She was like, ‘No, that’s not your daughter.’ And I said, ‘If you don’t give me my daughter, I’m bringing the police.’”
Rita refused.
Josh Mankiewicz: “They have to physically take Tameeka back from this woman and give her back to Theresa, who is still searching for Teekah.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Yes, something along those lines.”
That’s Sergeant Julie Dier of the Tacoma Police Department.
She inherited this case in 2021.
And for her, this was personal.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So when I was 10 years old, somebody broke into our house and almost yanked me out of bed. He grabbed my arm, said my mom wanted me — she told him to come get me. My sister woke up, started yelling, and then he let go of me and ran away.”
Dier’s family had emigrated from Russia to Tacoma. She says her parents reported the incident to police, but no one really followed up.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Since we were immigrants and my parents didn’t speak very good English — and kind of got thrown to the wayside, the whole reporting issue. And it wasn’t looked into.”
For Sgt. Dier, Teekah’s case is more than just a file. It is a chance to do what no one did for her.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So that made an impact, as far as how I look at some of these cases.”
Dier says officers back then quickly realized Rita — the woman who tried to take Tameeka — had mental health issues.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “They put her in a patrol car and, uh, while she was in a patrol car, she had made an attempt on her own life. And she had to get involuntarily committed.”
Tameeka was now safely in her mother’s arms. At the same time, Teekah was still missing.
Did Rita know where she was?
If so, one thing was certain — she was not talking. Not that night, anyway.
Theresa spent hours at the bowling alley – searching, talking with police.
Soon, there was not much else for Theresa to do but go home and pray for answers.
She also had to tell her girls — including Katarina, who was 6.
Katarina Johnson: “So, my mom had called my Aunt Rose and told her that we needed to go to my grandma’s house. Everybody was meeting up there — that, you know, something had happened. Let my godmom know so my older sisters could come as well.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And what did you think had happened?”
Katarina Johnson: “Um, I think, like, a car accident or something. Like, nothing serious – or nothing happened to my sisters. But, no. My mom comes in. She’s crying – like, just face red, blotchy – just crying, hysterical – coming in and was like, you know, ‘Teekah’s gone. Teekah’s not with us. She’s missing.’”
A missing sister is hard for any child to comprehend.
Katarina Johnson: “It didn’t really sink in until, like, a couple of days later, when I’m looking around and Teekah’s not here. You know, like, ‘Where is she? Where is she at? Why — why isn’t my sister here?’”
The days and weeks that followed were a whirlwind.
Police and volunteers fanned out across the wooded area around the bowling alley — searching, hoping, for any clue.
Volunteer: “If you find anything at all that you think is of interest, don’t pick it up.”
KING 5 Reporter: “Four dozen volunteers stand shoulder- to-shoulder searching for clues into the disappearance of Teekah Lewis.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “It feels like law enforcement really responded from the get-go.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “They were out there, yes. There were multiple teams of different people out there. Search and rescue was out there. The FBI came out. Everybody — I mean, everybody — participated in this.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “What kind of searches did they do and what areas were they searching?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So, grid searches. I wanna say they did the helicopter searches and knocking on doors and canvassing. People went out, literally, to apartment complexes, just knocking on every single door. ‘Hey, have you heard anything? Do you know anything? Have you seen anything?’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “None of that led anywhere.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “No.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You didn’t find anything that led back to Teekah – you find anything else?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “They did find some clothing that were folded in the wooded area, and that’s still in evidence. But nobody knows who -- whose it is.”
Theresa appeared on local TV, in anguish.
Theresa Czapiewski on TV: “To that person or persons who has my daughter: How can you live with yourself knowing you have someone else’s daughter? All I ask is for you to bring my daughter home safely.”
Katarina Johnson: “That’s when people started to ask like, ‘Hey, we see you on the news, we see your mom on the news, um, talking about how your sister’s not here anymore. Do you know what happened?’”
Katarina’s classmates had tons of questions. She had no answers.
No one did. Weeks became months... still no sign of Teekah.
Then — a disturbing story surfaced. Theresa heard about something that had happened just months before Teekah vanished, at the very same bowling alley.
Josh Mankiewicz: “A man assaults a little boy in the bathroom of that bowling alley.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Exactly.”
Sergeant Dier says the man sexually attacked the boy, then took off.
A witness described him as a white male with curly brown hair and a beard.
