When a young singer disappears, her family, police and a woman with a prophetic vision launch an urgent search, but it's a set of keys that unlocks the answers.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Tonight, on an all-new 2020, a young woman is missing but her family had to fight so
00:00:05hard to get any national attention.
00:00:08Why is no one saying Tameka Houston's name at the same time as Natalie Holloway or Lacey
00:00:13Peterson?
00:00:14I went to the key locations to follow the investigation.
00:00:18The search warrants a test for possible blood.
00:00:25In your heart, you're thinking something's wrong.
00:00:28I knew, knew, knew at that point that time was of the essence.
00:00:32She's gone.
00:00:33Like, we have to find her.
00:00:35She has to be in danger.
00:00:38It was just like, oh my God, what's going on?
00:00:42You went to Spartanburg, you wanted to see the location.
00:00:45If you're looking for somebody, you gotta go, you gotta look for them.
00:00:48I remember just sitting outside of her house, in the car by myself, still not knowing what's
00:00:54going on.
00:00:55I wanna, I wanna know, before I leave here, y'all gonna tell me something, either she
00:01:00dead or we gonna find her.
00:01:01You're Tameka's last known boyfriend.
00:01:04Yeah.
00:01:06You gotta know that people are going to look at you.
00:01:08I told them, you're wasting time.
00:01:11Tameka's home is here, and then they find the car across town at this apartment complex,
00:01:16which made no sense.
00:01:17I saw this vision of someone looking through these woods or these bushes.
00:01:22I knew it was connected to Tameka.
00:01:25Was that a real moment for you in this investigation?
00:01:28The key unlocks a door?
00:01:30We talked about her not being here at 25.
00:01:33You talked about her not being alive?
00:01:35Yes.
00:01:36Yes.
00:01:37What do you mean?
00:01:52Plane is scheduled for 148 North St. Andrews Park.
00:02:00When police entered this home on June 16, 2004, they find a disturbing scene, a dog
00:02:08which has apparently given birth to a litter of puppies with no owner in sight.
00:02:12That discovery would trigger the search for 24-year-old Tameka Houston.
00:02:22You get a call from Tameka's aunt that she's missing.
00:02:28How frantic was she?
00:02:30In missing person cases, you learn from what the family, how the family reacts.
00:02:35And once I met with Rebecca and talked with her, I knew it was serious.
00:02:39My name is Steve Lamb.
00:02:42I was the lieutenant over the investigation bureau at the time.
00:02:47I did not know Tameka, but I felt like that Rebecca knew something was not right.
00:02:52My sister Gabriella called me and she said, listen, she's back.
00:02:56She said, I called her and she hasn't called me back yet.
00:02:59I was like, oh my gosh, Gabby, you know what?
00:03:00She hasn't called me back either.
00:03:02And what are you thinking?
00:03:03I panic at that point because it's one thing for her to ignore a casual message,
00:03:08but not a message like, Tameka, I need you to call me right now.
00:03:11So I picked up the phone and called the Spartanburg Public Safety Department to report her missing.
00:03:18So you get this call.
00:03:19What's your first effort to check this out?
00:03:23So our patrol division responds first.
00:03:26They check the residence.
00:03:29Nothing unusual.
00:03:30Knock on the door, check the mailbox, check with neighbors.
00:03:34I remember being on the phone and they're telling me, you know,
00:03:36they're just, there doesn't seem to be signs of a disturbance.
00:03:39Like the doors are locked.
00:03:41Her car wasn't there, which I, you know, so like, oh, maybe she did just take a trip.
00:03:45To be honest with you, it was typical for her to, you know,
00:03:49go through a moment where she was just doing her own thing.
00:03:53So it didn't really raise any red flags.
00:03:56Tameka's parents were divorced.
00:03:58Her dad lived in South Carolina and her mom, Gabriella, lived in Virginia.
00:04:03It wasn't unlike her to get in her car and drive from Spartanburg
00:04:08and show up at Gabby's doorstep with no notice.
00:04:11Showed up in Miami and called me and was like, hey, I'm going to come down for dinner tonight.
00:04:15We had family all up and down the East Coast.
00:04:18Just no one had heard from her.
00:04:19At what point do you go in?
00:04:21One of the investigators felt like there was an odor coming from the residence.
00:04:26Well, I knew that, you know, it was potentially a crime scene.
00:04:29Honestly, I expected to find her in there, but she wasn't.
00:04:32They did a wellness check and they found things in her home
00:04:35that were completely inconsistent with her personality.
00:04:38There was a dog inside and a puppy.
00:04:41And I think there were more puppies at one time, but they had died.
00:04:45The dog had drank all the water out of its bowl, eaten all of its food,
00:04:50drank all the water out of the toilet.
00:04:53It was just obvious that she had not been there for quite some time.
00:04:58When law enforcement finally showed up at her house,
00:05:00her pit bull was there on the verge of starvation.
00:05:03There was only one puppy who was still barely alive.
00:05:08There's death inside.
00:05:10It's like a crime scene.
00:05:12The dog is telling us she's gone, she's missing.
00:05:16Go find her.
00:05:18That scared me.
00:05:19That really, really scared me because I knew Macy was like her child.
00:05:24It was just a horrific scene.
00:05:26Tamika's Aunt Rebecca, her mom's younger sister, lived in Miami.
00:05:30The two had been close since Tamika was a child.
00:05:34We're only seven years apart,
00:05:35so honestly she was really more like a little sister to me.
00:05:38That's Tamika opening a present from her Aunt Becky.
00:05:48She was full of personality.
00:05:50She was only 4'11", but when she walked into the room,
00:05:53she was 6 feet tall because she just commanded the attention of the room.
00:05:58Me and Tamika actually met in junior high school.
00:06:02She had just transferred from another district,
00:06:06and I was assigned to her that day.
00:06:08Kind of showed her around the school, became fast friends.
00:06:13What was the bond like between the two of them, Tamika and Zelda?
00:06:17Zelda and Tamika loved each other.
00:06:19They were, you know, thick as thieves right away.
00:06:22They were more than friends, they were sisters.
00:06:25At the time, Tamika lived with her father, Anthony,
00:06:28in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she would eventually settle.
00:06:32She loved my dad.
00:06:34They fuss fight just like any other father and daughter relationship,
00:06:39but I do know that my dad, he loved the ground that my sister walked on.
00:06:45My name is Antonia. Tamika was my big sister.
00:06:49I couldn't tell that she was much older than me.
00:06:51Like, she was always playing the games that I wanted to play.
00:06:55They said my sister had a temper.
00:06:57Like, she would snap on you in the blink of an eye.
00:07:01But she was a really good person.
00:07:05She was free-spirited and very, very spiritual because she grew up in a church.
00:07:11She had a humble spirit.
00:07:15That was just, oh my God, that was just so different.
00:07:19She was talented.
00:07:20Oh, she had a voice, yes.
00:07:22Yeah, she could sing. She really could.
00:07:24She wanted to try for American Idol. Tell me about that.
00:07:27We went to American Idol.
00:07:31God, that was an experience.
00:07:33Over 10,000 people packed into the Georgia Dome.
00:07:36You know, we were excited. We were happy to be there.
00:07:38And she made it through the first round.
00:07:40Her favorite artist was Lauryn Hill.
00:07:43She could sing her songs just the way that she sung them.
00:07:47And just like Lauryn Hill in Sister Act 2,
00:07:58Tamika does a rendition of His Eye is on the Sparrow at her aunt's wedding.
00:08:11She sang at your wedding.
00:08:13She did, yeah.
00:08:14It's one of the most special memories we have.
00:08:17We talked about it for years, even before I was engaged to be married.
00:08:20She said, I'm going to sing at your wedding one day.
00:08:34Everyone talked about her big voice and this tiny, tiny body
00:08:38that you just would not or could not ignore.
00:08:41You were just drawn to her and people, strangers were drawn to her.
00:08:43She was a little, I think, too open-hearted to folks
00:08:47and a little bit too trusting.
00:08:49She had a soft heart for people and for animals.
00:08:51Yeah, she loved animals.
00:08:53I'm not a dog person, but Tamika loved her dogs.
00:09:00And now, strangely, police have found her dog Macy seemingly abandoned,
00:09:05with Tamika nowhere to be found.
00:09:07There was no way she would just up and leave her beloved dog to start.
00:09:12In your heart, you're thinking something's wrong.
00:09:16I knew, knew, knew at that point that time was of the essence.
00:09:19She's disappeared, she's gone.
00:09:21Like, we have to find her.
00:09:22She has to be in danger.
00:09:25That's actress Erica Alexander shining on the red carpet
00:09:29after starring in the Oscar-winning movie American Fiction.
00:09:32One day, maybe you'll learn that not being able to relate to other people
00:09:35isn't a badge of honor.
00:09:38But so many remember her as that hard-charging lawyer
00:09:41in the 90s sitcom Living Single.
00:09:44Look, I'm the lawyer.
00:09:45I'm the lawyer.
00:09:46I'm the lawyer.
00:09:47I'm the lawyer.
