The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages and is intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone. Welcome back to Cold and Missing. This is our second episode. Thank you all so much for the response to our first episode. It's been amazing.
We've had a lot of downloads and a lot of interactions with our content. So thank you so much. I'm completely blown away by this response and very humbled by it. So thank you. But whenever you're listening to this, whenever you come across it, it's the right time and exactly when you're supposed to be listening to it. So no worries if you're dropping in from the future. To give a little bit more insight into how we run our show, I'm your host, Ali, and my co-host is my husband, Eli.
Yes. So Eli listens along and this is the first time that he hears any of the research that I've done all week. So I'm very like a middle schooler covering their test to make sure nobody cheats whenever he walks by during the week when I'm researching. So he's here to ask questions that you as an audience member might have as you're listening to this because sometimes I can get a little lost in the weeds with my research. So he helps me stay on track and stay focused and tell a cohesive story.
So should we just jump in for this week? Yep. Okay, great. So we are covering a missing persons or missing persons case. We are going to be talking about Tionda and Diamond Bradley, and they have been missing since July of 2001. So 20 years, a little over 20 years they've been missing. Tionda was 10 years old when she was missing and she would now be 31 in 2022. And Diamond was three years old when she went missing and she would be 24 in the year 2022. So this case brings us back to Chicago.
I promise we're going to cover cases all over the United States, the world, but this one has stuck with me ever since I first heard about it. I really wanted this to be one of the first cases that I talked about. So July 2001, the girls are living on the south side of Chicago and they are living in the Oakland neighborhood, which if you're from Chicago, it's directly east of Bronzeville and it runs along Lake Michigan there.
And Tionda and Diamond are living with their mother Tracy and their two other sisters, Victoria and Rita. The family describes the girls as very smart and they're both athletic. Tionda had won several park district awards in running, tumbling, and gymnastics. And Tionda loved to dance. One of her great aunts would say, like, if you were down, it didn't matter where you were, if you just told Tionda to dance, she would dance.
It didn't matter if she was waiting for the bus at church, didn't matter. She would just dance. They also described Tionda as a laugher, like she laughed at everything. And she was very outgoing with family, but shy with strangers. And Tionda and Diamond, out of the four sisters, they had a very special bond and Tionda would like often carry her around on her hip, like she was like her own little baby doll.
So they were always together and neighbors, family, friends, like always put the two girls together. And Diamond, she was three years old when she went missing, but the family talked about how much energy she would have. She would jump from couch to couch, she would snatch food right off of your plate. She was always running after her older sisters to try to hang out with them.
And Tionda, one of her teachers described her as being the shortest kid in class, but she acted the tallest, which I loved. And I know that person very well. Like I know that personality very well of short but mighty, you know? Neighbors also mentioned that Tionda was one of the few kids in the neighborhood that had a bike, but she was always sharing it with all the kids in the neighborhood so everyone could ride. So like these were just very sweet and very kind girls and loving sisters.
So the day that they disappeared, the last day that we see them is Friday, July 6, 2001. Tracy, their mother, she wakes up and gets ready for work. And it's just Tionda and Diamond staying at the house with Tracy at this time. Their two other sisters are staying the night at their grandmother's house. So just Diamond and Tionda are at that house when Tracy wakes up. Tracy leaves for work at around 6 a.m., 6.30 a.m. it's reported.
It's mostly reported as 6, but in an interview I'll talk about later, Tracy says she leaves at 6.30. Tionda and Diamond were sleeping on the couch in the living room because this is summertime in Chicago and it's hot and the AC unit was in the living room so the kids were sleeping on the couch, which makes complete sense. So Tracy wakes Tionda up before leaving and told her, I'm locking the door and I'll call you don't go out that door.
So Tracy was leaving Tionda and Diamond by themselves while she went to work. And in 2022 that seems like unfathomable to like leave a 10 year old to watch a three year old. But in 2001 this feels way more common. Like I used to be left with my brother to watch and I remember watching kids pretty young while their parents were gone for a few hours.