Theresa had to wonder: Could that man have abducted Teekah?
Police were asking the same question. Except, they never caught that man.
It was a lead that went nowhere.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “There were several incidents that happened, and everything was investigated.”
Theresa heard another story about something that happened at a park near the bowling alley.
The same day Teekah vanished, a man was seen trying to motion kids into a bathroom.
According to police reports obtained by Dateline, the man — described as a white male with dark hair — was chased off and drove away in a blue Pontiac Grand Am.
It’s not clear if that man was ever found, and Sgt. Dier says she doesn’t know much about that incident.
However, the detail about the car that man drove seemed to match up with a report from another witness in Teekah’s disappearance.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “At about 10:20 is when the, uh, announcements were started – being made about the missing girl. And, uh, around the same time, a lady was pulling into the bowling alley parking lot, and she said that a Pontiac Grand Am pulled out of there super-fast, almost running into her. And she was shown a montage of different cars, and the one that she picked out most matched a Pontiac Grand Am. The color she said appeared to be like a reddish, almost purplish color. And the year, maybe ‘98, ‘99.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “No license plate.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “She didn’t get a license plate.”
Could the driver of that Grand Am have taken Teekah?
Josh Mankiewicz: “And no information on who might have been driving —”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “No.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “— or who else might have been in the car?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “No.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “OK. What do you do with that information?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Well, back then they looked at any owners of Pontiacs. And I don’t think it provided anything good back then.”
The case eventually went cold.
Teekah never left her sisters’ hearts.
Katarina Johnson: “We used to do, like, a song. We would sing, like, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ but we would add Teekah’s name into it. And we would be, like, you know, ‘We wonder where you are.’”
Birthdays came and went.
Josh Mankiewicz: “July Fourth’s a little different for you than it is for the rest of us, isn’t it?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Yeah. The fourth of July is her birthday.”
Every year, Theresa blew out a candle for her daughter.
Her wish? The same one every time: To finally have an answer.
Would that wish of hers ever come true? A potential break in the case was coming...
Reporter: “Police will not say what the tip was or what cold case it is related to.”
Twenty-six years later — a mysterious tip, and a massive search that could change everything...
Twenty-two years after Teekah disappeared, Sgt. Julie Dier was handed the case file.
She picked up where detectives before her left off, starting with Rita Miller, the woman who was stopped from kidnapping Teekah’s 10-month-old baby sister that night.
Josh Mankiewicz: “What made you want to keep going on that?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So, I mean, it was obviously a question that had remained not fully answered. And Theresa kept bringing it up, so I wanted to answer that for her, as well. And so I found her and she lives in a home right now for certain individuals.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Her mental condition has deteriorated too much for her to be of any help.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she’s not quite there.”
Theresa believes something should’ve been done about Rita much sooner.
Theresa Czapiewski: “She should have been charged that night for attempted abduction of my 10-month-old, but she wasn’t.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And now she’s not in any condition to help.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “None at all.”
Dier says she can’t speak for the actions of the investigators who came before her, but says many good detectives worked the case. If they thought Rita was connected to Teekah’s disappearance, she says, they would’ve followed that lead to the end.
It might have been too late to ask Rita what she may or may not have known.
It was not too late for Sgt. Dier to chase down another lead.
One that detectives before her had already started looking into: A 911 call placed on the night of Teekah’s disappearance.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “The phone call wasn’t discovered until around 2020 — that’s when COVID happened. And I think people started looking into it and then all hell broke loose.”
It was from a mother who said her adult son was acting strangely.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Her son had made some, uh, suspicious statements to her, so she called for a welfare check on him.”
According to police reports, the man asked his mother if she would leave the country with him.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “She called and said, uh, he called and asked her if she would leave town with him, if he needed to leave or something along those lines — which is odd. Why would he need to leave town, particularly on that night? This was about two hours after Teekah went missing. So that is what initially brought him to our attention.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And I guess he lived near the bowling alley.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “He lived in the area. And he at some point owned a Pontiac.”