00:09:48I'm the lawyer.
00:09:49I'm the lawyer.
00:09:50I'm the lawyer.
00:09:52Look, I'm the lawyer here.
00:09:54I know how to work the system.
00:09:56Erica's also an activist and a documentarian.
00:10:00In 2020, in the midst of protest over racial injustices in this country,
00:10:05she was approached about creating a podcast
00:10:08about Tamika Houston's disappearance.
00:10:10And at the time, I thought, actually, probably no,
00:10:13because I knew then that very few people would want to make something
00:10:17about a black girl.
00:10:18But then, of course, I said yes, thinking, well, if not you, Erica, who?
00:10:22Audible Originals presents Finding Tamika,
00:10:26hosted by Erica Alexander.
00:10:28Months of reporting leads to Finding Tamika,
00:10:32a 10-part true crime audio series executive produced by actor
00:10:36and comedian Kevin Hart and influential radio host Charlamagne Tha God.
00:10:41Kevin was on the same time that I was.
00:10:42He was like, man, this is a story that we need to amplify
00:10:45because of the epidemic of black women that go missing in this country.
00:10:49You really gave a lot of your life to this story.
00:10:52That's what it needed.
00:10:53It needed sweat equity.
00:10:56If you know anything about Erica Alexander,
00:10:59if you've ever worked with her, she's hands-on.
00:11:02I hunted for clues and explanation with the family.
00:11:06I wrote along with the detective who trailed the case,
00:11:09all with a goal to truly find out what really happened to Tamika.
00:11:16You went to Spartanburg.
00:11:18You wanted to see the location.
00:11:20Yeah.
00:11:21You needed to be there.
00:11:22It was important to be there because everything took place there.
00:11:29Cool, Spartanburg.
00:11:31Spartanburg.
00:11:32It's a small town in the south.
00:11:36Started out as a cotton mill area.
00:11:46A lot of people come here to raise their families.
00:11:50So I would describe it as a place that you can call home.
00:11:57If you look at the statistics, I don't think Spartanburg is per capita any more violent than any other.
00:12:03But like every other jurisdiction, you know,
00:12:05you're far more likely to be killed by somebody that knows you than you are a stranger.
00:12:10I remember just sitting outside of her house in the car by myself,
00:12:16still not knowing what's going on.
00:12:19And then I heard that my sister was missing.
00:12:22We definitely thought, like, she would be walking down the street in a minute.
00:12:26I remember Rebecca calling and saying that they were coming here to meet with the police department.
00:12:34It was just like, oh, my God.
00:12:36What's going on?
00:12:39I booked a flight, and I had to come here.
00:12:42Rebecca, well-connected in the PR world,
00:12:45jumped in to use her experience in the media to help spread the word about her niece's disappearance.
00:12:51The first thing I did after landing was go directly to the police station.
00:12:56I remember being very fixated on getting the public information officer
00:13:03to do a press release.
00:13:05I remember saying she wasn't going to leave the building until someone did some media stuff.
00:13:09And we did.
00:13:10And I think just of her persistence that I felt like it was important.
00:13:16Tamika's mom, Gabriela, makes an emotional plea on the local news for her daughter's return.
00:13:23I know deep down in my heart that somebody knows something.
00:13:27But please just be pleased.
00:13:29Just let us know where she is.
00:13:31We just kind of designed a flyer, and we're just putting up all around town.
00:13:36Flyers have gone up in her neighborhood to help police.
00:13:39At the top, in bright red type, was the word MISSING.
00:13:43Below it, in black, all caps, TAMIKA ANTONETTE HOUSTON.
00:13:48Next to a description of her tattoo was a photo of Tamika.
00:13:52It's the Tamika everyone knows.
00:13:54Confident. Assured. Enthusiastic.
00:13:57Confident. Assured. And in control.
00:14:03What are you hearing from her friends around that time about her habits?
00:14:08A lot of her friends are thinking she's out of town.
00:14:11And a lot of people originally are saying that that's not unusual.
00:14:17They thought she was going on a trip.
00:14:19And all those little possibilities we have to run down.
00:14:23Normally she would have told someone, some family member, where she was going or if she was going somewhere.
00:14:29When she disappeared, Tamika was living alone.
00:14:32She had recently quit her waitressing job, and her family says she was trying to find herself.
00:14:38The reason why it took a moment for it to be discovered that she was missing,
00:14:42because she was at a crossroads, she wasn't working.
00:14:44She told her mom that she wanted to return to school.
00:14:46She had broken up with her boyfriend.
00:14:48She had broken up with her boyfriend.
00:14:49So it was kind of like a perfect storm of events.
00:14:51You're her last known boyfriend.
00:14:53How did you meet and what was special about her?
00:14:56My family had a corner store.
00:14:58It was called Shirley's Pantry.
00:14:59And I leave the pantry and I saw Tamika.
00:15:02And Tamika's 4'11".
00:15:04Small.
00:15:05Yes, but thick in the waist.
00:15:08Very thick in the waist.
00:15:10And I could see she was very attractive.
00:15:13As I was getting on my motorcycle, I heard a voice say, do you have an extra helmet?
00:15:18So I said, no, you can wear mine.
00:15:21It was like love at first sight.
00:15:23It was like a trust love.
00:15:25Not just an attraction.
00:15:26You know, something deeper than that.
00:15:29Tamika was someone who came into Terrance's life like a comet.
00:15:33He was newly separated, and her boldness and free-spiritedness was a breath of fresh air.
00:15:40I know that she was deeply in love with him and vice versa.
00:15:47I remember Terrance being a funny guy.
00:15:51Always joking, always laughing, and he kept my sister smiling.
00:15:55I do remember that.
00:15:56Terrance was actually the first boyfriend that Tamika was really serious about.
00:16:01Overall, he seemed to me to have a very kind heart.
00:16:04He seemed very protective of Tamika.
00:16:07And it was Terrance who first raised the alarm about Tamika being missing.
00:16:12I got a phone call from Terrance, who left me a message actually.
00:16:32He said that he hadn't been in touch with Tamika, that she wasn't returning his phone calls.
00:16:36My instinct was that I know that one of the last conversations I had with her, she had told me that they had broken up.
00:16:41So I thought that she was perhaps just avoiding him.
00:16:45But surely she wouldn't avoid me, so I'll just call her.
00:16:48Days with no word from Tamika, Rebecca contacts the Spartanburg Police Department,
00:16:54asking them to conduct a welfare check on her home.
00:16:58So it wasn't unusual for her mother or relatives not to have heard from her for a while.
00:17:02Nobody was alarmed right away?
00:17:04Not right away. Not until we went to the house that Macy was in.
00:17:10Tamika's ex-boyfriend, Terrance, kind of got the ball rolling, started calling people.
00:17:15He's the one who told everybody that he couldn't find Tamika.
00:17:19So it's a very ironic thing to be the person who calls Rebecca and the mother, Gabby, and says,
00:17:27I can't find Tamika. And suddenly the eyes start to turn towards you.
00:17:32You always look to boyfriends. I mean, it's the first place you look.
00:17:37In 2020, obtained never-before-seen law enforcement interviews,
00:17:41in this videotaped statement, Rebecca tells police that Tamika had shared some concerns about Terrance.
00:17:48He was staying up real late at night, not really sleeping, pacing the floor,
00:17:59quoting scripture excessively, that his actions were being directed by God.
00:18:06It just worried me.
00:18:07According to talking to her friends and other people in the community, those two were over.
00:18:12I mean, she was like, oh, well, we're not together anymore. And she started to cry about it.
00:18:17And I was like, well, you guys, you know, y'all will get back together.
00:18:21And she was like, I don't, she called me Zeke.
00:18:23She was like, Zeke, I don't know about that this time around. I think I'm done.
00:18:28She and Terrance had a pretty volatile relationship.
00:18:31So you got the feeling that any place where there's smoke, there's fire.
00:18:34He admitted to that.
00:18:37She and he had had some domestic violence type issues prior.
00:18:41So that was the first person that we were interested in, in this case.
00:18:46Her and Terrance had this domestic dispute.
00:18:49So it was all kind of thoughts going through my mind.
00:18:54Now, was Terrance involved? Did he do something and something had gone too far?
00:18:59Police want to know what Terrance knows.
00:19:02So they bring him in for questioning.
00:19:10Lacey Peterson was eight and a half months pregnant when she disappeared from her Modesto home Christmas Eve.
00:19:16Her husband, Scott, says he was out fishing when she vanished.
00:19:20Around the same time Tamika has gone missing, Scott Peterson is in the news.
00:19:25He's a suspect in the murder of his wife, Lacey.
00:19:28Scott Peterson attended this New Year's Eve vigil for Lacey in Modesto, California.
00:19:33All the way across the country in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tamika's family is holding a vigil too.
00:19:40And all eyes are on her concerned ex-boyfriend, Terrance.
00:19:44We really worried about him.
00:19:46Been by Tamika's home and none of her mail has been picked up.
00:19:49She hadn't called her mom.
00:19:51There's a vigil for Tamika.
00:19:53You attend this vigil.