So like this is like pretty normal for the time period, even though just 20 years later it's very hard to imagine leaving a 10 year old to watch a three year old. So Tracy, their mother, arrives at work around 6.40 and her boyfriend has dropped her off at work. Her boyfriend is also Diamond's father and she recently had filed a paternity suit against him in June of 2001 in order to get child support payments just like dictated by the court from my understanding.
So he drops her off at work at 6.40 and she works at the park district like getting lunches ready for summer camp program. So it's about a 10 minute drive from the apartment. So it makes sense if she leaves at 6.30 she arrives at 6.40. And the program director of this like summer camp program gets there at 8 and she said Tracy has been at work and is working when she gets there. So while Tracy's at work at around 8 a.m. she calls them from a work phone and there's no answer.
So she would be calling like the landline. This is 2001 so people still have landlines. So she calls the apartment's landline. No answer. She calls back seven minutes later and there's still no answer at the apartment. She goes back to work and she calls again at around 8.45 and still nobody picks up. So she's worried but she's assumed that the girls have fallen back asleep at this point. That's what she's running on. And now we're going to get into a little bit of a murky area.
So this is all of witnesses and what's been reported as Tiana and diamonds last known whereabouts of this day. The last time we for sure see them is you know their mother leaving at 6 a.m. to go to work. But these are all kind of stories that have not been confirmed by the police but have been reported in the media. So between 8 17 and 8 30. So this would be kind of in between the times that Tracy's calling from work. The family says Tiana called her mother's cell phone and left a voicemail.
So Tracy's cell phone was not on her that day. She had left it with her mother who I believe is the grandmother that is watching Victoria and Rita the two other girls. So again for 2001 it was kind of common to like share a cell phone or to pass it along and let somebody else use it. I know my dad let me take his to orchestra camp for a week like I think this exact year in 2001. So it's like a common occurrence at that time for people to pass out the cell phone.
The police never confirmed this voicemail. The police never say they have heard it. They really have no comment on it. But the family they all say around 10 of them heard it and they found it after the girls went missing Tracy was being questioned by the police and had left her cell phone with her family. So they decided to look through her cell phone and they found the voicemail from Tiana. The family says the police accidentally deleted the voicemail and police cannot confirm this.
So maybe they did maybe they didn't. I don't know. But that's what the family says happened. And here's what they say was contained in the voicemail. It was Tiana and she says mama this is Tiana mom pick up the phone. George is at the door. Can I open the door? He said that we're going to Jules to pick up the cake there. We're coming to pick you up from work. And a voicemail. So George that could be Tracy's boyfriend Diamond's father. His name is George Washington. That could be him at the door.
But a neighbor is also named George who often babysat the girls. So there's a neighbor also named George. But the family leans that it's she could be talking about Washington at the door because the girls had a nickname for their neighbor who babysat them that that's what they called them him by as opposed to George. I don't know what the nickname was. It's never said. But that's why the family thinks that it was Washington that Tiana is talking about in this voicemail.
And George Washington denies that he ever went back to the apartment after dropping Tracy off at work. At 10 a.m. a neighbor says that Tiana knocked on his door and asked to play with his daughter. But he said that it was too early and that his daughter couldn't come out and play. Another neighbor told newspapers that she saw the girls between 2 30 and 3 o'clock playing at the apartment complex where they lived. And she says that Tiana ran up to her and asked if she had any juice or candy.
And this neighbor was walking her kids to the beach. And then another witness report or witnesses report at a nearby elementary school do little elementary summer school program was going on there and the kids there say that they saw diamond and Tiana playing at 8 a.m. before school started. And then again around noon. But none of these sightings the neighbor that that Tiana came and knocked on the door to ask if she could play with his daughter.
The neighbor that she asked if she had any juice or candy and then the school kids none of these have been confirmed by police as true sightings. They may have been confirmed but they are not telling us that. So how do you know? These have all been reported in newspapers. So reporters went out and your clippings and my clippings and my newspaper clippings clippings of a madman. Truly. OK. So that's the end of the murkiness as far as Tiana and diamonds last day or their last known day around.
