Crime Junkie - MISSING: Kreneice Jones & LaMoine Allen

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Toddlers Kreneice Jones and LaMoine Allen disappear from a small town in Mississippi during a family gathering on Mother’s Day in 1992 under bizarre circumstances. The two children aren’t related – in fact, they barely know each other – and to this day, no one can make sense of what happened to them.If you have any information about the case or the whereabouts of Kreneice Jones or LaMoine Allen, contact the FBI in Mississippi at 601-948-5000, or call 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678). Google Earth: Kreneice Jones & LaMoine AllenDonate to audiochuck’s fundraiser for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at audiochuck.missingkids.org For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-kreneice-jones-lamoine-allen/

Hi, crime junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I have a confession for you about today's story. I didn't actually want to do it. Not because it's not important or I thought no one would be interested, but it has got so many angles, so many layers that it really needs its own TV series. And I've been struggling with how to explain it because there are so many people involved. And how do you even explain something that makes absolutely no sense? But after going around in circles for weeks, I finally decided we just have to put everything

out there and tell the story as best we can because it's too vital to keep on a shelf. And that's because at the center of this complex web are two innocent toddlers who vanished in broad daylight at a family gathering on Mother's Day in 1992. And they vanished under circumstances that are so peculiar we couldn't find any case to even compare it to. A special shout out goes to a woman named Christina Streeter. She actually looked into this story for a graduate school project and she was a huge help when our reporter Nina was doing her own investigation.

So this is the story of Cranese Jones and Lamone Allen. Sunday, May 10, 1992 is Mother's Day and just outside the small town of Woodville, Mississippi, the Jackson family is having a potluck for the occasion. Now the Jacksons have plenty of mothers to celebrate. They're a big close-knit group. In fact, at least three generations of Jacksons live within a stone throw of each other in a row of houses next to a highway, almost like an unofficial family compound. And just to help you keep things straight in this episode, we've actually made a family

tree sort of diagram and map so you don't get lost with all the names and relations and places. You can check out all of those on our blog post or you can see them right now if you're listening in the Crime Jenki fan club app. But anyways, this was kind of a small get together for them anyway, maybe 20 people. And one of those people is Tyrone Edwards. His nephew is married to a woman named Leola, who is part of the Jackson family. Now Tyrone came into town from where he lives in Louisiana, which is actually a couple of

hours away. And when he came into town, he came with his girlfriend, Carla, and she came with her two daughters, Crishanna and Crenice. Now Carla only knows like one other person at the party, but she's glad that she made the trip because everyone has been really welcoming and there are plenty of kids for her daughters to play with. This celebration comes to a crashing halt late that afternoon when someone realizes that there are fewer kids than are supposed to be there.

They realize that Tyrone's two-year-old great-nephew, Lamone, and Carla's three-year-old daughter, Crenice, are nowhere in sight. Obviously, these kids are itty-bitty, so they can't just be out there on their own. And the idea that maybe they went with someone they know doesn't really fly because the toddlers have never been to Woodville before, so it's not likely that they know anyone else in the area. As a matter of fact, they barely know each other. They only met a few hours ago when they piled into the car for the ride up here.

Everyone initially figures the toddlers have to be nearby and everyone starts searching. But they've got some ground to cover because the party is spread across multiple houses on this straight stretch of land that's about three football fields long. At one end is Jimmy Jackson's grocery, the small country store where Leola's parents live and work, and next to them is Leola's brother, and two of her sisters live in the house next to him. And even more intimidating for this search is the fact that the grocery store is right off this little dirt road that connects to a highway, and all these houses are surrounded

by thick trees and overgrown brush. Again, you can actually check this area out for yourself. We made an interactive Google Earth map, which is linked in our blog post. I promise you will understand the layout so much better once you see it. Anyway, some of the adults knock on doors off a cul-de-sac by Jackson's grocery. Crescanna starts checking under the seats in a school bus park nearby. Maybe the kids are hiding or playing a game, but there's no sign of them and none of the neighbors have seen the kids either.

So according to articles in the Woodville Republican by Andy Lewis, the Wilkinson County Sheriff's Office is called to this scene just before 5 p.m. We show up with town police, the fire department, even inmates from the local work center, and they start a search of their own. They bring in bloodhounds from the notorious Angola prison, which is right across the border in Louisiana, and they give the dog a pair of Khranises shoes to use to track her scent. There's nothing of limones, but everyone assumes that the kids must be together wherever they are.

And the dogs do manage to get Khranises scent, but they lose it on the road near the Jackson's grocery store, which leads police to believe that they were picked up in a car. Now a kidnapping in Woodville, this tiny rural town of less than 1800 people is unheard of. And I have to imagine the local department started to feel a bit overwhelmed, but they know that the most important thing they can do now is to try and nail down a timeline and also to find out more about Khranis and limone. Any insight is valuable at this point, and it might even help locate them. But remember, there are a good amount of people here, a lot of stories to get.