00:19:55You're Tamika's last known boyfriend.
00:19:58Yeah.
00:19:59Now she's missing.
00:20:01You've got to know that people are going to look at you.
00:20:04Yeah. Oh yeah, I was prepared for that.
00:20:06Terrance was at that vigil and some people were looking suspiciously at him.
00:20:11I know that Anthony, Tamika's dad, had strong feelings about that.
00:20:17I felt like maybe he wasn't being as forthcoming about information.
00:20:21And I just wanted to make sure that he was telling me everything he knew
00:20:25or if he wasn't going to tell me that he was at least being forthcoming with police.
00:20:29And now with cameras rolling, Terrance is ready to answer some questions.
00:20:33Yeah, I want y'all to tape it. Yeah, do that, man. Yeah, that's...
00:20:37Yeah.
00:20:38No, I'm going to do that.
00:20:39I'm going to shut the door.
00:20:41No problem, man.
00:20:42That's fine?
00:20:43Yeah.
00:20:44Good, good, good.
00:20:45We started following up on past history and interviewed him to see if he may be linked to her disappearance.
00:20:52If you talk to anybody, man, that knows me, that knows me, man, I ain't nothing but love, man.
00:20:58I ain't nothing but love.
00:20:59And I, you know what I'm saying, I have been for the last two weeks, man, Scott Peterson.
00:21:04He was pretty open about the fact that there had been violence in their relationship.
00:21:09That's not something that most people volunteer.
00:21:12So the fact that he was honest about something that was inculpatory, I think, tended to make him believe him a little bit more
00:21:19when he said, look, I haven't seen her, I understand why you're talking to me, but I didn't do it.
00:21:25I could disappear on y'all and make y'all do some work.
00:21:28My people been loading up, man, you want to leave here?
00:21:30I'm like, no, I don't want to leave.
00:21:32I want to know before I leave here, y'all going to tell me something.
00:21:36Either she dead or we done found her before I leave here.
00:21:39You tell police that even though you've broken up, that you still have feelings for her.
00:21:44We had to separate. We had to separate.
00:21:47But the bond, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't going nowhere.
00:21:54I love her, man, and I miss her, and I want her to come home.
00:21:59Police have no evidence linking Terrance to Tamika's disappearance, but he remains a person of interest.
00:22:07What must it be like to suddenly walk in a room and people are saying that you killed your girlfriend or you could be a murderer?
00:22:13Where do you hide? Where do you go? You don't.
00:22:21Word of Tamika's disappearance spread through the community with missing persons posters clustered everywhere.
00:22:28One at this gas station caught the eye of a woman who noticed the description of Tamika's car
00:22:35matched an abandoned vehicle at her apartment complex.
00:22:38Sunday, I got called at home and said that patrol officers had found her vehicle on the other side of town.
00:22:47Tamika's home is here, and then they find the car across town at this apartment complex, which made no sense.
00:22:54Yeah. No, not at all. And I think for a while it confused them.
00:22:58You find the car. What's your first assessment once you find it?
00:23:02We knew it had been there a while. The windows was cracked. It had been raining in them.
00:23:06So we could not link her to being anywhere in that area.
00:23:10And there was really nothing forensic-wise that we recovered from that vehicle.
00:23:14It wasn't like there was her blood or DNA or anything.
00:23:18And now there's her car, but no Tamika. So I'm sure that sent fear through her family's heart.
00:23:26That was really tough, because when you're going through it, it's like your emotions, it's like such a range of emotions.
00:23:33Because at first it's like, oh my gosh, they found their car.
00:23:35You're thinking, oh, well, maybe she's just been staying with someone.
00:23:38So, oh, this is the break that we need.
00:23:40But then, you know, when we all descend upon, the police are kind of like,
00:23:43it kind of looks like this car has been here for quite a long time.
00:23:47It just makes you even a little bit more desperate.
00:23:52Kids, they used to say to me, like, your sister's dead.
00:23:56She's never coming back home. Y'all need to stop searching for her.
00:24:00Finding Tamika's abandoned car was a blow to her family.
00:24:04But inside it, police make a key discovery.
00:24:08Her car was found at Barksdale Apartments.
00:24:11And during the search of her car, a key was located to it.
00:24:16It was a set-up, I believe, five or six keys.
00:24:20You can tell one's a house key, two of them's a vehicle key,
00:24:23and maybe two more is locks.
00:24:26They didn't fit her house. They didn't fit her car.
00:24:30We didn't really know what these keys were for or where they had come from.
00:24:34That led us in a little bit of the right direction and also into more problems.
00:24:40You find keys in this car that don't seem to belong to her.
00:24:42Correct.
00:24:43That was a critical moment.
00:24:45Yes. We had no clue where they went to.
00:24:49That was an added mystery that the police were dealing with at the time.
00:24:54Now that Tamika's car has been discovered abandoned,
00:24:58detectives want to go back and take a closer look inside her home.
00:25:02Once we found the car, that kind of started the case to be more suspicious
00:25:06that there may be something criminal involved.
00:25:09I just remember being across the house.
00:25:11As it started to get dark, they were spraying the luminol
00:25:15and that very eerie, emanating purplish-blue light that you see coming from the house.
00:25:20That was really difficult because it felt very surreal.
00:25:23It's terrifying because you're like, what's going to be revealed?
00:25:27No signs of foul play.
00:25:29No new leads at Tamika's house.
00:25:31But then...
00:25:32I thought I remember 911.
00:25:34A 911 call sends police on a mission.
00:25:46Her car was found abandoned on the north side of town.
00:25:51No one has seen or heard from her in nearly a month.
00:25:54I want Tamika to know that we love her and we want her to come home.
00:26:00In the very beginning, where does this investigation take you?
00:26:03Are you getting any leads?
00:26:05Not really.
00:26:06We put out some stuff locally, media, and talked to families, neighborhoods,
00:26:12and some community people here who knew Tamika, but really didn't have a lot to go on.
00:26:16And you get this 911 call?
00:26:18Yes.
00:26:26You have a 911 call that talks about someone being put in the lake that's been killed,
00:26:30and it's pretty much the exact same length of time the car had been sitting in the parking lot.
00:26:35Did it sound credible that somebody might have tossed somebody in this small lake?
00:26:40It sounded credible to us, just the way the guy was talking.
00:26:48The Barksdale is the same apartment complex where police found Tamika's abandoned car,
00:26:53and it's just blocks away from Cleveland Park Lake.
00:27:00Police get wind of a 911 call that happened about the time of her disappearance.
00:27:05You listened to it.
00:27:06What did you make of that?
00:27:08Who is making this phone call?
00:27:10And they're talking about dredging the lake and doing all these things with the lake.
00:27:13It just adds kind of to the desperation of the situation.
00:27:17We actually put some divers in that day, two local divers, and they couldn't find anything.
00:27:23And then we put a cadaver. Dogs were here as well, and they kind of cleared it.
00:27:28That 911 caller was never identified,
00:27:31but police eventually determined it was not related to Tamika's case.
00:27:39You get a lot of calls, most of which turn out to be either innocently mistaken or crank calls.
00:27:48Someone had reached out to me and said that they were a psychic,
00:27:51and they could provide me with information of where Tamika was.
00:27:54And all I needed to do was Western Union them.
00:27:57And you did?
00:27:58I did.
00:27:59Just out of desperation?
00:28:00Just out of desperation.
00:28:01I did.
00:28:02Just out of desperation?
00:28:03Just out of desperation.
00:28:04And he gave me this ridiculous story of, you know, that she was being held against her will,
00:28:10and just very vague information.
00:28:14In hindsight, I know better.
00:28:16That's the downside of publicity.
00:28:18There are lots of crank calls.
00:28:20The upside is you get some really, really good information.
00:28:22In fact, there were those who truly wanted to help the family.
00:28:27Like Elaine Painter, a local Spartanburg woman who says she sometimes has visions about people.
00:28:37My husband was leaving for work.
00:28:39He brought the newspaper in and laid it on the kitchen table.
00:28:46He said, this beautiful girl's missing.
00:28:48She's a young girl. We need to pray for her.
00:28:50So I looked at the picture, and she had this captivating smile and these beautiful eyes.
00:28:57And I moved the paper over, and I just put my hand on her face, and I prayed that they would find her alive.
00:29:06I just pray a lot.
00:29:08I'm not a psychic. I don't read cards.
00:29:13I saw this vision of someone looking through these woods or these bushes, and I knew it was connected to Tamika.
00:29:21Elaine felt her vision was too powerful to ignore, so she calls police.
00:29:26We have that quite a bit.
00:29:28On major cases, people feel like they know some information in some fashion or form.
00:29:33We listen to everyone who contacts us.
00:29:36We went around a few places, and she knew some things about some areas that we've had major crime scenes.
00:29:45They stopped by this lake.
00:29:47They stopped by this lake.
00:29:49He said, do you think she could be in the lake?
00:29:51I said, no, she's not in the lake. You won't find her body in water anywhere.
00:29:56He said, do you think she was shot?