So now we we kind of get to jump back into like facts and things that we know have happened on this day because I think police were initially worried that witnesses or the children at the school were maybe confusing the day that they saw them. So maybe it wasn't Friday they saw them. Maybe it was Thursday and they're confusing it for Friday. I think there was some of that that they had to sort through in the beginning. But now we are jumping back into things that we know happened.
So Tracy returns home. It's reported that she returned home at 11 with George Washington. So he drove her home. When she comes home the door is locked. The apartment door is locked but the girls are gone and she calls out for them and there's no response and she finds a note that she believes Tiana left on the couch near a bundle of clothes.
In the beginning there's a lot of questions around this note and this note like is pretty important when it comes to this case because it's one of really the only clues we have as to what happened to Tiana and diamond that day. The note has never been publicly has never been published. We don't know verbatim what the note said like the exact language that was written on it.
So essentially Tiana wrote that they were going to the school which is do little elementary which is about two blocks away or they were going to the Lake Meadows shopping center which is across the street from do little. Now in the beginning every time this notice talked about it's like an ant. It's like an or situation. So they talk about the note and it's like they were going to do little or the shopping center.
So I don't know like what the verbiage is that kind of makes it unclear but later as the years progress it's written that the note says they are going to do little and then the shopping center. The school is important here in the note because Tiana this is the elementary school she attended throughout the year but she was also attending summer school in the summer of 2001 and had perfect attendance until this day. The school calls the apartment at 1010.
So this would have been after Tracy was calling the apartment and this would have been after Tiana allegedly left the voicemail on her mother's cell phone. The school called the apartment at around 1010 and there was no answer. And Tracy acknowledges that she kept Tiana out of school that day to watch Diamond because there was a plan to go on a camping trip that Friday for the weekend to celebrate Victoria's birthday. So the plan was Tiana would stay home and watch Diamond.
Tracy would come home with George. I believe he was supposed to be going on this trip as well. I believe the other two sisters were supposed to go because it was Victoria's birthday the next day so that Saturday while they were going to be on this camping trip.
But in later articles it said that the other two sisters weren't going to be going so there's like I have some questions around this camping trip that's talked about as it's reported now Tracy kept Tiana out of school but that wasn't reported to the school because the school called you know asking where she was because she didn't show up for school in the voicemail said that they were going to jewel to get a cake because it was going to be Victoria's
birthday that weekend and this camping trip was happening so I don't know but very specifically later on it said that the other two sisters weren't going so there's some questions around this we're going back to the note that was found at the apartment Tracy walks in finds this note that they're going to do little and or the shopping center that's across the street from do little elementary it's about two blocks from their apartment home and the
family says it's highly unlikely that the girls wrote a note and they say that Tiana would call her mother's cell phone if she had something to tell her and they kind of point to the voicemail that she allegedly left being like well she called her earlier why wouldn't she call her again and the family says the language within the note it wasn't how Tiana spoke at all and family members were genuinely surprised to hear that a note
had been left because it was just unlike Tiana to leave a note at this point she would call her mother's cell phone to like let her know if something was changing or to ask her a question she would not leave a note and then later on one of the girls ants she's quoted as saying quote the letter was Tiana's penmanship but truly in my heart I think she was coached into writing that letter when she wrote letters or certain words she wouldn't spell them correctly
so this didn't match up with her writing and quote and Tiana was going to summer school specifically for her reading and writing the family speaks of specific grammar and spelling that like Tiana they don't think Tiana would have been using or would have been able to spell on her own without somebody coaching her the FBI will collect samples of Tiana's writing from school and also take Tracy's handwriting as a sample according to the FBI
they believe Tiana did in fact write the note and that she was not under duress while she wrote it and this makes the family believe that it was somebody that she knew that was coaching her to write the letter that it wasn't a stranger and they also have described Tiana as being very street smart I mean this is a girl who grew up in the city of Chicago so she knows stranger danger she knows not to talk to strangers or let a stranger into