And the more they learn about the circumstances that brought the kids to Woodville, the more they realize how random and spur of the moment the trip actually was. Leola had just invited Carla and Tyrone last night after she and her husband Glenn Edwards had run into the couple at a bar in Louisiana. Like I said, Tyrone, Carla, and her daughters all lived in Louisiana, and she and the girls already had plans for Sunday. She was supposed to go to some barbecue with her mom. But at church with her own family that morning, Carla told them that she decided she was

going to go to Mississippi. She promised to be back in time for the barbecue, and even though her sister offered to watch the girls, Carla decided to bring them with her. She thought that they'd have fun with the other kids. Leola told us that she didn't know Carla was bringing her children. She figured it would be the four adults along with her and Glenn's toddler son, plus Glenn's nephew, Lamone. And again, where things get complicated even further is Leola says that they weren't even

originally planning to bring Lamone. Because you see, he was just temporarily living there with Glenn's mother, who is his paternal grandmother, and she apparently didn't want him going to Mississippi. But Leola says that Glenn talked her into it. So anyways, all eight of them squeezed into Leola's car for the drive from Louisiana to where they are in Woodville, Mississippi. They left around 10 30, maybe 11 a.m. And after a few stops for food and beer, they got to Leola's parents place at around 145

p.m. The Jackson family church Bleak House Baptist is right up the road and almost everyone went to the afternoon service except for Glenn because he had already been drinking a lot that day. So he stayed behind and watched his son and Lamone play outside. The service let out at around 3 30 p.m. and back at the Jackson's properties, everyone kind of split up for a while. The adults were doing chores or just getting things ready.

The kids were playing. The older children were kind of like doing their own thing. So Lamone and Crenice ended up hanging out together on the steps of the front porch of the grocery store. But they weren't alone. Both Tyrone and Glenn were in the front doorway off the porch. They could actually see them playing, although at times the two men were also inside the store watching TV.

Carla was in the back of the store with Leola ironing clothes. She says that Crenice did come inside at one point because she wanted some candy, but dinner hadn't been served yet. So Carla told her no. Now Crenice's older sister, Cresciana, was with one of the older girls. The two of them were walking from the store to one of the sisters houses while the toddlers were playing on the porch. But when they were like 500 feet away from the grocery store, Cresciana realized that

Crenice was running toward them because like always she wanted to tag along with her big sister. But Cresciana is nine. She wanted to play with kids her own age and all of you with older or younger siblings have been exactly here. I promise you I'm literally sitting in the booth with my younger sister who would always want to tag along with me. So the other girl that Cresciana was with told her that she would bring Crenice back to the

store, which she did while Cresciana watched. Then the other girl rejoined her and they continued on their way. But Crenice and LeMone were determined to hang out with the big kids. They complained to Tyrone about getting left behind and so he told the toddlers to go catch up with the older kids again. He and Glenn watched them walk off toward the other houses, specifically toward this footbridge that crosses a small stream between two of the houses. As far as police can tell, it's at this point that the kids seem to go missing because they

never do make it to meet up with the big kids and they don't go back to the front porch with the adults. But the problem is, no one was looking for them yet because everyone kind of thought the kids were with someone else. Carla thought her younger daughter was with her older daughter, Cresciana thought that she was with her mom and Leola says that she assumed the children were all together somewhere. So again, unknowing that the kids are gone, the adults who are at the grocery store leave there at around 4.20pm and they all congregate outside at Leola's sisters for a bit, talking

and having some drinks. And soon it was time to eat, so they went inside where Leola started fixing plates for everyone. And this is where everything starts getting murky because pretty much everyone we spoke with gave us a completely different narrative than the person before them. And many of the stories don't match up with FBI reports that we were able to access. And on top of that, some of these accounts have changed drastically over time. And look, this year marks three decades since Lamone and Crenice disappeared.

It's natural for people to forget stuff, block things out, or misremember, especially in traumatic situations. But this, this is beyond that. In fact, as we tried to figure out how to navigate this story, I learned a new phrase, which is the Rashomon Effect. That's when multiple people describe one event and their accounts are so contradictory it's impossible to reconcile all of them. And listen, I don't want to get bogged down in every little detail, because literally

almost every little detail conflicts. So I'm going to focus on what seems to be the main disputes, starting with how and when did everyone learn Lamone and Crenice were missing? So according to an FBI cold case summary report, which was written by agent Nate Songer, it's at this point when everyone goes in to start fixing plates for dinner, that one of Leola's sisters noticed the toddlers were gone. At first, no one seemed too concerned, but a few minutes later, Glenn and Leola went outside to look for them and realize they weren't with the other children.

They then drove to the Jackson's grocery store, but no one was there, so they went back and told everyone Crenice and Lamone were gone. But Carla, Crenice's mom, remembers it differently. She says that they were in Leola's sister's house. Glenn had a plate of food in his hand already, when suddenly, without explanation, he and Leola grabbed their son, ran out the door, jumped into the car, and just left. She and Tyrone ate, listened to someone play piano, then went outside, and about 45 minutes later, when Glenn and Leola and their son returned, Leola told them Lamone was missing.