00:29:58And I said, no, she wasn't shot.
00:30:01There was a lot of blood.
00:30:03I guess I thought I was just going to ride over there, and I was going to see this guy looking through some bushes and say, okay, case solved.
00:30:08But I would go back home crying every time because I thought, God sent me to find her.
00:30:12I couldn't, so what am I doing? I'm wasting their time.
00:30:15Ms. Painter was very humble, amazing lady, was just trying to help out in the case, and I wanted to listen to her.
00:30:23Police are actually open to Elaine's help.
00:30:26And months later, she goes on another ride-along with them after she says she has a new and very specific vision.
00:30:33I could see blood, her, on my body on the left side of the closet.
00:30:40A closet? Police aren't sure what to make of this.
00:30:44I can't stop searching.
00:30:48But they do know that time is of the essence, and Tamika's aunt Rebecca is doing everything she can to push for more public attention.
00:30:56You're a PR exec. Your husband's an NFL player.
00:31:00If anybody should be able to attract attention, I would think it would be the two of you.
00:31:05Yeah.
00:31:06But yet you're struggling to get the message out.
00:31:09Right. I was used to the media being, you know, enthralled with these stories.
00:31:15I assumed that I was going to be able to get that sort of attention for Tamika, and I could not have been more wrong.
00:31:20It's hard to beat the media for getting a face out there.
00:31:23Whatever leads it could generate, that's what she was after.
00:31:26I need all eyes looking for her.
00:31:29Anything that I could, anyone I could reach out to, I was.
00:31:33While Tamika's case did get local news coverage, Rebecca noticed that some other missing women were getting widespread national attention.
00:31:4227-year-old Lori Hacking went for her morning jog and never returned.
00:31:47Tamika was missing, actively missing. I really had no leads on where she was.
00:31:52That it was pretty devastating to see Lori Hacking's case become a national story really overnight.
00:31:58And you're being met with silence.
00:32:00Yeah.
00:32:01How frustrating was that?
00:32:02Extremely frustrating.
00:32:03But her persistence pays off. Tamika's case is now getting noticed by John Walsh's America's Most Wanted.
00:32:11Tamika Houston is a young woman who disappeared down in South Carolina.
00:32:16Will the spotlight on her case now lead to finding Tamika?
00:32:21As the seasons changed, Rebecca continued to use her PR skills to advocate for Tamika.
00:32:26She focused her attention on Fox's Saturday evening primetime hit, America's Most Wanted.
00:32:33You had gone to America's Most Wanted.
00:32:35Yeah.
00:32:36I got the attention of a young associate producer at the time, Tiffany Cross, who said that she was drawn to the story by the way it was.
00:32:43Her case file had kind of made it through a lot of producers and landed on my desk.
00:32:47And as soon as I read the story and I just looked through the notes and I talked to her aunt, Rebecca Howard, this was a story I knew I could own.
00:32:56Tiffany advocated for our stories.
00:32:59It was officially greenlit.
00:33:01And that October, Tiffany was off to Spartanburg.
00:33:04I just wanted to get on ground and understand who the people in this community were and what they could tell me about Tamika.
00:33:11When you're thinking about national publicity, America's Most Wanted, why did that matter?
00:33:17Brands. Brands matter.
00:33:20That's a top-shelf brand.
00:33:22But also, that means that they have the audience.
00:33:24The audience is looking.
00:33:26It gives them assurance that maybe if they think they know something, that they should call it in.
00:33:32And that's huge.
00:33:34The unique thing about America's Most Wanted is we worked alongside law enforcement.
00:33:38The first person I met in law enforcement on Tamika's story was Detective Steve Lamb.
00:33:43All the leads that we've chased down have run into basically a dead end.
00:33:47I think they helped with the case.
00:33:49They helped with the case.
00:33:51The kids are safe.
00:33:53It's a little bit like the kids from the movie.
00:33:56was Detective Steve Lamb.
00:33:58All the leads that we've chased down,
00:34:00they run into basically a dead end.
00:34:02I think they helped with the case,
00:34:04putting it out on a national level.
00:34:07Steve Lamb seemed very dedicated to finding out
00:34:10what happened to Tameka.
00:34:12We started just building float charts of family and friends
00:34:16and people that she had dated or had relationships with.
00:34:19And we started seeking out all those individuals
00:34:23to communicate with them.
00:34:25One name that kept coming up routinely when I got on site
00:34:29was Terrance.
00:34:30The community and the family fell out.
00:34:32Terrance was a person of interest in the case.
00:34:36Terrance says he expected police to suspect him,
00:34:40but not his own family, especially
00:34:43an aunt who helped raise him.
00:34:45So I asked her, why haven't you gone with me
00:34:47and called me and prayed with me?
00:34:49She looked me in my face, and she said,
00:34:57we thought you did it.
00:35:00That must have hurt.
00:35:03That tore my heart out of my chest.
00:35:08Terrance was very offended that people
00:35:11thought he had something to do with Tameka's disappearance.
00:35:14I told Terrance we wanted to speak with him.
00:35:17I armed our reporter with tiny lipstick cameras,
00:35:21and we set off in a car behind him
00:35:24and sent him to talk to Terrance.
00:35:26You're telling me you did not have anything to do with him,
00:35:28correct?
00:35:29Exactly.
00:35:30Exactly.
00:35:31At one point, he even got down on his knees
00:35:34talking to our reporter, trying to plead
00:35:36that he did not do this.
00:35:38Why do you agree to talk to America's Most Wanted?
00:35:42I wanted the story to get out.
00:35:44I'm thinking, like, OK, America's Most Wanted,
00:35:46they're stable.
00:35:47They have good researchers.
00:35:49They have good, you know.
00:35:50But y'all come with this, so I'm like, y'all
00:35:52didn't come to help find her.
00:35:54You came to get a confession.
00:35:56You're wasting time.
00:35:58Of course, you always look to boyfriends.
00:36:00But if there's nothing there, at a certain point,
00:36:03you have to move on.
00:36:04Over time, we felt like that he was not
00:36:06involved in her disappearance.
00:36:09One thing that I've always thought about Tameka
00:36:12and I always wanted people to know
00:36:14was that she was a very spiritual person.
00:36:17Tameka knew that she would not live long.
00:36:21We talked about her not being here at 25.
00:36:23You talked about her not being alive?
00:36:26Yes.
00:36:27Yes.
00:36:28What do you mean?
00:36:30She knew that something tragic was going to happen to her.
00:36:35You're saying she didn't think she was going to live long?
00:36:37No, she knew.
00:36:38I didn't say a thing.
00:36:39She knew she wasn't going to live to be 25.
00:36:42Knew.
00:36:43We had these conversations.
00:36:46Spartanburg detectives with the America's Most Wanted team
00:36:50in tow are now focusing on those keys found in Tameka's car.
00:36:55They told us about it.
00:36:56And then we filmed them finding the keys.
00:36:58Matching the key was basically finding
00:37:00a needle in a haystack.
00:37:02And it's that key that begins to unlock the mystery
00:37:06into Tameka's disappearance.
00:37:08We're able to trace it back to an apartment complex.
00:37:11And even then, the odyssey was just beginning.
00:37:14We go through with management, knocking on the door.
00:37:19Detectives go from door to door for making
00:37:22a shocking discovery.
00:37:24Investigators found a really big bleach stain, which is Latin
00:37:29for uncovering something other.
00:37:31In the very beginning, where does this investigation
00:37:34take you?
00:37:35Are you getting any leads?
00:37:36People knew that Tameka had gone missing.
00:37:39Was that a real moment for you in this investigation?
00:37:41You finally, the key unlocks the door?
00:37:43I thought it would be something like this.
00:37:46Same TV, but you know, not in real life.
00:37:49That was the key piece of the puzzle.
00:37:53I was just trying to figure out what was going on.
00:37:55I was trying to figure out what was going on.
00:37:58That was the key piece of evidence
00:38:01that they needed to figure out what exactly happened
00:38:04to Tameka.
00:38:05And that was just the beginning.
00:38:07People had seen her here.
00:38:08Yes, had seen her and thought that she
00:38:11had dated someone.
00:38:12Entering apartment 215, Fremont Apartments.
00:38:15The investigators found a really big bleach stain, which is
00:38:20Latin for uncovering something other.
00:38:22And his explanation for the stain
00:38:24was that it was red Kool-Aid.
00:38:26Red Kool-Aid.
00:38:27Which is amazing in a way, because this
00:38:31leads to the discovery, which leads them right here.
00:38:34I thought you had to be a monster.
00:38:36You said that this case touched you like no other had.
00:38:41Why?
00:38:42Because I know how much Black girls don't matter.
00:38:44What?
00:38:54There's a woman out there who's helpless,
00:38:57and we don't know what happened to her.
00:38:59Family members say Tameka would never leave her pet home alone.
00:39:03The weeks turn into months.
00:39:05The search goes on.
00:39:07No sign of Tameka.
00:39:08I still had so much hope that she's going to pop up.
00:39:11She's going to pop up.
00:39:13Tameka's black Honda CRX was found here at the Barksdale
00:39:17apartment complex.