the home so she's you know she's street smart and they believe that only somebody who she trusted would she have unlocked the apartment door for that day and their mother Tracy she's also said that the note is odd because it's not something that Tiana would normally do Tracy at this point is starting to feel a little panicked and she asks George Washington diamonds father to help look for the girls but he declines to do so and he just gets
in his car and leaves so Tracy starts calling family members to begin searching in 2021 I found a report that at around noon Tracy and George Washington had gone to jewel to buy food and that there is a receipt stamped 1221 so that does happen during this time period and later Tracy's timeline shifts a little bit when she talks to a reporter because
it's all reported that she returns at 11 11 a.m. 11 a.m. 11 a.m. like that's repeated again and again but later she'll say that she got off work at 1140 which would give her the time to borrow $20 from a neighbor and go to jewel to buy the food and then come home at around 1230 which she'll say later is when she got home so that timeline allows for this but up until this point it had been 11 11 11 the whole time so that's a little
question I have family continue to search for the girls throughout the apartment complex and at 6 p.m. the girls are officially reported missing and Tracy is nervous to call police because she's scared that she's going to get in trouble because she left the girls alone and she has two other daughters that she doesn't want them to get taken away so another family member had kind of advised her like hey you can't call them right away
so that's why the phone call to the police comes so late is because she had been advised by family members that like she was going to get into a lot of trouble so she should try to look for them and find them herself but at 6 o'clock the police were called and because Tracy is scared she initially lies to police and says that she was in the apartment taking a nap and when she woke up the girls were gone and so this slows things down in
the beginning because the police think that the girls left on their own accord and don't think that they think that if somebody came into the apartment and got the girls that Tracy would have woken up and heard it so it slows down the investigation in the beginning a little bit because they think the girls just walked away but eventually like the truth comes out that they were left alone like she was at work and so like that gets cleared
up but it does slow down the investigation in like those first hours when the police are there which are always critical police begin canvassing the neighborhood that evening but they find no trace of them so that's Friday that's the last time Tiana and diamond are seen so this will lead us into Saturday Saturday is Tiana and diamond sisters birthday Victoria and later when she's in high school she'll give an interview and it like breaks my heart
she never celebrates her birthday again after this because it's the day after her sisters go missing and like how could you celebrate your birthday like with this dark cloud above it but it is her birthday on July 7th and police do not suspect suspect foul play at this point and you know in the media in the news reports you know the police are kind of talking to Tiana and diamonds like you know if you're out there nobody's gonna be
mad if you come home it's okay like just come home let somebody know you're okay like it's that kind of language where they think that the girls are just like hiding and maybe like scared to come home because they're in trouble there's been this like big commotion like that's really the language that is used that first Saturday after they go missing police interrogate Tracy on Saturday for around six hours and while that's happening other police
are searching railroad tracks they utilize a helicopter over Lake Michigan and divers are searching all through Lake Michigan and neighbors are getting together and canvassing the neighborhood and passing out flyers so like not only are the police searching but like everybody in the neighborhood starting to come out and look for these girls it really becomes like a citywide effort to find them pretty quickly but definitely right away the
family's looking the police are looking and the neighbors start to look very quickly for these girls and everyone's very aware that they're gone so Sunday July 8th there's a larger and earlier police presence around their home and dogs were starting to be used to sniff cars in the area and police focus their attention around 31st Street Beach on Lake Michigan and this comes from a witness that said he saw the girls walking towards
the beach and in this area there's like a pedestrian bridge that goes from the neighborhoods onto the beach and there was the other neighbor who was walking her kids to the beach so it's very very close a neighbor at this time also begins organizing a search of her own and she creates new flyers because she doesn't think that the blurry black and white police bulletins like up to standard so she goes home and makes these like beautiful color
flyers to pass out through the neighborhood so like everybody's jumping in to try to find these girls and their mother is questioned for eight hours by police on Sunday on Monday July 9th Chicago police officially asked the FBI to get involved in the case but the case continues to be handled as a missing person case and not as a kidnapping case so basically they are treating it like Tionda and Diamond walked away of their own accord or ran away