So that's when Carla says she went next door to check on Crenice and discovered that now Crenice was missing too. So that's two versions, but Leola has another one. She told us that the whole reason they jumped in the car to begin with was because everyone already knew that both kids were missing. She said they panicked and the first thing she thought of was driving around to look for them. She says they checked by Jackson's grocery, then they drove all the way into Woodville,

which is like four or five miles west, just on the off chance that maybe the two kids were somewhere on the highway, and when they couldn't find them, they came back to start the search on foot. So okay, there are actually some big time discrepancies in all of that. But at some point, we know that the kids are missing. So whatever happened, however that happened, we know that the family goes to search. But again, everyone has a different story about that too. According to the FBI summary, Carla didn't seem worried that Crenice was missing.

And she mostly sat on the porch while the other adults split up and looked for the kids. But Leola told us that Carla did help as best she could since she didn't know the area. She doesn't remember Carla acting worried, but Carla also seemed to think that they'd find the kids quickly, which could explain it. And Carla says that she and Tyrone were the ones who looked everywhere for the kids, knocking on doors up and down the cul-de-sac, while Leola and Glenn didn't help at all. But at some point, the police get there, and while the police are searching, Glenn calls his mother to break the news.

Remember, this is the woman that Lamone has been staying with for the past few months, Lamone's grandmother. You see, Lamone's father, Terrell Allen, is an army sergeant, and he's been stationed in Alaska since before Lamone was born. And his mom, LeVette Holmes, lives in California, where she's finishing up school. So after his grandmother finds out he's missing, she calls her son, Terrell, who then contacts LeVette in California. And LeVette is stunned.

She told us that she had just talked to Lamone on the phone earlier that day, and she didn't even know that he was going to Mississippi. She thought he was going to McDonald's with Terrell's sister. But when LeVette hears her son is gone, this ominous warning comes back to her. Before she let Lamone go stay with his dad's side of the family, her own mother told her she had this bad feeling that if she sent him there, they would never see him again. So it's those words ringing in her ears as she makes plans to fly to Louisiana to find her son.

And back in the deep South, there is someone who wasn't at the family get together that police really want to talk to. And that's Crenice's dad, this guy named Gregory Jones. But when they track him down in Louisiana, they quickly find out that the kids aren't with him. And investigators learn that he has an alibi for most of Mother's Day. He was at work in Louisiana until 2.30 p.m. Then he ate dinner with his mother at 6 p.m. and then went to a few bars with his girlfriend

after that. So he wouldn't have time to leave work, drive to Woodville, Mississippi, kidnap two children, one of whom, by the way, he doesn't even seem to know, and then be back in Louisiana in time for dinner and bar hopping. But detectives do learn something interesting. Gregory wasn't required to work that Sunday. He had asked his boss if he could, although I don't know when he made that request. So police are still considering the possibility that maybe he got himself an alibi and then

had someone else pick up the kids. But there is still a question of motive. I mean, obviously, when a young child is kidnapped, it's almost always by a family member, although that statistic doesn't totally apply here since two children who aren't related are gone. But the family connection is not the only reason they look at him, which brings me to another major conflict in everyone's stories. According to Leola and Lamone's mom, LeVette, and the FBI reports, Carla pointed the finger

at Gregory. She's the one who told police to look at him. They had just broken up in March after six plus years together, and he was reportedly really jealous of her new relationship with Tyrone. According to the FBI summary report, when Carla wouldn't leave Tyrone, Gregory attempted to take his own life and ended up in the hospital. That April, Carla got a restraining order against him, although she dropped it within a couple of weeks.

And on Easter, which is less than a month before all of this is happening, Carla's trailer was set on fire, and it was possible that Gregory could have been involved. And they apparently had problems before the breakup, too. Kreshana says that Gregory physically abused her mother, and that same report says that Gregory took Krenis twice without permission in the past. Leola says that on Sunday night, Carla told multiple people that Gregory had given her a warning if she went to Mississippi with Tyrone something was going to happen. But here's where it gets messy.

Carla told us that Gregory never took Krenis without permission, and that she never told anyone Gregory warned her against going to Mississippi because he didn't even know she was going. In fact, Carla says that the reason police got so focused on Gregory is because Glenn and Leola intentionally tried to cast suspicion on him. You see, Carla says that Leola got a phone call Sunday night from a man who told Leola that he was repairing the Bleak House church roof earlier that afternoon when he saw an unfamiliar car driving around, but it was a very distinctive car, a gray Mustang with

an orange stripe. And guess what? That is what Gregory drives. Now, this is an especially strange lead for a few reasons. For one thing, there is an FBI report showing Leola did tell police about this man who saw a Mustang. But while she initially told them the car was gray, she then changed her story and said that the car was tan.