00:39:18But there was no sign of a struggle, no blood, no Tameka.
00:39:23They find Tameka's car, and then they find these keys.
00:39:26What did you learn about those keys?
00:39:31I look at keys all the time, and I never
00:39:32think about what's on them.
00:39:36Sometimes there are things that identify them.
00:39:38You think that that's just the key brand.
00:39:41But it turns out that the key maker had a code, AA14.
00:39:49That's the number on the keys that they found in the car.
00:39:53And they weren't Tameka's keys?
00:39:54No, they weren't.
00:39:56But that code was important.
00:40:04Fate must have been on Lieutenant Lamb's side
00:40:06that day as he stepped into one of the local key shops.
00:40:10Fate and fate.
00:40:12We just decided to go to a local locksmith who
00:40:15had been here for decades and show him the keys
00:40:19to see if he had any ideas.
00:40:21One of the keys had a stamp, and it was a code
00:40:24that he recognized that he had created.
00:40:27It was crazy.
00:40:29Again, AA14, it told him that he made the key.
00:40:32But also, through his files, suddenly, boom,
00:40:35he can tell you where those keys fit.
00:40:38When this particular key was brought to us,
00:40:40we knew it was a housing authority key.
00:40:41So we then cross-referenced it, and we
00:40:43saw that AA14 matched the Fremont school apartment.
00:40:47That code told him that it was made for the Fremont school
00:40:51apartments.
00:40:51Which is amazing, in a way, because this
00:40:55leads to the discovery which leads them right here.
00:41:01How do you even begin to figure out
00:41:03where these keys go to here?
00:41:06We just went to management and told
00:41:07them what we were doing, and we were allowed to try the keys.
00:41:10With Jameika missing and the clock ticking,
00:41:13the question is, could she be held
00:41:15inside that apartment complex?
00:41:17We tried every single apartment, and the last one opened.
00:41:21Was that a real moment for you in this investigation?
00:41:24You finally, the key unlocks a door?
00:41:26Yes, I mean, it was great for us.
00:41:28I think it was one of the turning points in the case.
00:41:32It opens like a storage room.
00:41:34And as it turns out, when somebody moves out
00:41:37in those apartments, they just swap locks
00:41:40from an apartment that's empty or another room,
00:41:44and they just swap the locks between the two rooms.
00:41:46And they keep no record of it.
00:41:48When he tried the keys and the door opened,
00:41:51that was the key piece of evidence
00:41:54that they needed to figure out what exactly happened to Jameika,
00:41:58and that was just the beginning.
00:41:59It didn't fit an active apartment,
00:42:02but at least we knew we were in the right apartment complex
00:42:04at that point.
00:42:06We processed it just to make sure she was not
00:42:09being held down there, but it turned into nothing.
00:42:15And had Jameika had any connection to this apartment
00:42:17building as far as you knew?
00:42:19Loosely, we thought, but we didn't have anything for sure.
00:42:22But now, once we started talking to people in the apartment
00:42:24complex and things, people began to know who she was.
00:42:28People had seen her here?
00:42:30Yes, had seen her and thought that she
00:42:32had dated somebody named Chris that lived here.
00:42:35Jameika's best friend, Zelda, had actually met Chris,
00:42:39but only one time, the last time she saw Jameika.
00:42:43She knocked on the door, and she had a guy with her.
00:42:47And they came in, and she was like, hey, Zelda,
00:42:51this is my friend, Chris.
00:42:53And I was like, hey, Chris.
00:42:55And he was kind of standoffish, like, where did he come from?
00:43:00She was like, oh, he's just my friend.
00:43:02His demeanor was really odd.
00:43:05I'm like, who is this guy?
00:43:08Chris Hampton was another boyfriend of Jameika's.
00:43:12And he had a little bit of a record.
00:43:16He was out on a bank robbery, some probation.
00:43:21He had actually called the FBI when they were working
00:43:25that bank robbery, saying he hadn't done it,
00:43:28that it wasn't him.
00:43:30But they were already showing his picture.
00:43:33What had you known about Chris Hampton, anything?
00:43:35Nothing.
00:43:36From my understanding, he was a relatively new person
00:43:39kind of in her universe.
00:43:41I was her aunt.
00:43:43We did have a very sisterly relationship,
00:43:44but I think she would look to me for approval.
00:43:47If she just met somebody that she wasn't really sure about,
00:43:49by the time that she lets me know that she's dating someone,
00:43:52it would be more of a serious type of relationship.
00:43:55So I had no clue whatsoever that she even knew this person.
00:43:59He was one of the people she had dated in the past
00:44:01that we put on the list that we were
00:44:03trying to contact and interview.
00:44:05We determined at some point that Christopher Hampton
00:44:08had been a tenant in an apartment
00:44:12there at Fremont Apartments.
00:44:13So he very much became a person of interest.
00:44:21Detectives begin talking with Christopher Hampton,
00:44:24who tells them that the last time he saw Jameika,
00:44:27she wanted to borrow money before heading to Myrtle Beach
00:44:30for Bike Week back in May.
00:44:32I was assigned as an FBI special agent
00:44:34to the Tamiki Houston matter.
00:44:36We had information that we wanted
00:44:38to confront Christopher Hampton with
00:44:40to see whether he could validate that information,
00:44:43whether he would cooperate with questioning.
00:44:46And you don't remember when you let her borrow that money?
00:44:50It was like, I told you last time,
00:44:54it was like a couple of days before Bike Week started.
00:44:59Did you see her at any point after that?
00:45:01No, the last time I seen her.
00:45:03He was willing to be helpful in trying
00:45:04to get the last information that he remembered
00:45:07when he last saw her.
00:45:08This was your girlfriend?
00:45:09No, we didn't, no.
00:45:11She was one of the girls I was messing with.
00:45:12He shared that he had a girlfriend that was pregnant.
00:45:16And so that becomes a point of confrontation
00:45:18in these interviews.
00:45:19Is Jameika aware of this?
00:45:21How does she feel about that?
00:45:23She was, you know, they had a baby on the way
00:45:25and she was pregnant, my baby mama.
00:45:29She was pregnant.
00:45:31Do you have anything to do with her disappearance?
00:45:32No.
00:45:34Nope.
00:45:39I don't know anybody.
00:45:40She was one of the persons I messed with, you know.
00:45:43I hate to admit it, but I got a life to live.
00:45:49I got a job to be in the middle of something like this.
00:45:51I'm on TV, but not in real life.
00:45:55I got a mother and a father and an entire family
00:45:58that doesn't know what happened to this little girl.
00:46:00Yeah, but you know,
00:46:01and I guarantee it doesn't happen to her
00:46:02once she comes back, you know.
00:46:05That's right.
00:46:06Christmas time.
00:46:07While police have no evidence on Christopher Hampton,
00:46:10they want to keep him talking.
00:46:12Then a letter written on Christmas Eve
00:46:15offers detectives a gift they weren't expecting.
00:46:19What's inside would break this case wide open.
00:46:23And instantly, I mean, I knew,
00:46:25why is this guy telling us he rented a car to Clary?
00:46:38As the seasons change and the months go by,
00:46:41Tameka's family marks a heartbreaking milestone,
00:46:45her 25th birthday.
00:46:48And on Christmas Eve, 2004,
00:46:51Christopher Hampton writes a curious letter
00:46:54to law enforcement.
00:46:57So Mr. Hampton addressed a letter to myself
00:47:01on December 24th.
00:47:03He says in the letter,
00:47:04I went to my apartment and found
00:47:06that somebody had come into my apartment
00:47:09and poured beer on my floor,
00:47:11smeared mayo, ketchup, hot sauce, flour,
00:47:15and all kinds of other stuff all over my bedroom floor.
00:47:19And in this letter he talked about
00:47:22he had rented a carpet cleaner.
00:47:25And instantly, I mean, I knew,
00:47:28why is this guy telling us he rented a carpet cleaner?
00:47:30He's telling us this because he thinks
00:47:32we know something that we don't know.
00:47:33He goes on to say,
00:47:34I saw Tameka last the day before I rented the cleaner.
00:47:38We felt that was very unusual
00:47:40for someone to write a letter to law enforcement
00:47:42about unusual damage in their apartment
00:47:45and ring a steam cleaner,
00:47:46right after the last time they saw someone missing.
00:47:49I remember Steve bringing me the letter
00:47:50and my thought is,
00:47:51we have a missing young woman
00:47:53that you were connected with
00:47:57and you want us to believe it's ketchup?
00:48:00Keep talking, keep writing.
00:48:02That letter raises suspicions
00:48:04about what might've happened
00:48:06in Hampton's old Fremont apartment.
00:48:08So detectives, check it out.
00:48:10Which apartment then?
00:48:12Far corner.
00:48:13Back here.
00:48:14Far corner, top apartment.
00:48:16We didn't have a warrant.
00:48:17Big lady opened the door, let us in.
00:48:20We didn't tell her why we were there,
00:48:21but other than trying to investigate a crime.
