UPDATE: IMPD said they have reason to believe Nakyla Williams traveled to the area of Flint, Michigan. Police are also looking to speak with Bestin Hoyle, who is believed to be the last person to be with Williams and may have information about her whereabouts.
Anyone with information about Williams or Hoyle is asked to contact IMPD at (317) 327-6160 or CrimeStoppers at (317) 262-TIPS.
Original story follows.
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INDIANAPOLIS — Nakia Spurlock Pope has surveillance video of her daughter walking away from the family’s northside home on Nov. 9 and getting into a gray pickup truck and being driven away.
Within days Nakyla Williams, 22, was reported missing and IMPD resisted issuing a missing persons alert until Tuesday evening.
“Additional time has passed. Nothing else has changed,” said an IMPD spokesman.
Nakyla’s mother told us much has transpired since her daughter walked away.
“I have given IMPD every lead I have come up with,” she said. “Luckily, I have cameras. Luckily, I know what’s going on. It’s not like she just vanished and I don’t know. These are facts. These are facts.”
Those facts, said Nakia, include tracking her daughter’s frequent visits to a home in the 3400 block of North Leland Avenue where she met the man driving the gray truck, who the family said is known out of state.
“I found out that he goes by several different names,” said Nakia. “He has to be stopped. You just can’t take people’s children just because you think you can do that.”
Nakia said her daughter’s cell phone went dead shortly after her disappearance three weeks ago and she’s been investigating ever since.
“I found out that nothing is out of my power, when it comes to your child, you know what I’m saying? I will do anything to find out what happened to my child.”
Under “Molly’s Law” — passed seven years ago after Molly Dattilo vanished in 2004 — police must determine if a disappearance is high risk based on several factors, including whether missing person is a minor or has an immediate health condition, whether there is the imminent threat of danger or the person has been missing for more than 30 days.
Initially, Williams’ disappearance did not necessarily meet any of those criteria.
“It still takes a lot of push to get these cases taken seriously,” said Keri Dattilo, Molly’s cousin. “So when Molly disappeared, her case wasn’t taken seriously. It was, ‘She’s an adult, she has the right to go missing.’ We heard a number of excuses.”
So far this year IMPD has received approximately 3,800 reports of missing persons.
Two-thirds of those cases result in runaways or persons who have voluntarily walked away.
“The days in the beginning matter. Your hours, seconds, whatever, it all matters when you’re looking for a missing person. Months later tracks are covered up. It just gets harder and harder,” said Dattilo. “People’s memories fade. When you bring out a person of interest later on, people’s memories are not as sharp as they were in the beginning.”
Jogging people’s memories will be on the minds of Nakia and Nakyla’s family and friends when they gather at 5324 Massachusetts Avenue Thursday morning at eleven o’clock to walk the neighborhood where the missing woman was known to spend time and met the man she disappeared with.
Nakia said she has talked to people who know that man.
“They know something and everybody just be, ‘I don’t wanna be in it but you need to look at him, this is what he did,’” said Nakia.
If you know anything about the disappearance of Nakyla Williams last month, call Crimestoppers at (317) 262-TIPS.
Your information could be worth a $1000 reward and you can remain anonymous.
