Lost in the Lanes: The Teekah Lewis Case

It was a crisp Saturday evening on January 23, 1999, and South Tacoma’s New Frontier Lanes was alive with the familiar sounds of weekend joy. The scent of buttered popcorn and hot French fries hung in the air, blending with the clatter of bowling pins and the cheerful din of conversation. The 32-lane bowling alley was a staple in the community—a haven for families, teenagers on casual dates, and friends catching up over pitchers of beer.

Inside the bustling complex, children darted between the snack bar and arcade machines, their faces glowing with excitement under the colourful, flickering lights. It was the kind of place where parents felt safe letting their kids roam just a little bit.

Among the crowd that evening was 23-year-old Theresa English, who had brought her two-year-old daughter, Teekah Lewis, for a night out with family. With them were Teekah’s uncles and a few close friends, all enjoying the relaxed, lively atmosphere. Theresa recalled: “It was a pretty good crowd and there was other kids there.”

At about 10:30PM, as the adults bowled, Teekah’s gaze wandered to the flashing lights of the arcade nearby. One machine in particular, a brightly lit racing game called Cruis’n World, caught her attention. It sat near a heavy side door that opened directly onto the large, dimly lit parking lot.

Theresa stood beside Teekah as she rode on the arcade game but then it was her turn to bowl. She told her brother and boyfriend to watch Teekah as she took her turn. When she was finished, she turned over to the arcade and saw that Teekah was gone. Panic surged in her chest. Theresa rushed to the machine, calling her daughter’s name. “I turned away for less than a minute,” Theresa would later say. “Someone had to pick her up and run out the door. She’s a mommy’s girl. She wouldn’t wander off.”¹

Theresa’s boyfriend, Fred Biggs, and other family members quickly joined in the search. An off-duty Tacoma police officer working security at the bowling alley leapt into action. Together, they scoured every inch of the building—under tables, behind arcade machines, even inside bathroom stalls. But Teekah had vanished.

Within the hour, uniformed police officers arrived and the search expanded beyond the bowling alley walls. Officers cordoned off the parking lot and checked every vehicle before patrons were allowed to leave. They explored every possibility, including that Teekah had simply wandered outside, but the more they searched, the clearer it became: this wasn’t a case of a lost toddler. This was an abduction.

As darkness settled over Tacoma, the response swelled. More than 200 officers and volunteers from Tacoma Police and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department flooded the area. Bloodhounds and German shepherds combed the surroundings. A police helicopter hovered above with heat-sensing technology, scanning for any sign of a small child hiding—or being hidden—in the night.

The hours passed. The night gave way to a bleak morning, and still, there was no sign of Teekah. “If she was in the search area, we believe we would have found her,” Lt. Jim Howatson said sombrely the next day.

There was a glimmer of hope when the sniffer dogs picked up a scent. They led trackers to a brushy area across Center Street from the bowing alley. When the area was searched, detectives came across a ball of men’s clothing but nobody ever came forward to identify the clothing or admit that it was theirs.²

Investigators turned their focus toward those closest to Teekah. Her father was quickly ruled out; he was serving time on McNeil Island and had no opportunity to be involved. They scoured lists of local sex offenders, knocking on doors, asking questions, but no one knew anything.³

From the very beginning of the search for Teeka Lewis, there was one woman who stood out—someone whose behaviour that night raised immediate red flags.

She was a middle-aged woman, visibly intoxicated, seated with three male companions not far from where Theresa and her family were bowling. Despite her slurred speech and unsteady posture, she appeared unusually fixated on the children with the group. At one point, she turned to Teeka’s uncle and asked if she could hold his infant son. The family, sensing her inebriation, politely declined—but she persisted, even trying to pick the baby up herself.

The moment passed, shrugged off as drunken overfriendliness. But after Teeka disappeared, the same woman resurfaced—this time in the parking lot. Fred Biggs, Teeka’s stepfather, was in a frenzy, darting between rows of cars with Teeka’s 10-month-old sister, Tamika, in his arms. His voice cracked as he called out Teeka’s name again and again, hoping for an answer that never came. That’s when the woman approached him, seemingly concerned.

She offered to help and said she would keep the baby warm in her car. Overwhelmed with panic and desperate to continue the search for Teeka, Fred agreed. He handed over Tamika and rushed off into the night, unaware of the woman’s earlier interaction with the family.