Though police in the report crossed out the word gray and tan is the description that they go with. But the really weird thing about all of this is that the report is from five days after the kids disappeared. And even Carla told us that police didn't know about this alleged gray tan whatever Mustang sighting during the first 24 hours, which means the early suspicion on Gregory couldn't have been because of this call or the car description, right? And by the way, there are reports of multiple unfamiliar vehicles in the area that day.

Glenn told police that he saw two black men parked in front of the store in a dark blue Nissan or maybe a Toyota. Leola remembers her nephew mentioning an orange or rust colored car with red dirt on the tires and neighbors reported even more different vehicles. But I keep coming back to the gray Mustang. Where did that description come from? As putting aside for a second any question of whether Gregory was involved, Agent Songer told us it's been pretty well established that Gregory's car was not in the Woodville

area that day. So either there's another Mustang just like it or the description was made up. Carla says that Leola would have known what Gregory's car looked like and she must have fed the man who called those details. But Leola denies both of those things and she says that she didn't personally see any unfamiliar cars so any description that she gave had to have come from someone else from this guy who called her either way. In the end, I don't know that it matters because police can't locate any of these vehicles.

And two days in after a couple of area searches, there's still no trace of the children and no leads. But there are people who need to be questioned in at least three states. We got Mississippi, Louisiana and Alaska. So the Wilkinson County Sheriff's Office calls in the FBI to assist. Meanwhile, according to the Woodville Republican, a New Orleans TV station comes to cover the story on Wednesday, May 13. The station actually uses its own news chopper to search the woods and fields around the

Jackson home. But like the other searches, this one doesn't turn off any clues. But FBI agent Kevin Rust says that the media attention still helps because a couple of days after the story breaks, they get a call from a local woman who helps cement the timeline a little more. The woman says that she was driving west on the highway past the Jackson properties on Sunday afternoon when she saw two small children kind of near that footbridge I talked about between the two houses.

To her, it didn't look like there were any adults around and the kids were close enough to the road that she was actually concerned for their safety. But she checked the clock and saw it was 4 p.m., which meant that she was already running late to her mother-in-law's house, so she decided not to pull over, although now she wishes she had. So if the rest of the FBI's timeline is accurate, that leaves a 20-minute window for the children's disappearance, because no one leaving the Jackson's grocery store at 4.20 saw them. As the time passes, police conduct a bunch of interviews.

Lamone's dad, Terrell, told us that he doesn't remember ever speaking with the FBI, but according to an FBI report, he does sit down with agents on May 15th in Alaska. He tells them that he typically called his mother a few times a week to check on Lamone. The little boy was staying there while LeVette finished school, and he was supposed to return to California to live with her at the end of that month. Terrell says Lamone doesn't have any behavioral problems, and there are no family financial concerns to speak of. He also says that he doesn't know Carla super well, like they're not friends or anything,

but he went to high school with her sister. But he has been hearing some stuff from back home, like stories specifically about Gregory, although it's not clear exactly who he was getting information from. And then he tells the agent something odd. He says he, quote, never thought he'd miss the kid, end quote. But he goes on to say that the whole situation has been painful for him. Now, the FBI is confident that Terrell was in Alaska when the kids disappeared, but they still consider the possibility that he may have hired someone to grab his son, the same

scenario that they're looking at with Gregory. Only, it seems like there may be more potential for a motive here. They're thinking maybe Terrell wanted to get Lamone before he returned to California with LeVette. But Terrell and LeVette weren't involved in any sort of custody battle. And if he just wanted his son, why is he also taking Khranis? It's the same thing that made Gregory's involvement nonsensical. Why take both kids?

Every time a theory starts to look somewhat plausible, the second you remember that these two toddlers really have no connection to each other, it's just continuous spiraling, asking over and over, what the hell could have happened here? And it's around this time that a rumor catches the FBI's attention. They hear that Glenn, remember this is Lamone's uncle, Terrell's brother. Glenn is selling drugs. And they also hear that Tyrone helps him by collecting money. But word around town is that Glenn himself owes money and that he has drug debts in Louisiana

and Mississippi. So if that's true, authorities wonder if maybe Khranis and Lamone were kidnapped to settle some kind of debt. It's a chilling thought, and agents decide it's time for some polygraph exams. Not just for Glenn and Tyrone, but Leola, Gregory, and Carla too. So they bring them all in on Thursday, May 21st. We couldn't get access to the whole file, so Agent Songer read us some of the FBI reports verbatim.

