Recent search at Tacoma home was part of Teekah Lewis investigation, police say
A 3-day search at a Tacoma home for clues into the disappearance of 2-year-old Teekah Lewis ended Wednesday with no results, police said.
The Police Department received a tip that was related to the on-going investigation into Teekah’s disappearance. She was last seen at an arcade at New Frontier Lanes bowling alley on Center Street on Jan. 23, 1999. Police believe she was kidnapped.
The recent tip led detectives to a home in the 3200 block of South Gunnison Street, according to the department.
“The past three days of work on Gunnison Street represented one avenue this recent tip led detectives to pursue,” the department wrote on X.
Teekah was not located, nor any evidence related to the case, the post said.
“The Tacoma Police Department remains steadfast in its commitment to seeking answers for Teekah’s family and to resolving all of the city’s cold cases. Every tip and lead we receive is taken seriously and pursued completely,” the post said.
There are 147 unsolved homicides in TPD’s cold-case files and 20 missing-person cases with strong possibility of homicide.
Background on Teekah’s disappearance
Teekah was playing in the bowling alley’s arcade before she went missing. She was reported missing to a police officer who was working there off-duty 20 minutes later at about 10 p.m.
She was last seen wearing a Tweety Bird T-shirt, white sweatpants and red, white and black Air Jordan shoes. A maroon 1980s or ‘90s Pontiac Grand Am with tinted windows and a spoiler was seen speeding away from the bowling alley parking lot shortly after Lewis disappeared.
Over the years, detectives followed up on more than 700 tips in Teekah’s disappearance, The News Tribune reported in 2020.
Cadaver dogs have been used to search the homes of sex offenders, and a small area in Point Defiance Park was dug up in 2010 after a man reported having a vision of where the girl was buried.
A lack of evidence and no clear eyewitnesses have been the main challenges in the investigation, according to a Tacoma detective interviewed for a previous News Tribune story.
Since her disappearance, Teekah’s mother, Theresa Czapiewski, has held candlelight vigils for her daughter every year. She also got Teekah’s missing-person’s poster displayed on the side of semi-trucks used for shipping and transportation.
Anyone with information on Teekah’s disappearance is asked to contact the Tacoma Police Department.
