UPDATE: At 7:35 p.m. on March 21 — shortly after Dateline published the article on Nia’s disappearance — her mother, Shannon Lewis, told Dateline in a text that she just learned her daughter had been found dead.
No additional details are available at this time.
“This is not anything that I would wish on anybody,” Shannon Lewis told Dateline. “[To] experience something like this.”
Shannon’s 25-year-old daughter, Nia Rash, vanished from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 28, 2022.
“This is so unreal, but it’s, like, my reality,” Shannon said.
Shannon told Dateline that she and Nia are very close. “She’s my middle child,” she said. “She’s the one that will still like climbing in the bed with me.”
Shannon said that her daughter is very inventive and courageous, but most of all — loves being with her family. “She likes when everybody’s altogether,” Shannon said. “She’s a very loving person.”
Shannon told Dateline that upon graduating high school, Nia got a degree in psychology at a community college in Pittsburgh. She then started working towards her bachelor’s degree, until she began to face troubles. “I think everything started getting a little overwhelming for her,” Shannon told Dateline. “There was an onset, I want to say when she was like 22, of a mental illness. That’s when she started to kind of display different characteristics.”
Shannon told Dateline that her daughter was struggling with her mental health and decided to take a break from school. “I think she was having a really tough time,” Shannon said. “She kind of fell back and took a break from everything.”
Nia was living at home with Shannon in a Pittsburgh suburb at the time of her disappearance.
On December 28, 2022, Shannon said that she was at work when she last texted her daughter around 4:06 p.m. “I asked her where she was going and she said, ‘I’m riding the bus, Mama. I’m not really going to any particular place,’” Shannon recalled. Nia told her that she “just wanted to get out of the house.”
That was the last time Shannon spoke to her daughter.
Shannon said it wasn’t uncommon for Nia to go into the city for a couple of days and stay with friends. But what was uncommon — was that she wasn’t answering her mother anymore. “She still would go off and get in her moods and want to be left alone,” Shannon said. “But she cared about what I thought and wanted to do things to make me happy.”
Shannon told Dateline she tried texting Nia throughout the evening and into the next day, but she wasn’t getting a response. “She left on a Wednesday. Thursday, I sent her a couple of texts and she didn’t respond to anything,” she said. “Friday, I filed the police report.”
The Penn Hills Police Department is investigating Nia’s disappearance. On January 7, 2022, they posted on their Facebook page that Nia was seen at the PAT bus stop located at Frankstown and Duff Roads in Penn Hills on December 28, 2022, at around 4:15 p.m.
The post goes on to say that she was then seen exiting the “PAT Bus on Penn Avenue at South Graham Street in the City of Pittsburgh,” about 25 minutes away -- around 4:53 p.m. that same day.
The post does not indicate whether foul play is suspected, but it does state that Nia is officially considered an endangered missing person.
Dateline has reached out to the Penn Hills Police Department for the latest information on Nia’s case but has yet to receive a response.
Shannon said that she has hired a private investigator to get to the bottom of her daughter’s disappearance. Until they do, Shannon said that she and her family will continue to do what they can to find Nia. “We went downtown and we were passing out flyers,” she said, adding that they are also working with the Black and Missing Foundation. “[They have] been instrumental in this process.”
Nia is around 5’9” tall and weighs 120 lbs. She wears glasses and has short hair. She was last seen wearing a black coat with a hood with fur, gray sweatpants and light brown Ugg boots.
Anyone with information about Nia’s disappearance is asked to call the Penn Hills Police Department at 412-342-1167.