00:48:25The investigators found a really big bleach stain,
00:48:29which is Latin for I'm covering something up.
00:48:32We felt like there was enough to execute a search warrant
00:48:35at that prior apartment he lived in.
00:48:38Entering apartment 215, Fremont Apartments.
00:48:41When we were processing Chris's apartment,
00:48:43we would walk through doing a videotape document
00:48:45and what it looked like before and after.
00:48:48Straight across the hall is your first bedroom.
00:48:52We used Blue Star to spray on the carpet.
00:48:53And you spray in the dark
00:48:55and if there's human blood there,
00:48:57it will illuminate and it hit in his bedroom area
00:49:00and in his closet area.
00:49:02Blood was found underneath the carpet.
00:49:06Once we pulled the carpet up,
00:49:07there was large amounts of blood.
00:49:09It soaked through the carpet and was just on the floor
00:49:12and a lot in the closet.
00:49:15You find blood in the apartment?
00:49:18Yes.
00:49:19But is it Tameka's blood?
00:49:21We didn't know at that time, but eventually we did.
00:49:24Over the course of a few days, we linked DNA back to her.
00:49:29With this latest development,
00:49:31Tameka's family now is struggling to keep hope alive.
00:49:36When you find out that there is blood in this apartment,
00:49:41what goes through you?
00:49:43At that point, I resigned at that point.
00:49:48In your gut, you know.
00:49:49I fell up into that point.
00:49:50I had a lot of hope,
00:49:51but I think that's when I knew
00:49:53that we weren't gonna see her again.
00:49:56That same day, Lieutenant Lamb gets an unexpected call
00:50:01from Elaine Painter,
00:50:03the woman who said she had visions about Tameka's case.
00:50:06The night that we found the blood in the apartment,
00:50:10she called me on the phone and said she knew
00:50:12something good was happening in the case.
00:50:14And there's no way she could have known that.
00:50:18Tameka's blood had been found in a closet,
00:50:20just like Elaine Painter says she had seen
00:50:22in her vision months earlier.
00:50:24Police would later take her inside that apartment.
00:50:28And we walked up these steps, and they opened the door,
00:50:30and I saw a closet, and I knew that was where she died.
00:50:36There's potentially a big break this morning
00:50:38in the case of a missing 24-year-old woman
00:50:40who disappeared last year.
00:50:42Investigators now say they found blood
00:50:44in a former apartment of a person
00:50:46that they've been questioning.
00:50:48This is a video of the first interview
00:50:51that I had done with Chris.
00:50:53This is shortly after the blood was found in his apartment.
00:50:57What's that look like to you, Chris?
00:51:03It's a really strange look.
00:51:05Mm-hmm.
00:51:07It is.
00:51:09That's underneath the carpet in your room.
00:51:10It's a really strange.
00:51:12That's blood.
00:51:14See this letter right here that you wrote?
00:51:15Mm-hmm.
00:51:16In that letter, you talk about cleaning the floor,
00:51:19all right?
00:51:20And what this is is a crime scene.
00:51:26Yeah, I don't know about it.
00:51:29When I interviewed him, he was uncooperative.
00:51:33He didn't want to acknowledge anything.
00:51:35Whatever happened to Tameka
00:51:37happened right there in your apartment.
00:51:39Yeah, I believe that.
00:51:40Listen to me.
00:51:41I don't care if you believe it or not,
00:51:42I'm telling you, all right?
00:51:58He doesn't want to accept the facts for what they are,
00:52:00that this is blood residue,
00:52:02this is not a kitchen condiment.
00:52:13You don't know that we can tell one person's blood
00:52:15from another blood?
00:52:18You ever heard of DNA?
00:52:22I'm telling you the girl died in your apartment.
00:52:24I'm not wishy-washy around there.
00:52:27I'm telling you that.
00:52:28That's a fact.
00:52:29Watching that now,
00:52:30one reason I would chuckle is the fact
00:52:33that I know I'm lying to him at that point.
00:52:35We didn't know for sure that that was Tameka's blood.
00:52:37We believed it, but we didn't know it.
00:52:40We're trying to press him to produce Tameka's body.
00:52:46You're willing to weigh this whole charge yourself?
00:52:49I have to, because I don't know what's going on.
00:52:51You gotta lock me up just to solve your case up.
00:52:55I'm not looking for a body to hang this charge on.
00:52:58I'm looking for Tameka's body.
00:53:02The solicitor's office didn't want us to charge him
00:53:04until we had the body.
00:53:06At that time, I don't think we had ever tried
00:53:08a no-body case.
00:53:09If you don't have a body, it's definitely not a slam dunk.
00:53:12I was the circuit solicitor,
00:53:14which everyone else calls district attorney.
00:53:17The goal is not an arrest.
00:53:18The goal is a conviction.
00:53:19So we're trying to identify him as the killer.
00:53:23Then, unexpectedly, somebody else surfaces,
00:53:27saying she too had been in Hampton's apartment.
00:53:31There's no reason why she should be in that room.
00:53:40Tom Morris has the story of a young woman
00:53:43with a big voice and a big heart.
00:53:45She may have followed her heart into some big trouble.
00:53:50Tameka Houston has been missing for 10 months
00:53:53when the America's Most Wanted segment airs.
00:53:56We decided to come to Spartanburg
00:53:58to see what AMW could do to get some answers
00:54:00for Tameka's family.
00:54:01The tenant had cleaned up what he thought was ketchup.
00:54:04Crime lab techs went to work, and they didn't find ketchup.
00:54:09It was Tameka's blood.
00:54:12America's Most Wanted was this show that was interactive.
00:54:15We'd love to hear from you.
00:54:16You can call 1-800-CRIME-TV, ask for me, or the detectives.
00:54:20People would watch the show on Saturday night in real time,
00:54:23and anyone could call in with a tip.
00:54:26And where are you located?
00:54:27The show's got a hotline in their studio in Washington, D.C.
00:54:31Can you describe it?
00:54:32Where trained employees and law enforcement
00:54:35are at the ready in case a lead comes in.
00:54:39My name's Steve Lamb. I'm from South Carolina.
00:54:41We would have cameras there.
00:54:42You would even cover law enforcement
00:54:44walking around from phone to phone.
00:54:46And sometimes they'd say, hey, I have something,
00:54:48and you would give the phone to the detective,
00:54:50and they could talk to the person.
00:54:52America's Most Wanted.
00:54:53We'll pass this information on.
00:54:55Lieutenant Lamb said they waited,
00:54:57and calls started to come in.
00:54:59And somewhere near around midnight,
00:55:01they got a call from a young woman.
00:55:04Someone here locally who felt
00:55:07they may know some information.
00:55:09Can you move the dresser?
00:55:10She is a young juvenile
00:55:12that had a relationship with Hampton,
00:55:15and had went over to his residence
00:55:17close to the crime scene time,
00:55:19and had been with him that evening.
00:55:21Said, should they go back into his bedroom?
00:55:23She said that he spilled Kool-Aid in the floor.
00:55:25I got an investigator here locally in Spartanburg
00:55:28to meet that individual that night.
00:55:30She knows exactly where that stain is.
00:55:32That kind of helps seal up some information
00:55:34in reference to the case.
00:55:36The caller is just 15 years old.
00:55:39Police bring her in and interview her on camera.
00:55:43This is the first time
00:55:44that video is being shown publicly.
00:55:46We blurred her and altered her voice.
00:55:49When I looked at the show tonight,
00:55:51the America's Most Wanted,
00:55:53they said, they was talking,
00:55:55they said that whoever it was said that it was ketchup.
00:56:00That stain did not look like no ketchup.
00:56:03It looked like that was liquid that had been poured.
00:56:06It looked like it was coming from the closet.
00:56:10She said the dresser was poured in front of the closet door.
00:56:12She knew something that we had not released.
00:56:15We had no further evidence
00:56:17pointing to where Tamika might be.
00:56:20And the fact that this 15-year-old girl
00:56:22made a link, a connection between blood
00:56:25on this person's floor in his apartment
00:56:28was interesting to us.
00:56:30And he didn't have no cover on his bed.
00:56:33It was just a brand new bed.
00:56:35She had visited his apartment
00:56:37and he had what appeared to be a stain
00:56:40that could possibly have been blood,
00:56:42but he tried to explain it away.
00:56:43And his explanation for the stain was that it was
00:56:46red Kool-Aid.
00:56:47Red Kool-Aid.
00:56:49That's what he told me.
00:56:51I get goosebumps.
00:56:54There was no reason why she should be in that room.
00:56:56In a way, you're grateful,
00:56:58but then again, you're horrified.
00:57:00The witness is implicating Christopher Hampton
00:57:04at the crime scene
00:57:05and calling into question his explanation
00:57:07about that carpet stain.
00:57:09I knew at that point they were zeroing in on him.
00:57:12National media coverage matters in missing persons cases.
00:57:16It's not just any coverage, it's primetime coverage.
00:57:19Because although it may take a village to raise a child,
00:57:22more often than not, it takes a nation
00:57:24to find a missing child, or anybody for that matter.
