This 2-Year-Old Vanished From Bowling Alley And While Her Mom Was Looking For Her, A Woman Tried To Take Her Sister
At about 8:00 p.m. on January 23, 1999, Theresa English visited the New Frontier Lanes bowling alley, located on Center Street in Tacoma, Washington, with her two youngest daughters, her boyfriend, and other family members and friends.
Her 2-year-old daughter, Teekah, had been playing games at the alley’s arcade when it came time for Theresa to bowl.
She told her brother and boyfriend to watch the toddler, yet once her turn was over and she looked back, she realized Teekah was gone.
The bowling alley was reportedly filled with couples, families, and friend groups that Saturday evening. Teekah quickly showed interest in the arcade once they initially arrived, and Theresa’s brother gave her some change to play the games.
So, after Theresa’s bowling turn was completed, both her boyfriend and brother figured Teekah was still in the arcade. However, no one could find her.
“I looked in the bathroom. She wasn’t in there. I immediately went down to the other end of the bowling alley, where there was another bathroom. My sister-in-law was in there with her baby, and I asked her, ‘Is Teekah in there?’ She said, ‘No, she didn’t come with me,'” Theresa recalled.
She proceeded to approach a security guard at the bowling alley and inform him that her daughter was missing. This prompted the officer to make an intercom announcement and contact the police.
As authorities arrived on the scene, Theresa left her 10-month-old baby, Tamika, with her boyfriend; meanwhile, she headed outside to speak with the officers while screaming for her 2-year-old.
At that point, her sister-in-law ran over and made a bizarre statement, saying, “Theresa, that woman has your baby.”
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It turns out that, earlier, a woman had been sitting next to their group at the bowling alley and asking to hold babies. The woman had been bowling with a group of men.
“My brother let her hold his son, but they were right there watching her, and then she gave him back. [The woman] wanted him again. My brother said no because he thought it was odd,” Theresa detailed.
Well, while she was outside amidst the search for her 2-year-old Teekah, she learned that the same woman had her 10-month-old Tamika in her car. Theresa ran over to the woman’s vehicle. Tamika was reportedly buckled in, and the woman was about to leave.
“I said, ‘You got my daughter. She said, ‘This ain’t your baby,'” she remembered.
Theresa alerted the police, and the woman was arrested. Nonetheless, Teekah’s case has never been solved.
Once news of her disappearance spread, numerous officers from departments throughout Washington provided assistance. The Tacoma Police Department led the investigation, searching the bowling alley, closing the parking lot, and looking through cars and their trunks.
Days turned into weeks, and no sign of the toddler’s whereabouts was uncovered. Theresa and her family began speaking with the press and handing out fliers to raise awareness. Then, she heard from another family about a disturbing incident that had happened at the same bowling alley.
Two months prior to when Teekah went missing, a man allegedly assaulted a 4-year-old boy in the bowling alley’s restroom and was never caught. However, there were no eyewitnesses, so Sergeant Julie Deir of the Tacoma Police Department said, “There was no connection made.”
Additionally, Theresa found out that a man driving a Pontiac Grand AM had tried to kidnap kids at a local park before fleeing. Again, Sgt. Deir stated there were no “concrete” associations between the cases, but the make and model of the car meant something to Theresa.
At the bowling alley that Saturday night, a witness reportedly spotted a plum-colored Pontiac Grand AM racing away from the establishment. The car almost hit the witness.
Sgt. Deir looked into the car, noting, “There were some allegations that somebody had obtained a [Pontiac] that might have had stains in the back. I contacted those people, and they didn’t remember anything about any stains in the car, and the car has since been destroyed.”
Despite the car being a dead end, the police were informed about another potential lead. That Saturday, a woman had called 911, concerned about her son, who was in his 40s. The woman claimed her son had “made some weird statements about wanting to leave town” and asked if she’d go with him. So, the woman wanted the police to conduct a welfare check.
Authorities realized that he matched the description of an individual at the bowling alley. The individual, a “white male with longish hair and a very pockmarked face,” had been spotted walking while holding a little girl’s hand by a mother and her son.
The police visited the man’s residence, which wasn’t far from the bowling alley, but he was unhelpful. He admitted to owning a Pontiac, just a different one from the vehicle spotted that evening, and provided investigators with little other information.
Then, one month later, investigators tried to speak with the man again, but he was dead. His death reportedly wasn’t suspicious, but he did have a history of mental health problems.
“We did get his DNA just in case. So the fact that he matched that description, the call made that night, and at some point, he had involvement with a Pontiac, kind of sparked our attention,” Sgt. Deir detailed.
The man remains a person of interest in Teekah’s case, but over 26 years later, exactly what happened to her is unknown. Still, even though the bowling alley has since been torn down, Theresa refuses to stop looking for answers.
“I’m fighting for mine. I will do anything to find Teekah. Anything. I don’t wish this on any parent. And I tell parents, ‘Keep an eye on your child because it only takes a second for your child to come up missing,'” she shared.
A Facebook page entitled “Help Find Missing Teekah Lewis” was created to spread awareness. The Louisiana State University Faces Laboratory has also produced an age-progressed photo showing what Teekah might’ve looked like at 26 years old.
In August 2024, Theresa received a tip from her brother, a Home Depot employee who spotted a woman at the store. She’d walked in and asked to use the restroom and allegedly matched Teekah’s description.
Theresa called the tip “very big” and wanted to see surveillance from the Home Depot location. Yet, after she submitted it to the police, they didn’t immediately call her back. And once she finally heard from investigators, a detective told her they were busy.
“He said, ‘We have a homicide to work on.’ I understand that, but this is a 25-year-old case, and who knows, this could be my daughter,” Theresa explained at the time.
It’s unclear what came of this tip, but Theresa expressed her frustration with the Tacoma Police Department, saying, “I want answers. I’m tired of being nice.”
More recently, in February 2025, Sgt. Deir noted that, while she’s holding onto hope, those with information need to speak up.
“With every day that passes, it gets harder and harder, obviously, so we really would like to get some answers for Theresa and her family. But it’s gonna require somebody saying something.”
At the time she vanished, Teekah was wearing white sweatpants, a Tweety Bird T-shirt, and Air Jordan sneakers. She is Black and Native American and would be 28 years old today.
Anyone with information regarding Teekah’s case is urged to contact the Tacoma Police Department at (253) 591-5950.
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