And according to the reports, the FBI learned a lot. Gregory tells investigators that Carla did accuse him directly of being involved in the kid's disappearance, but he says that if he wanted to kidnap Khranis, it would have been easier for him to do it in Louisiana. He didn't even know that Carla took Khranis to Mississippi, and he says he's never been to Woodville. Gregory also said that he didn't want Carla's new boyfriend around his daughter, because Khranis told him that Tyrone had hit her in the back, which Carla dismissed as just

a story. But maybe not a far-fetched one, because get this, Tyrone is fresh out of prison after serving more than two decades for murder. According to a United Press International article, he was charged with killing a man in the late 1960s, a teacher who was found in a ditch near his burning car. The victim died of asphyxiation, but I don't have any of the details about the case. Agent Songer only knows that Tyrone pled guilty. So maybe this has nothing to do with two toddlers disappearing, but I get why someone

maybe wouldn't want their kid around this guy, you know? And then there's Glenn. He eventually admits that he uses drugs and that he's sold them in the past, but he says he doesn't owe anyone any money. And the last time he saw the toddlers, they were near the footbridge, walking a distance behind some other children. Carla tells investigators she has no clue where the kids are. The only suspect she can think of is Gregory.

She says he's unstable and wants custody of Khranis. And she does also think it's possible that Glenn's involved because of his drug activity, but she said that when she mentioned that theory to Tyrone, he got pissed off at her. Now when they talk to Leola, she reluctantly admits in her interview that Glenn does use drugs, although she says that she doesn't know anything about him selling them. And when they talk to Tyrone, he denies everything. He doesn't do drugs. Glenn doesn't do drugs.

No one sells drugs. And eventually he gets just so agitated. He basically says, I've told you guys everything about the kids, like I'm done talking. Now during the polygraphs, all five of them are asked some variation of at least two relevant questions. Did you participate in taking the children? And do you know where either of the children are now? Glenn and Leola pass.

Gregory's test is inconclusive. And Carla and Tyrone fail. Actually Carla fails twice. Carla says that she only failed because she was so upset. Basically she was already in a confusing, terrible situation. She's worried about her daughter and she doesn't know what's going on. She swears to investigators that she doesn't know anything about the children's whereabouts. She just hopes that Crenice is safe.

She also told us that she never said any of the things attributed to her in the polygraph interview report. Again, she insists that she never blamed Gregory and she says that Tyrone would not have wanted to protect Glenn or Leola if they were involved. Now while the polygraph results might be suspicious, they certainly aren't enough to prove what happened. So over the next couple of weeks, search efforts continue. Authorities interview more than 100 people, including members of the Bleak House Baptist

Church and every resident within a mile of Jackson's grocery. Posters are distributed around town. Agent Rust remembers traipsing through the marshy, swampy areas in the woods surrounding the properties looking for any clues. They even dredge a nearby pond, fearing that maybe Crenice and Lamone might have somehow fallen in. They come up with nothing, but then the FBI gets a promising tip. It turns out that the day before the children went missing, there was an attempted abduction

about 90 miles away in Columbia, Mississippi, and they think that it could be connected to this case. The FBI learns that the day before Crenice and Lamone went missing, a white man tried to lure a nine-year-old black girl into his car by asking for directions. It seems like the community had already been on high alert recently. According to Columbia and Progress reporter Daniel Fallon, some parents had been concerned because over the past few weeks, there were reports of suspicious people approaching local children like talking to them, offering to take them for rides.

And luckily, someone saw this man talking to the nine-year-old girl and chased him off. They then managed to get a partial license plate number. So within a couple of weeks, the FBI actually tracks this guy down where he lives in Mobile, Alabama, and he tells agents that this whole thing in Columbia is just a misunderstanding. He claims that he was scared because he got lost in a black neighborhood, and he asked the girl for directions and then suddenly found himself surrounded by people yelling at him.

To be honest, I mentally cheered when I heard that, like, if you need directions so bad, ask another adult, you will not convince me that this was an appropriate action if you were lost. Never. No. Anyway, Agent Russ says that there's not enough evidence to charge him with anything in relation to that incident, but the FBI digs into his background to see if he could have something to do with maybe Crenice and Lamone's disappearance.

They learn that this man was signed up to play in a golf tournament in Mobile on Mother's Day, and his name is in the tournament logbook. Agent Solner told us the logbook is not definitive proof that this man was in Mobile. He golfed with a group of friends, and apparently it was common for one member of the group to sign in for everyone, whether they showed up or not. But at the same time, the authorities can't place this guy anywhere near Woodville either. His only connection to the case is his potential involvement in that other one. So it's back to square one, and there is nothing at square one.