00:57:30In the early 2000s, there was a lot of missing white women
00:57:34that got outsized attention.
00:57:38And it was very frustrating to be a black woman
00:57:41working in newsrooms
00:57:43and seeing how different stories
00:57:46stayed on television consistently.
00:57:48I was like, listen,
00:57:49you guys are ignoring black women at their expense.
00:57:52In this country, we have 40% of missing persons cases
00:57:54are persons of color.
00:57:56Why is it when you turn on your television,
00:57:58you only see white faces?
00:58:02Tomorrow marks one week
00:58:03since 18-year-old Natalie Holloway vanished
00:58:06on the last day of her senior class trip.
00:58:09I was reporting on that case in Aruba,
00:58:12yet I had not heard of Tamika Houston.
00:58:16Right, you're reporting on Natalie Holloway,
00:58:19and you're a black woman and don't know about it.
00:58:22Like other reporters,
00:58:23I too was covering all kinds of stories,
00:58:26often about missing people,
00:58:28women in particular.
00:58:29Not realizing some of the people who weren't being covered.
00:58:33What did you hear back when you said,
00:58:35it seems that you're ignoring black women?
00:58:37It was an ABC News reporter who did write a story
00:58:40about the disparity in which missing black women
00:58:43versus missing white women are handled by media.
00:58:45That was the first bite that I got.
00:58:48Why did it matter that she didn't make front page news?
00:58:51That's the gold standard.
00:58:53A national conversation about a missing person
00:58:56is the difference between sometime not only being found,
00:59:00but never being forgotten.
00:59:03It's just hard and very devastating for me.
00:59:06Everything I'm hearing, it's not good.
00:59:10So of course it's killing me.
00:59:13She's not out there.
00:59:14If something has happened to my daughter,
00:59:16I just want to put her to rest.
00:59:19While Tamika's parents are grieving,
00:59:21Christopher Hampton, in custody for violating his parole
00:59:25for that bank robbery, is busy making calls from jail.
00:59:29Hello, this is a call I called from.
00:59:31Correct.
00:59:32Like this one to an ex-girlfriend.
00:59:34But it was a piece of paper in there
00:59:35and it had one of your yellow notebook signs.
00:59:39And it had fingerprints and blood on it.
00:59:42Yeah, I don't know anything.
00:59:44She contacted us and said she had some belongings
00:59:48of Hampton's.
00:59:49Christopher Hampton's ex-girlfriend
00:59:51turned in his wallet.
00:59:53Lieutenant Lamb was going through it
00:59:54and found a drop of blood on a photograph in the wallet.
00:59:58There was some smudge marks that looked like blood
01:00:03and a partial print.
01:00:05We do the testing on it as Tamika's blood.
01:00:09At this point, that was enough to convince
01:00:11the solicitor's office to go ahead and let us charge him.
01:00:14You have her blood in his wallet.
01:00:18You have her blood on the floor of an apartment
01:00:21that he used to live in.
01:00:23It's no longer a question of who did it.
01:00:26It is now a question of what happened.
01:00:29There was still the outstanding question of,
01:00:31well, then where was Tamika?
01:00:33What happened to her?
01:00:35And only Chris Hampton had those answers.
01:00:46It's been 15 months since Tamika Houston's disappearance.
01:00:50Now, armed with hard evidence,
01:00:53solicitor Trey Gowdy is ready to have police arrest
01:00:56Christopher Hampton for Tamika's murder.
01:00:59I remember talking to them about,
01:01:01you need to be there when he's released,
01:01:03when they picked him up.
01:01:05What you really want is, you want answers for the family.
01:01:09Where's the body?
01:01:13He was scheduled to be released on his parole violation,
01:01:16and they assured me, listen,
01:01:17we're gonna be there to pick him up.
01:01:19And we're bringing him in to question him.
01:01:22You're about to see potentially a resolution here.
01:01:24Somebody's about to be arrested.
01:01:26It's really a tough situation to be in,
01:01:28because you just like,
01:01:31until you know, know,
01:01:33there is kind of maybe that small sliver of hope
01:01:35that one day she'll just walk through that door.
01:01:38Because there's no body at this point.
01:01:39Yeah, exactly.
01:01:41So, it's tough.
01:01:46You want to know, but then you don't want to know.
01:01:49We made arrangements the morning that he was released
01:01:52that we would be there.
01:01:53And over the course of our ride back,
01:01:55he was nervous that we were gonna put him
01:01:57in front of cameras.
01:01:59So we went to another location.
01:02:01We got cheeseburgers from a local restaurant,
01:02:04and I made sure that we asked for a ketchup bottle,
01:02:07not the little packs, we want a bottle.
01:02:09We were sitting there talking,
01:02:10and the ketchup bottles on the corner
01:02:13of the restaurant were all empty.
01:02:15And I said, you know,
01:02:16we were talking and the ketchup bottles
01:02:18on the corner of the table,
01:02:20and I said, don't knock that off in the floor.
01:02:22And he kind of laughed about it,
01:02:24or snickered about it.
01:02:26And I think that was kind of the turning point for him.
01:02:29He stood up and he said, let's go.
01:02:31And I said, where do you want to go?
01:02:34And originally I thought he meant to jail,
01:02:36but he said, I'll take you to where she's at.
01:02:40My God, Tamika, is this where fate,
01:02:45faith and fortune unfortunately meet?
01:02:48Have we finally found you?
01:02:54How did you handle that news
01:02:56that he was going to lead police to her body?
01:02:59Major Lamb, I remember him calling me
01:03:01and saying that he finally said
01:03:04that he was going to lead them to Tamika.
01:03:09I said, okay, I'm on the next flight there.
01:03:13When I got the phone call,
01:03:15I think I just lost it.
01:03:19It was tough.
01:03:22It was just me and my dad when we found out.
01:03:25And I just remember him like screaming
01:03:28to the top of his lungs.
01:03:32And then that's when I knew like my sister
01:03:35was never coming back.
01:03:37We get in our vehicles and he drives us across town,
01:03:42the interstate into another small town
01:03:45outside of our jurisdiction.
01:03:53Ms. Houston was found in a wooded area,
01:03:56good bit of brush and undergrowth in the area,
01:03:58but some clearings as well.
01:04:00It turns out Hampton had made a cross
01:04:03with tree branches and laid them on top
01:04:05of the makeshift grave where he'd buried Tamika.
01:04:08As if I'm gonna fashion a cross and put it there
01:04:11is somehow gonna mitigate what he's done.
01:04:15Ms. Houston was buried in a shallow grave
01:04:17in a small town in the middle of the state.
01:04:20She was buried in a small,
01:04:22but very, very large,
01:04:23and it was a very, very large grave.
01:04:26She was buried in a small,
01:04:27but very, very large,
01:04:28and Ms. Houston was buried in a shallow grave,
01:04:33and some of the remains of Mrs. Houston
01:04:35had been scattered about the area.
01:04:40There were a couple of bones on the surface
01:04:43that they saw at that time,
01:04:45and it was in Spartanburg County.
01:04:47Multiple law enforcement agencies were at the scene.
01:04:51When I arrived that night,
01:04:54they're still processing that scene
01:04:57and trying to collect her remains.
01:05:03It was gut-wrenching at that point.
01:05:04You just know, you felt so remote,
01:05:06and you felt like,
01:05:07it was like, she's been out here alone
01:05:10for all this time.
01:05:15You feel really helpless.
01:05:18♪ I opened my arms for your embrace ♪
01:05:24♪ But all I feel is empty space ♪
01:05:29I remember walking down into deep woods,
01:05:33and I mean, by this time,
01:05:34we were surrounded by trees.
01:05:36♪ So come back to me ♪
01:05:40♪ Come back to me ♪
01:05:45Watching the pain on my sister's face,
01:05:47it felt like she was in physical pain.
01:05:50It was really just difficult.
01:05:52To see her going through that.
01:05:56And I'm standing there,
01:05:57and my eyes are full of tears.
01:05:59And I remember looking down,
01:06:04because I felt like I was stepping on something.
01:06:09And I reached down and pick it up.
01:06:13And it was actually one of her bones.
01:06:16A family came and found a couple bones
01:06:19that had not been picked up.
01:06:21And so, for me, that was a really sad situation.
01:06:25So I told them I'd just do it myself.
01:06:27That part of it.
01:06:33Excuse me.
01:06:35It was supposed to be clear first,
01:06:43before we got there.
01:06:45I'm here.
01:06:49And yet, through it all,
01:06:51something extraordinary starts to happen.
01:06:55The family begins their long goodbye.
01:06:57And quite naturally, in this unholy yet sacred setting,
01:07:01an impromptu ceremony develops at the site.
01:07:06The family had put up a little cross and flowers
01:07:10there at the grave site.
01:07:12You had hoped it would be a different outcome.
01:07:15And you do have an answer now.
01:07:17But it's certainly not the answer you wanted.
01:07:19It wasn't the answer we wanted.
01:07:22It's such a loss.
01:07:24Like, I miss her so much.
01:07:30But how did Tamika end up dead?
01:07:32And why?
