A search for evidence at a Tacoma home this weekend was part of the investigation into the abduction of Teekah Lewis, a 2½-year-old girl who went missing from a Tacoma bowling alley in 1999, police said Sunday.
“Detectives are still evaluating this part of the investigation, but have not discovered anything significant at this point,” police spokesman Naveed Benjamin said.
Teekah was last seen at the now-defunct New Frontier Lanes on Center Street about 10:15 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1999, playing near a video game as her family bowled nearby.
The search of the house in the 800 block of South Hawthorne Street came after detectives contacted a man who pleaded guilty to a child-luring at a different bowling alley in Tacoma, Benjamin said. He declined to say what led police to the man.
Interviewed Sunday by The News Tribune, the man confirmed he was John William Black and said police had spoken with him Friday. He said he did not want to comment on the investigation.
“I’m not going to say anything that’s going to hinder an investigation,” he said.
Black said he has never seen Teekah Lewis.
“I don’t know anything about that case,” he said. “I don’t even know that child.”
Theresa Lewis, Teekah Lewis’ mother, said police had told her the man had said he’d seen Teekah the night she went missing.
“The gentleman said he was at the bowling alley at the time that Teekah disappeared and that he spoke to Teekah that night,” Theresa Lewis said she was told Sunday.
Benjamin said police are not releasing information about the interview.
Neighbors said searchers in gloves and masks dug in the backyard of the house Friday night. Police returned the next morning and left midday Saturday, according to the neighbors who said a police forensic van and several dogs were used.
Theresa Lewis said Sunday that police told her three cadaver dogs had led officers to the same spot when investigators searched the residence, but that officers didn’t find anything when they dug at the location.
“My thing is if anybody at the bowling alley has seen the man that night, come forward,” Theresa Lewis said. “And if this man had anything to do with my daughter’s abduction, come out with it. Tell us what happened to her.”
Court documents show Black pleaded guilty in a child-luring case that occurred on Oct. 13, 2010, at the Tower Lanes Bowling Alley in Tacoma.
“I’m still paying the fine on that and I did my time,” Black said Sunday. He declined to elaborate further.
According to court papers, the father of a 3-year-old girl told police Black squatted down and motioned to the child, saying her mother was in the car. The father ran to protect his daughter, pushing Black away and possibly punching him, according to the documents. Black later was arrested and sentenced to 12 months in jail, according to the documents.
Over the years, police have followed several leads in Teekah’s case. None panned out. DNA showed a girl found dead in 2001 in Kansas City was not the missing child, nor was a girl found in 2006 living by Dallas.
alexis.krell@thenewstribune.com
Staff writer Debbie Cafazzo contributed to this report.