and children aren't allowed to just go missing like that's that's not in your rights until you're 18 like you can't just go missing but police have no evidence at this time that they were abducted or kidnapped so they are treating it as a missing person case two neighbors come forward and say they saw the girls playing at the apartment complex as late as three p.m. on the day they went missing if that's true if they were playing at three p.m. that
means that Tracy would have been home by this time so you would think that she would have been able to find them quickly if they had been playing but maybe the neighbors are confused on the day maybe she was missing them I don't know but there's this report of two neighbors saying they were playing around the apartment complex police and FBI are going door to door and the FBI brings in bloodhounds to search for the girls and to try to find their trace
on Monday police questioned Tracy for six hours and they also start questioning other members of the families and this is when nightly prayer vigils also begin and are organized by neighbors so they say they're gonna hold a nightly prayer vigil every night until the girls return sadly that is not the case they now hold yearly vigils for the girls but in the beginning they were doing vigils every night for them no new leads as of Tuesday
no no confirmed sightings and no evidence of the girls or rather on Monday so on Tuesday July 10th the police search is frenzied and expanded on this day so they really kick it up a notch and police will have a hundred officers on the case at all times rotating in and out of searching the Cook County Forest Preserve Police spot two dirt mounds in the Dan Ryan woods about two blocks apart the Dan Ryan woods are on the south side of Chicago
and this would have been about eight miles south of where the girls apartment was and so police seal off the woods police FBI they bring up they bring in cadaver dogs to search the woods for the girls they locate the two mounds they were about two blocks apart within the woods and they search for a while in the woods but the mounds that they were originally called in for just ends up being landscaping and compost material but police say that these
woods are known for like dumping and burying pets so it doesn't seem outside the norm that somebody would try to bury a body here and police also say they are focusing on woods and other wide open spaces because they are near a home of a relative that they are questioning the relative is not named like who they're questioning and why they're searching all these places near this relative but they'll question this person into Thursday so police
also on this day search the Dan Ryan woods and then they focused on Washington Park searching the lagoon they had divers in the lagoon because a minister had called in and said while he was praying for the girls he had a vision of two bags being thrown into the lagoon so that prompted the police to dispatch divers into the lagoon nothing was found there and a radio station also received an anonymous tip that there were two dead bodies in an
abandoned house near Vincent's Ave and 103rd so this is like I looked it up on Google Maps this is like South South barely Chicago anymore like almost to like the southern suburbs but when police arrive at this location there's no house at this location this corner so they expand out on a floor of four black radius and search all the nearby railroad tracks and wooded areas nearby but they don't come up with anything police also bring in dogs
to search along railroad tracks they searched dumpsters along 87th Street all in all when this is said and done the police will have searched 42 tons of trash is what they say so this search this is like the biggest search on Tuesday between the Dan Ryan Woods Washington Park the Vincents and 103rd Avenue this is like kind of the biggest search day and the search turned up lots of child's clothing but none of it could be tied to Tionda and
diamonds and unfortunately at the time the girls went missing nobody knew what they were wearing because Tracy left before they got dressed so that evening they were having their nightly prayer vigil Tracy pleads with whoever has her children to let them go and then after this prayer vigil police are going to take Tracy in for the fourth time to question her so on Wednesday July 11th police returned to the Dan Ryan Woods and finished searching
the woods with cadaver dogs based off of the places they're looking like in the trash and bringing in cadaver dogs like they are to me that's looking for bodies and not trying to locate like a child who has wondered off and at this time the notes that Tionda left is still being analyzed by the police and the FBI so police are trying to review security footage to see if they can confirm the neighbor sightings of the girls at three playing around
the apartment complex in 2021 it was actually reported that the security cameras at the apartment complex couldn't catch anything because they had been turned up to face the ceiling and there's no details of when that happened or if they think it's related to the crime or if maybe they had gotten turned up before and nobody had noticed and you know it just had stayed that way but the security cameras in the front of the apartment complex