There are suspicious circumstances all over the place, but no real evidence pointing to any specific person or scenario. In June, the case does get national coverage from America's most wanted, which leads to a bunch of tips from self-proclaimed psychics, but nothing that actually pans out. Around this time, Terrell leaves Alaska to come to Louisiana for a bit, but he told us that he didn't go to Mississippi, and he doesn't speak with police while he's in town, or even later. Instead, he gets updates about the case from his family, and LaVette eventually has to

go back to California. Fast forward, and Carla and Tyrone eventually break up, and despite everything, she and Gregory actually get back together and marry in 1993, but then divorce later. Leola and Glenn also split up, and eventually Terrell gets married. But the children, they're frozen in time. Others occasionally run their photos, but besides Andy Lewis's reporting for the Woodville Republican, there's barely any media coverage, at least not that we could find. I don't know if that's because the kids are black, or because they weren't from the

area where they disappeared, but neither state really latched on to the story the way that I would expect when two toddlers just vanish into thin air. I mean, compare this for a moment to the case of Madeline McCann. All you needed was that name, and I'm sure you conjured up a picture of her in your mind. You know the circumstances of her disappearance, if not every detail, you know the high points. But Lamone and Crenice, I'd venture to say that no more than a handful of our millions of listeners has heard those names before today. So years pass with no major updates, until 1999, when a relative of Lamones sends word

to Carla that they've received a letter, and this letter shakes Carla to her core. It's from a woman in Buffalo, New York. It seems like she saw something about the kids in one of the few broadcasts about them, and she has a wild claim. She tells Carla that back in July of 1992, she dropped her own daughter off to her paternal grandmother for a couple of days so that she could go to a concert in another state. And she says that when she returned to pick up her daughter, she was given Crenice instead. Now her story is hard to understand.

Essentially, she accuses her ex's family of using foster care licenses to run a kidnapping ring for financial gain. She says that basically they've taken other children, including Lamone, and that he's living under a new identity. Now Terrell told us that this woman also reached out to him, and she sends everyone a photo of some kids, including the ones that she thinks are Lamone and Crenice. But she doesn't really explain why she thinks her ex's family kidnapped her child only to give her another one, or why she even waited years to say anything about it.

But when they look into this woman's claims, it seems like maybe there are some other issues at play. Because by the time she reaches out, either the state or the woman's ex has started the process of removing the girl that she says is Crenice from her care due to neglect allegations. The FBI becomes involved, and by the time Carla is able to actually speak with the woman, she says that she doesn't know where the girl is anymore. But according to the TV show Find Our Missing, a DNA test confirms that the claims aren't true.

I can only imagine what a crushing blow it is to hear that your missing child might be within your reach, only to have that hope snatched away. And that's probably why, when another bit of hope reaches the family's ears later, it becomes so difficult to let go of. In 2013, the two mothers, Carla and LaVette, reconnect. We heard two different stories about how they reconnected, but suffice to say, it happens. And listen, before I even get into this, there's something that you should know. Obviously, there's a lot of blame going around about the children's disappearance,

but I don't know when people started to blame each other and when their theories about others' guilt took root. But I think it's safe to say that by the time Carla and LaVette reconnect, they have very similar assumptions with a couple of key differences. So they both think that Lamone's father Terrell, again, he's the one that lives in Alaska, they think he orchestrated all of this from Alaska. And they both think that Glenn and Leola helped him. But here's the twist, LaVette thinks Carla was also involved in the plot.

LaVette says Carla was way too calm in the aftermath of the children's disappearance. She said that she did initially blame Gregory, and it was only years later when Creechana grew up and started looking for her sister that Carla's story started to change. Now again, that one question comes back up, why both toddlers? It was always the part that didn't make sense, right? Well, LaVette has a theory. She says she believes Crenice might actually be Lamone's half-sister. So stay with me here.

LaVette thinks that Terrell was actually the biological father of Crenice, but her reasoning seems mostly based on her thinking that the toddlers just look alike. So she theorizes that Carla might have let Terrell take her daughter so that Gregory wouldn't find out about any questionable paternity. And Carla would still know that she was safe and still maybe get to see her. Now obviously, Carla vehemently denies LaVette's claims. She thinks that Terrell wanted to take Lamone and Crenice was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now one reason that both mothers point the finger at Terrell is because of the circumstances of his and LaVette's relationship. When Lamone was conceived, LaVette was only 16 and Terrell was 24. And both LaVette and Carla seemed to think that Terrell was married at the time. So their thought is, maybe he was worried about the military finding out about this illicit relationship and wanted to get rid of the evidence, and Lamone is the evidence. But to me, this reasoning doesn't really add up. For one thing, as far as we know, Terrell was not married at the time.

Based on court records, the woman he ended up marrying didn't even divorce her ex-husband until a year after the kids went missing. But more to the point, if Terrell was worried about the military learning about LaVette, kidnapping their child is the worst thing that he could do. Literally, it seems like the quickest way to draw everyone's attention directly to the one place you wouldn't want it. Because if the higher-ups didn't know about the circumstances before, they sure as hell are going to know about it after Lamone goes missing.

And Terrell never denied that he was Lamone's father, not to the FBI back in 1992 and not to us. He does deny any involvement in their disappearance, as does Leola. They both say that they don't know what happened to the kids or why they were taken. Now, regarding Carla's potential involvement, for what it's worth, and personally, I think this is worth a lot, Agent Songer from the FBI is confident that she does not know where her daughter is. So take a breath, stretch, I feel like this has been a lot, and you guys, I'm not done.