Police know the man’s name, and so do we. However, for investigative reasons, they have asked us not to use it. So for this story, we’re calling the man... John Doe.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So, Mr. Doe was about, maybe early 40s at the time that Teekah disappeared. He, uh, was actually independently wealthy but, um, had some mental health issues and, uh, sexual deviancy issues — nothing with children, mostly with adults.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Give me some — some idea of what we’re talking about with sexual deviancy here, ‘cause that’s a pretty broad term.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So, like calling his pastor’s wife and telling her the things that he’d like to do with her and — that sort of stuff.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Mm-hmm. So, like, some harassment and intimidation things.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Yeah, but, um, things he’d like to do with her in a sexual nature.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did he have a criminal record?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “There was, like, petty stuff, maybe, like, car theft and things like that.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “This is not someone who’d been locked up on some sex charge or some offense regarding children?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “No. No, no, no.”
There was something else...
Dier says Mr. Doe also matched the description of someone a witness saw at the bowling alley the night Teekah vanished.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “It was maybe a couple days after it happened. It was a younger individual, a teenager, that had said that he saw what he thought was this man walking with a mixed-race little girl and he thought it was odd.”
Back in 1999, that teenage witness said he saw the man lingering near the little girl as she played a driving game at the arcade.
According to police reports, the teen later saw the man and the girl heading toward the front desk, and the man seemed to be trying to keep up with her.
The witness said the man seemed “nervous and out of place” and described him as white, with a pockmarked face, and wearing a blue checkered flannel shirt.
As police pieced it all together, they compared that witness description with a photo of John Doe.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “And when we looked at his booking photo, he had a pockmarked face. He had maybe shoulder-ish, curly-ish hair. He’s a white male, early 40s. He matched that description.”
And the little girl he was seen with?
Teekah is Black, white, and Native American, so that sounded a lot like her, too.
Twenty years after Teekah disappeared, Sgt. Dier says other officers tracked down that witness again, and his story remained mostly the same, but with one new detail: He added that he saw the man holding the little girl’s hand and actually walking toward the front door to leave the bowling alley.
Officers showed him a photo of John Doe, along with those of several other men.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “This was shown to the person that described the individual he thought he saw walking with Teekah, and, uh — along with five other photos, which is what we call a photo montage. And he was unable to pick anybody on that photo montage. But apparently, when he saw that particular photo, he paused for a second, which kind of made an impression, as well.”
Teekah’s mom says police showed her that same photo montage.
Theresa Czapiewski: “In 2020, the detectives wanted me to come down to look at some photos.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “They’re trying to see if you recognize someone from the bowling alley.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Yeah. I looked at them and I remember photo number three, and I believe I seen him that night at the bowling alley.”
Photo number three was John Doe.
In November 2023, Sgt. Dier paid him a visit.
The conversation did not yield much.
Mr. Doe insisted he had never been to New Frontier Lanes. Yes, he said, he did own a Pontiac, but claimed it was no match to the description of the one seen speeding away that night.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “So, he owned a Pontiac at one point, and then he also rented a Pontiac. And the one that he owned — we talked to him about it — and he said it was actually a Pontiac Grand Prix, and he said it was fire red. And that’s a completely different-shaped vehicle. And then the one that he rented — I tried to run down the information on it. Since it was so long ago, I couldn’t find any information on it.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And he denied being there.”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “He denied being there. He said that he never went bowling to that particular bowling alley. So I can’t — I can’t put him in that area.”
Dier and her partner left John Doe’s house with little more than they arrived with.
When they returned months later, John Doe was gone.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “We went back to his house in January of 2024, and we were informed that he was deceased. Thankfully, he was recently deceased, and the medical examiner had his, uh, what we call a blood card. So we were able to collect that and get his DNA that way.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “So if you ever find a body or some other genetic material, you can match him to it or rule him out?”
Sgt. Julie Dier: “Yes.”
Dier says the late John Doe died of natural causes and remains a person of interest.
Theresa Czapiewski believes he might have had the answers she’s been waiting for.
Theresa Czapiewski: “This man was sick. I think he harmed my daughter and then hurt her. And me, as a mom, I’m going to do my part to find what happened to my daughter.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Clearly, police were interested in this guy, but they couldn’t build a case against him before he died.”
Theresa Czapiewski: “‘Cause they waited all these years.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You think they waited too long?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Of course they did.”
Katarina shares her mother’s feelings.
Katarina Johnson: “Even though that this is one of our solid leads, um, it’s not gonna go anywhere.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Whatever he knew, he took with him to the grave.”
Katarina Johnson: “He took with him. So even if he was the person that did take Teekah, we’ll never know.”