didn't catch anything I don't know security cameras in the back caught anything or if they caught anything from the apartment complex security cameras but they're not telling us so on Wednesday July 11th police seemed to zero in on George Washington who is Diamond's father and at the time Tracy's boyfriend on again off again boyfriend so police searched the home garage and car of Diamond's father George Washington and the focus of the search
seemed to be centered around his garage and the police search his vehicle and they actually find hair in the trunk of his vehicle and testing reveals that the hair could have come from Tiana Diamond or Tracy so it's a little inconclusive but it came from one of them Washington says that the reason the hair is there is because he would sneak Tiana and Diamond and the other girls into drive-in movies around the city but at the time of
this in 2001 there were no drive-ins in the city of Chicago there were in the suburbs but none in the city police also are asking Washington's neighbors about his comings and goings on Friday and specifically if they saw any fires and four teenagers and three neighbors say they saw him burning something in a 55 gallon drum in his backyard and then he took the barrel and put it in his trunk and drove off Washington says he never burned
anything but he was doing home remodeling and would fill the drum with trash and debris then take it to Washington Park to dump in construction dumpsters there police searched those dumpsters nothing was ever found related to Tiana and Diamond to my knowledge and police also find a receipt from Home Depot for a purchase made shortly before the girls went missing that was for gloves construction garbage bags and bleach Washington says this is related
to his home remodeling sure it's very questionable very questionable but Washington fully cooperates with the police and is let go it's reported that his polygraph comes back inconclusive but Tracy will continue to date Washington and she ends up having another child by him as well so there's also that so it's still Wednesday July 11th and police also find video surveillance taken from jewel but it'll take the family days to review it at this time
Tracy was being questioned a lot by police so she hired a lawyer which I think is completely reasonable considering what we know about the Chicago Police Department as a whole on Wednesday the police come to her and ask her to watch this video and she says no on the council of her lawyer on Thursday the family goes to the police to watch the video but the police don't have it the FBI have it so they're not able to watch it on Thursday
July 12th and on this day the police just continue to re-interview family members and neighbors looking for new leads so this is Friday July 13th 2001 so this is one week after Tiana and diamond were last seen Tracy meets with police and reviews the video of the surveillance footage and it's not the girls and the family ends up reviewing at least three surveillance videos that day two from July 6th which is the day the girls went
missing and then the jewel tape which is the tape that's talked about here and the police now believe the girls did not leave on their own like oh really you're now getting there okay and a woman called police and said on July 6th the day the girls went missing she saw two young girls enter an abandoned church near her home so cadaver dogs were sent into the church and two mounds were discovered in the basement crawlspace one was about three
feet one was about five feet which was matches the heights for Tiana and diamond at the time they went missing but after a five-hour search of the church and in the basement there's nothing it's just dirt no signs of Tiana and diamond on Saturday July 14th 2001 police officially expands the search to the entire city of Chicago so they had really been focusing just on the south side and in the girls neighborhood but now it's officially expanded to the entire
city and the girls story airs on America's Most Wanted at the time so only just a week and one day after they go missing they get on America's Most Wanted which is great Sunday July 15th and Monday July 16th there's no updates and they get a few leads from America's Most Wanted but nothing to like write about in the news or anything to bring any hope to the family so on Tuesday July 17th the FBI has offered a reward for more info and
Chicago Public Schools also kicks in money for the reward and the girls apartment complex as well puts money in for a reward so like all these like people want to find the girls and they want to find them alive and well so police on Tuesday order that every abandoned building in the city be searched so every district would be in charge of like their abandoned buildings and all in all over 5600 abandoned buildings were searched which I
was like there's that many abandoned buildings in Chicago like give them to people that's crazy like let people live in those houses that's nuts the notes that Tiana left is still being analyzed by the FBI Wednesday July 18th the police continue their search of abandoned houses on this day but they actually end up wrapping it up so it only took two days to search every abandoned house in Chicago which is crazy fast I feel like I think of