This is already as complicated as all get-out. But just wait. And this is the time when you should pull out a pen and paper and get ready to take some notes, because I'm about to send your crime-junkie minds into overdrive. When LeVette and Carla reconnect, again, mind you, this whole time LeVette thinks Carla is suss, but when they reconnect, LeVette tells Carla that for the past couple of years, she's been communicating with a man that she thinks is her son. We're going to call this man Eric.

And LeVette says that there's a young woman named Brittany, who is connected to Eric in some way, who she believes is Crenice. Now Brittany and Eric have the same last name, Alan, and LeVette found Eric through a background search website when he popped up on a list of Terrell's potential family members. And I don't know if LeVette knew this at the time, but Eric is actually Terrell's stepson. Either way, basically she got curious and she called LeMone's case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And she says that he, in turn, contacted the Wilkinson County Sheriff, who, because why

not in this small town, just so happens to be Leola's cousin, Reginald Jackson? And listen, I'll explain more about the Sheriff later, but for now, all you got to know is that LeVette says that she spoke with the Sheriff, Sheriff Jackson, and the conversation led her to believe that Eric was, in fact, her son. So LeVette's cousin reaches out to this Eric guy on social media in 2011. Not sure exactly what he was told, but LeVette says that he got the gist of the situation. And after that, she sent him a friend request and they started to chat. So here's where Brittany comes in.

LeVette saw a Facebook post where Eric's sister, who we're going to call Alicia, referred to this Brittany girl as her sister, Alicia's sister. So LeVette checks out Brittany's profile. And in looking at her photos, she thinks Brittany looks a lot like an older Crenice. And again, remember, in LeVette's mind, she believes that Terrell is involved in the kid's disappearance in some way. So I think in this world where she believes this Eric guy is Lamone and Brittany is Crenice, maybe they're being kept with his family in Texas.

Now essentially, there are a few key questions swirling around. A, is Eric Allen really Terrell's stepson? Or is he Lamone? B, is Brittany actually Crenice? And C, did Terrell kidnap both kids and raise them as brother and sister? Now Crescanna hears about this and she figures there's a surefire way to know if Brittany is her little sister. She messages her and asks if she has a scar on the back of her ear.

This has one from a tooth infection that required surgery. And get this, Brittany does have a scar on the back of her ear, but the scar is on her right ear and Crenices is on the left. Still, it's a personal enough detail to freak Brittany out. And close enough to the truth that Crenice's family thinks there must be something to LeVette's theory. Brittany and Crescanna get on the phone and Crescanna tells Brittany that she thinks she might be her long lost sister.

But Brittany at first, she's like, listen, you have the wrong woman. I know my parents, I've seen my birth certificate. Plus, this scar, this whole thing happening over the scar is recent. She said it's from a car accident that she got into a few years ago. And she also says that this whole thing, like how they even got to her with Alicia claiming her as a sister on Facebook is a huge misunderstanding. They're not actually sisters, they're just really close friends and they sometimes refer to each other as sisters the way close friends do.

And she's like, also, I barely know Eric, I just met him once briefly. But Crenice's family can't shake this. They contact Agent Songer anyway. Now Eric is reportedly seven years older than Lamone would have been. And Brittany is about a year older than Crenice would have been. But when Agent Songer hears all of this, he thinks it's at least worth looking into. So he actually calls Brittany himself. And here's what I think is a little strange.

Brittany and Alicia had been friends for a few years by that point. Like literally ended up living together for a while. So they're close, remember close enough to refer to one another as a sister. But Brittany doesn't remember ever hearing anything about Lamone or Crenice. Like it never came up once. And now all of a sudden the FBI is calling her to see if she might be this long lost missing girl. So after she talks to the FBI, Brittany tries to get the scoop from Alicia about the situation.

Like you can't just go back to business as usual, right? I'd be asking every question in the book. How did this never come up? Why does everyone think it could be me? Tell me everything. But Brittany says that her friend doesn't like discussing the situation. And she's not happy to hear that Crenice's family got this ball rolling. So Alicia contacts Crishana and tells her to leave her family and Brittany alone.

But then something very unexpected happens. After a rocky start, Brittany actually becomes close with both Carla and Crishana. And so she agrees to take a DNA test, not because she believes she's Crenice, but because she wants to just put the stories to bed once and for all. FBI agents take swabs from Brittany and her own mother. And it turns out she's not a match for Crenice. But that DNA test does nothing to convince Carla, so they take a second test. And again, no match.

But Carla says that she feels it in her heart that Brittany is her daughter, no matter what the DNA test says. She wonders if maybe there were screw-ups at the lab or something. Crishana, on the other hand, does believe the DNA results. But she says she's still glad that Brittany's in their lives now. And pretty much like family, which is probably the one and only good thing to come out of this mess. Now, as for LaVette and Eric, there's a lot that we don't know.