Sgt. Dier says her department started investigating John Doe as soon as that information came in, but any action had to be legally supported and based on facts. That includes writing warrants, waiting on lab results, and following up on tips. It is all an evidentiary threshold the public may not always appreciate.
The truth is, we still don’t know what happened to Teekah.
We don’t know if John Doe had any involvement at all.
We don’t know if Teekah simply wandered off.
We do know this case is still making headlines.
Reporter: “Neighbors are concerned and looking for answers as police continue to search the backyard of a Tacoma home.”
On May 19, 2025, a large-scale search began at a home in Tacoma, Washington, a location just a few minutes away from where Teekah disappeared.
Drone footage showed multiple tents set up and Tacoma Police Department officers spread out across the property – digging.
The department tried their best to keep the whole operation hush-hush.
Reporter: “It could be any of the city’s 147 cold cases.”
Who owned that property being searched? And what were officers hoping to find?
On day three of the search, we spoke with Theresa by phone.
She said there were whispers this search was for Teekah.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I was there yesterday morning and I seen the drone shot. And then, um, I seen some last night and they’re digging deeper into the ground. They brought more dogs out yesterday.”
Theresa says she spoke with neighbors to find out who lived at that home back in 1999.
She found out some information, all of it speculative.
Theresa Czapiewski: “There’s a lady that lives across the street that has been there for 45 years, and she knows what was going on in that house.”
Then, while we were still on the phone, Theresa got another phone call.
Theresa Czapiewski: “Um, can I call you right back?”
Theresa called us back.
Theresa Czapiewski: “So that was the chief of police and she confirmed that they were digging for Teekah — but they did not find her.”
Now she is experiencing the difficult mix of emotions so many families of the missing go through... It’s both disappointment and relief.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I’m relieved. But at the same time, we’re back to square one.”
On May 21st, the Tacoma Police Department released a statement about the search.
They confirmed it was related to Teekah, and that a tip had prompted the investigation.
The details of that tip remain unknown. Police said they exhaustively followed it for three days, but in the end, they found nothing.
That’s all police are saying at this point.
Theresa is not giving up.
Theresa Czapiewski: “I ask myself every day, ‘Who would want to harm a baby?’ And I hope one day I’ll find out what happened to her.”
Sergeant Dier says she’s still on this. And it’s still personal.
Sgt. Julie Dier: “At the time I started looking at this case, I, uh, I had a boy about the same age as Teekah was when she went missing. So, for me, just knowing how a parent could feel when a little person could go missing like that — for me, it’s just heart-wrenching.”
Teekah has another little sister now — Taneeka, born just a few years after Teekah went missing. Taneeka never met her sister, of course.
Theresa Czapiewski: “But we’ve told her everything about her. We showed her videos, pictures — everything she needs to know about her sister, she knows.”
Taneeka knows the place where her sister vanished: New Frontier Lanes, January 23rd, 1999.
The building itself is gone now. What remains are memories. And Teekah’s is one of them.
Josh Mankiewicz: “What’s your advice to other parents?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “Hold your babies tight. Don’t — never let them go. Don’t trust nobody around your babies. Nobody. And if you are in a public setting, keep an eye on them ‘cause you never know.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “It can happen pretty fast, can’t it?”
Theresa Czapiewski: “It can. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”
Theresa’s daughters are all adults now.
Even so, through the years, they have always tried to gather and hold a vigil for Teekah, the sister who isn’t there.
Katarina Johnson: “Every year.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Does that help you?”
Katarina Johnson: “In a way, it kind of does. I still don’t say too much at the vigils. You know, I stick to myself, so my silence, my prayers, um, I send them out every day for her.”
Every year, they pray for the little girl who vanished into that January night.
Theresa Czapiewski: “Teekah was my everything. Everything. Everybody has years and years with their kids. I had two and a half years with Teekah and it wasn’t enough.”
Here is where you can help…
Today, Teekah Lewis would be 28 years old. On January 23rd, 1999, she was a child — 3 feet tall and 35 lbs. She had black hair, brown eyes, and pierced ears. She was wearing a green Tweety Bird T-shirt, with sweatpants, and red, white, and black Air Jordans.
Anyone with information about Teekah’s disappearance is asked to call the Tacoma Police Department at 253-591-5950.
To learn more about other people we’ve covered in our Missing in America series, go to DatelineMissingInAmerica.com. There you’ll be able to view age-progressed photos of Teekah Lewis, and also submit cases you think we should cover in the future.
Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