It wasn’t long before Theresa caught sight of something that made her blood run cold—her baby daughter, Tamika, buckled into the backseat of a car that was beginning to pull away. The woman was behind the wheel. “I said, ‘You got my daughter.’ She said, ‘This ain’t your baby,’” Theresa later recalled.

She immediately flagged down officers, who intervened and removed Tamika from the vehicle. The woman was placed in the back of a patrol car for questioning. But once inside, her erratic behaviour escalated—she attempted to strangle herself with the seatbelt, prompting officers to rush her to a hospital for evaluation and to sober up.

Detectives could never find any evidence that she was involved in Teekah’s disappearance. One detective commented: “Her mental health deteriorated so bad that it’s impossible to get anything from her. There’s no questioning her, there’s no giving her a polygraph, she’s that gone.”

As January gave way to February, hope remained—but it was beginning to fray at the edges.

Weeks passed with no sign of little Teeka Lewis. Her face had become familiar across the city: on posters taped to storefront windows, in news broadcasts, and now emblazoned on the sides of Pierce Transit buses, a reminder of the child who vanished just feet away from her mother in a place that once felt safe. In an effort to spark new leads, the FBI stepped in. On February 26th, they announced a $26,000 reward for any information that could lead to Teeka’s recovery.

“It is our hope that someone will come forward,” said Tacoma Police spokesman Jim Mattheis. “Money is a great motivator.”⁴ But despite this new push, detectives found themselves chasing shadows.

By that point, more than 300 individuals had been interviewed, and authorities had combed through nearly 700 tips from across the region. Some were vague hunches, others wild speculation—but all led nowhere.

Then came a disturbing report from the same night Teeka vanished. While chaos unfolded at New Frontier Lanes, another unsettling incident occurred just a few miles away. In a nearby park, a man in a Pontiac Grand Am had attempted to abduct children. Witnesses saw him flee the scene in the same car, his tires screeching as he disappeared into the night.

It was chilling enough on its own—but then a witness came forward to report that they had seen a vehicle matching that description speeding out of the bowling alley parking lot around the same time Teeka went missing.⁵ The coincidence was impossible to ignore.

Investigators began to focus in on the vehicle, a mid-90s model Pontiac Grand Am—dark in colour, possibly maroon or burgundy. Over the years, it would become a focal point of the case. Flyers featured the car. Press releases mentioned it. People were asked to recall anything about that make or model from that night. But the vehicle was never located, and no concrete lead ever materialized from it.

Still, there was one thread that stood out to Sgt. Pam Dier. In her relentless re-examination of the case, she dug through every 911 call made the night Teeka disappeared, hoping something—anything—had been missed. And there, buried in the transcripts, was a curious call from a distressed mother.

She had phoned dispatch because of a strange conversation with her son, a man in his 40s. He had told her he was thinking about leaving town, and then asked a haunting question: “Would you leave with me?” His words, coupled with the timing, unnerved her.

Police were dispatched to conduct a welfare check. What they found was a man with a troubling history—specifically, a sexual history that raised red flags. He became what detectives called “a suspect of sorts.” His background was scrutinized, his movements that night analysed.

A witness who had been at the bowling alley that night came forward and said that the man matched the description of someone they saw inside the premises—walking hand-in-hand with a little girl who looked like Teekah. Theresa Lewis remembered him too. When detectives showed her his photograph, the recognition hit her like a wave. “When they showed me the picture, all I could do is cry,” she said. “I remembered the guy from the bowling alley, and if that’s the case, there’s no way Teekah is here right now.”⁶

The revelation was chilling. Had the man who took Teekah been right there in plain sight all along?

Detectives attempted to revisit the lead. Roughly a month after he was first reinterviewed, they returned to speak with him again—but it was too late. He was dead.

The man, described as having a history of serious mental illness, remains a person of interest. But with his death, any secrets he may have held died with him. Investigators have never confirmed whether he was ever formally linked to Teekah’s disappearance. But for her mother, the connection felt unmistakable.

It has now been over 26 years since Teekah Lewis disappeared from that busy South Tacoma bowling alley—a moment that changed the course of her family’s life forever. The once vibrant 2-year-old with bright eyes and soft curls would be nearly 30 years old today.

Her mother, Theresa, has become a fierce and unwavering advocate for her daughter and for other missing children. Year after year, she’s organized vigils, met with investigators, and pleaded with the public to come forward with any information.

Speaking to Dateline, she said: “I’m fighting for mine. I will do anything to find Teekah. Anything,” she said. “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.’”⁷

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