But here's what we were told. Tyrell says that he became aware at some point that LaVette thought Eric was her son. And since Eric and LaVette were both living in California at the time, he asked his stepson to meet with her, like, just go put her mind at ease. He says that they met, and LaVette told him afterwards that she no longer thought Eric was her son, because she would know if he was. But LaVette says that she was supposed to meet up with Eric. Basically, I guess he's in the music business, and she was planning to go to a 2011 performance

of his. But the performance was canceled. And from a message that she showed us, it sounds like he also canceled their plans to meet up somewhere. So she says that they never actually did meet in person, and that she never told Tyrell that Eric wasn't her son. And bottom line is, LaVette says Eric kept talking to her, off and on, all the way until 2016, even after it was clear that she thought he was Lamone.

And she doesn't understand why he would keep talking to her unless he also thought that he was Lamone. Now, I don't know much about his side of their correspondence or why they stopped communicating. We weren't able to actually get in touch with him, and as far as we can tell, he hasn't taken a DNA test. But we did look into his background ourselves, everything from public records to social media, to newspaper archives about his high school basketball team. And we are extremely confident that Eric is not Lamone, though LaVette is still not convinced.

And you know what? I get it. This is such a highly charged emotional situation with so many random moving parts. It's no wonder that no one knows who to believe or who to trust. Which brings me back to the Wilkinson County Sheriff, Reginald Jackson. He was not the top cop when the kids went missing. But it's an understandable misconception that a lot of people seem to have. You see, Reginald ran for office in 1991 after a few years with the Woodville PD, and he

was the first black man to actually win. But according to the Associated Press, he only defeated his white opponent by 16 votes. And even though he took office in January of 1992, a judge actually removed him about a month later after finding that there was widespread voter fraud. So the town police chief temporarily took over as county sheriff until Reginald won office again by a much bigger margin during a special election a couple of weeks after the children disappeared. And the reason that I even bring this up is because I wondered if it was possible that

the kids were taken in retaliation for something with that election. Because it was a really controversial situation. Maybe someone saw Crenice and Lamone and figured they must be related to the Jacksons because it was like a family event and they decided to grab them. I mean, granted, this isn't a super strong theory because while Reginald and Leola are related, his branch of the massive Jackson family tree doesn't live on that stretch of property. But it's not like there are a ton of great leads floating around.

So why not think outside the box? What's interesting is the sheriff's office was definitely involved in the investigation. Reginald is even quoted in the Woodville Republican about how hard he's working to find the kids and the department is listed as the case owner in Namus. But Reginald, who's still the sheriff, never returned our calls, emails, or Facebook messages, even after Leola asked him if he would speak with our reporter Nina. And oddly, when we submitted a records request to his office, we were told that the case was turned over to the FBI, so it needs to go through them.

But Agent Songer told us Wilkinson County should still have the case files. So there's another mystery for you. And here's where the case stands now. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a team, kind of like a task force that reanalyzes long-term unsolved cases. This one certainly fits the bill because the agency told us they can't think of any cases with similar circumstances to compare it to, making it especially hard to draw conclusions. So that team is working on it, and they've been interviewing people in Louisiana.

In fact, a retired Deputy U.S. Marshal on the task force went to Leola's just a few days before Nina met with her this past June. Leola says they were asking her specifically about Glenn, if he might know more about the situation than he shared, or if his struggles with drug addiction could be a factor in the children's abduction. But even though she's mad that Glenn let the kids walk to her sisters by themselves, she doesn't think he played an intentional role in their disappearance. Still, the team seems to be making some headway.

Agent Songer was told that they've managed to dig up some new information from multiple families, although we're not sure what it's about. And speaking of Agent Songer, both he and Agent Ruster now retired. They still wonder about Khranis and Lamone all the time, but they don't actually have any theories about what could have happened to them, or who might be involved. And I'll be honest, even after our deep dive into this case, which encompassed dozens of interviews across multiple states, I don't have a good guess either. Just a million more questions.

Although there are a couple of things I do know. Two small children went missing on Mother's Day 1992. Khranis was a spunky girl with a great memory and a sharp sense of humor. Lamone was a sweet little boy totally obsessed with all things trains and cars, who everyone calls Mony. There are people who love them and miss them every single day. All they want is to find them, or at the very least get some answers about what happened. Both children would be 33 years old today.

They're both black, with brown eyes and black hair. Lamone has a small scar on his left knee, Khranis has a surgical scar on the back of her left ear, although most published descriptions incorrectly say it's her right ear. It is actually her left. If you have any information about the case or the whereabouts of Khranis Jones or Lamone Allen, please contact the FBI in Mississippi at 601-948-5000 or call 1-800-THE-LOST. And don't forget, we still have a fundraiser going for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with the goal of raising $100,000 to help assist in cases just like

this one. Even $1 towards the cause helps. You can donate directly to that nonprofit to help meet our goal by going to audiochuck.missingkids.org. To see all of our source material, the pictures, the maps, you can find that on our blog post for this episode, crimejunkiepodcast.com. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, at crimejunkiepodcast, and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audiochuck production, so what do you think Chuck, do you approve?