01:07:34Christopher Hampton, back in an interview room,
01:07:37is ready to confess.
01:07:40You had the best night, baby.
01:07:45You had the best night.
01:08:04This makeshift grave site
01:08:05deep in this wooded area near Tiger River
01:08:07is where Spartburg investigators say Christopher Hampton
01:08:10left him.
01:08:11Deep into the brush,
01:08:12investigators say Hampton showed them
01:08:14remains. He then sits down to tell investigators what he says happened the day Tamika died.
01:08:21We returned back to the police department to interview him in reference to the case.
01:08:27He tells a story of an argument over money and he's ironing clothes for work.
01:08:34Kind of tell him what happened. She said she wanted to borrow the money. I said I ain't got
01:08:38that right now. I got a ticket coming up. I gotta pay. I said I'm sorry. My baby,
01:08:43she's gonna be born. I gotta buy some stuff for her. Okay. Tell them what happened.
01:08:48And she got mad. She's like, well, God, she says, um, you, you always talk about that baby. You
01:08:55make enough money. You can, you give me some money now. She got me out. She stood up and I'm
01:09:02saying she would have always, you like, what happened? I just told her to turn around.
01:09:15They have a little disagreement and he turns around, hits her with the iron.
01:09:24Turn all the way around. So I understand which side we take on this side.
01:09:32Based on the crime scene, detectives aren't sure about Hampton's story.
01:09:37I think there was considerably more damage than what probably would have
01:09:40been caused by just getting hit in the head with a, with an iron.
01:09:44Did you go check her or did you just? I panicked, man. I ain't gotta buy that.
01:09:49You panicked and you left. I ain't gotta buy that.
01:09:51When you heard about Chris's confession, when you heard him say that he killed her.
01:09:57I was really angry. It seemed so violent and so senseless.
01:10:02He said it hit her and he didn't know what to do and then left and came back.
01:10:08He felt like, you know, she'd be up and gone when she wasn't. So he panicked and wrapped her up in
01:10:16a comforter off the bed and put her in the closet. He has such little regard for her life that he
01:10:23dragged her in the closet and moved a dresser in front of the closet. It was almost like he wanted
01:10:30it out of sight, out of mind. It didn't happen. I'm scared. So I put in the closet, put the
01:10:38thing over the thing, the dresser on the door. Hampton tells them he places a dresser in front
01:10:44of the closet door, just as the 15 year old witness had described to police.
01:10:49You're dealing with the psychology of someone who could take a life and then be with this
01:10:53underage girl and this body is in the closet the entire time.
01:11:00He said he wrapped the body up in his bedding and carried her out to the car.
01:11:07He goes to Walmart and buys a shovel. The sun's coming up and he decides to take, drive down this
01:11:16dirt road, take her in the woods and he digs a grave. Okay, what do you do next? I buried her.
01:11:24Like, he put dirt back on top of her. Put her out in the woods, buried her in the woods. Horrific.
01:11:30Did you put anything else on top of it? They didn't cross with it. Like, what do you do with that?
01:11:36Three years on the cross. Was she doing that just as a, like a, like a burial for her or something?
01:11:45Why'd you do that? I mean, I guess, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it.
01:11:51He is confessing to a homicide and his intent is to make the event sound as unintentional
01:12:02as possible and we didn't believe that to be true because he'd gone to great effort
01:12:08to dispose of Miss Houston's body.
01:12:12Months later, he returns to that gravesite, removes some bones as well as to make a skull
01:12:20and takes that and disposes of it at another location. This is a diagram that I made after we
01:12:30finished processing the scene and this shape in the middle is the burial site.
01:12:38One of the most interesting things on this to me is this is a fence and you have this creek right
01:12:46here. What I think actually happened was because this, her jawbone, was the only bone that was
01:12:53found on the other side of this fence, I think he likely took the skull. Like he said, she
01:13:00couldn't be identified or to cover up some kind of horrific damage to it and threw it in this
01:13:07creek. I just kind of thought that you have, you had to be a monster
01:13:12to do something like that to someone after a period of time.
01:13:19Tameka's life reduced to a pile of bones, picked, plucked and spread apart by animals, weathered
01:13:26and worried, gone, missing, now found.
01:13:33Christopher Hampton placing Tameka's body in the woods, the vision Elaine Painter says she had
01:13:40spot on. That was who I saw looking through these bushes. And it seems Tameka had one more message
01:13:48to share via Elaine. When I was very, very early in my pregnancy and literally the only people who
01:13:55knew that I was pregnant with twins was me, my doctor, and my husband. Elaine called me and I
01:14:02had, I had a couple of miscarriages previously and she's like, Rebecca, and I could tell she
01:14:05was struggling a bit. She says, you know, I'm seeing Tameka and I keep seeing her and she's
01:14:09holding these two blue bundles and I'm like, really? I said, I don't know, have any idea what
01:14:15this means. I did not know that she was pregnant with twins. Maybe God was saying that they, it's
01:14:21going to be okay, that you're going to get to keep these. I was just blown away because, I mean, again,
01:14:28only, and I knew what the sex would be of my twins. Twin boys. Yeah, twin boys and two blue,
01:14:35two blue bundles. And so this day I always feel like Tameka, she's watching them and she's around.
01:14:43With the sound of the song, Some Way, Some How,
01:14:53a memorial service for Tameka is held in South Carolina. These people gathered here at Foster
01:14:59Chapel Baptist Church in her honor. Tameka Houston is later buried in Fairfax, Virginia,
01:15:05just a few miles from her mother's home. I was so confused on why she had a closed casket.
01:15:11I was really confused. I'm like, I want to see my sister, like, and that's when my mom, like,
01:15:15she kind of explained it to me, like, it's not much in the casket.
01:15:22Christopher Hampton is finally headed to trial,
01:15:25but there's a turn of events in the courtroom. Yeah, I was shocked.
01:15:32And on the 20th anniversary of Tameka's death, her Aunt Rebecca gets a welcome surprise.
01:15:41Tameka Houston was found dead at her home in Fairfax, Virginia.
01:15:51Nearly two years after Tameka Houston went missing, her former love interest,
01:15:55Christopher Hampton, is heading to trial. I felt like it was going to be, you know,
01:16:00a really tough couple of weeks in Spartanburg. But on the first day of trial, he ends up
01:16:05pleading guilty. I was shocked. I was shocked. Are you guilty of the crime of murder? Yes, sir.
01:16:11I don't know why he pled guilty. He wound up getting the exact same
01:16:15sentence that he would have gotten had he gone to trial and lost. Mr. Hampton,
01:16:20the sentence of the court is that you be committed to the State Department of Corrections for life.
01:16:24I was really emotional that day. And he really didn't show any remorse.
01:16:32Life without parole. If anyone deserved life, it had to be Christopher Hampton.
01:16:39To this day, those who knew and loved Tameka still wonder about the motive for her murder.
01:16:46Hampton says she was upset that he was saving money for his unborn child.
01:16:52She wasn't like that. She wasn't, those are your children. No, those are our children. That's how
01:16:59she was. That's why her story doesn't make any sense. My sister was, she cared a lot. I couldn't
01:17:05imagine her saying that at all. I don't know if I'll ever get the true story of what happened.
01:17:12So I'm trying to learn to just come to, to just be at peace with it.
01:17:19Her family was just beginning to accept a dark new reality. Life without Tameka.
01:17:29You said that this case touched you like no other had. Why?
01:17:36Because I know how much black girls don't matter.
01:17:42And I want to always be a reflection of how much value that they had to me.
01:17:49What do you most want people to know about this woman that you loved?
01:17:54With her death, I've met so many women, I met so many fathers, I met so many sisters,
01:18:04brothers. They still haven't found their loved one. So I know she's putting me on a higher mission.
01:18:15The lack of media coverage about Tameka's case led to the creation of the Black and Missing
01:18:21Foundation. You advocate with the Black and Missing Foundation. Is it still a struggle to get
01:18:28the stories of women of color noticed? It can be. But I think there is more of
01:18:36an awareness of it. Is that Tameka's legacy? I do believe that. I do.
01:18:42On the 20th anniversary of Tameka's disappearance, we brought her best friend Zelda and her Aunt
01:18:48Rebecca together. They hadn't seen each other for years. Zelda! Don't do that. I'll try not to.
01:19:00Honey, don't cry. I love you so much. Don't cry.
01:19:05I'm so good to see you. You are the best friend ever. I know. You know that? And she sang at the wedding.
01:19:21Oh, so beautiful. I miss her. I know.
01:19:42It just makes me think about what my sister could have been.
01:19:47And it was just so unpaired that her life got snatched from her.
01:20:03What a deeply moving report tonight, Debra. A quick note here.
01:20:062020 did reach out to Christopher Hampton for comment. He did not respond.
01:20:10So far, David, his appeals have been denied. For more on this case, you can listen to Erica
01:20:15Alexander's Audible original series, Finding Tameka. It's available now. That's our program
01:20:21for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Debra Roberts. And I'm David Muir from
01:20:25all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.
01:20:40you