how fucking big the police forces I guess that's fair that they have the money to do this shit so Thursday July 19th just shy of two weeks after the girls were last seen the FBI makes their official announcement that Tiana did in fact write the letter and Tracy goes on a radio show and talks about the psychological torture from the police and she says quote they didn't beat me up they dogged me out they were trying to make me a suspect and
quote a lot of people want to cast Tracy in a bad light and say she was like not cooperating with police but like that's not true like she was cooperating with police but they were like trying to railroad her so she got a lawyer and got help and we know the Chicago Police Department loves to railroad people's I do not think Tracy is perfect in this but I definitely do not blame her for being cautious in her interactions with the police if I was suddenly
in under investigation I would not look perfect either no none of us would know everything you do look suspicious all of a sudden so Friday July 20th 2001 this would be officially two weeks after the girls were last seen police search the city's pounds with cadaver dogs and they say this is impromptu by any tip but they're just checking logical places that the girls could have been hidden which is a horrible sentence and this search of
the auto pounds continues into Saturday July 21st and wraps up that day the next day Sunday July 22nd the police announced that they are going to be expanding their search to Wolf Lake which is in Indiana but it's right on the border of Illinois as well and again they say that there's no tip that they just want to search it so on Monday July 23rd police search Wolf Lake and they bring a very large police presence so not only the Chicago Police
Department but the FBI is there and they also bring in recruits from like the police academy to search Wolf Lake so it's really big and the police say like they want a big presence because they want media to cover it but then they're really quick to say like this isn't staged though we're not just doing this as like a staged thing so why they were out there if they found anything nothing was reported and they also walked along the Dan Ryan Express
Way that day as well looking for clues or signs of the girls so after the Wolf Lake search it really slows down as far as physical presence in the community and like searching for the girls Tuesday July 24th there's no news Wednesday the police say that they are shifting their focus to behind the scenes work but insists that they're not scaling back at all. I've never heard of a search like this this big in Chicago.
This is one of the largest searches ever in Chicago history but it got into the hands of the FBI.
Yes the FBI was called in three days after the girls went missing so Thursday July 26th the case is officially reclassified as a kidnapping case because of how long the girls have been missing but the police claim that they have been handling it as if it were a kidnapping from the beginning but I don't think that's true and the family doesn't think it's true either because the home like the girls apartment was not sealed off and fingerprinted for days
after they had disappeared whereas if they had treated it as a kidnapping they would have sealed it off fingerprinted that day but that didn't happen until several days after and at that point you know police had already been through their family had been through their neighbors have stopped by like it had been a place of high activity at that point but the police are still holding out hope that they're alive and they say they have no indication that would say otherwise.
Friday July 26th 2001 this is three weeks after the girls have been missing Tracy is interviewed by the Chicago Tribune and this is where the timeline shifts a little bit so previously everything had been saying she left at 6 she was gone by 6 she left the girls at 6 but now she left at 630 which makes sense to her arriving at 640 and originally it was reported she was home at 11 but now it's she was off work at 1150 George and her stopped
by the supermarket which is supported by that receipt and she also says in this interview that the note was on the table but everywhere else any other time it's mentioned the note is on the back of the couch like it's very specifically on the back of the couch but in this interview Tracy says that she found it on the table.
I don't know if she was just mistaken or if there is a discrepancy there I'm not sure and then originally the police were called at 6 but in this interview she says they were called at 630 that's really easily like easy to confirm police have records of when she called but they never really say like they are saying 6 but in this interview she is saying 630 so I don't really know what time the girls are officially reported but I feel
it's safe to assume it's sometime between 6 and 630 that day and then after that month the case really drops off so August 2001 police collect DNA evidence and hair samples in the events that they need to ID them because the girls don't have any dental records so they have to have the girls DNA in order to identify them later if they were to find human remains that they would suspect would be them.
Police search a trailer yard near McCormick Place which is near the lake in Chicago and it's near museum campus where all of like the big named museums in Chicago are so the Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium it's near there it's where the Chicago Auto Show is held every year so it's like a convention a very well known convention center in Chicago so near there they searched that area and
they found nothing but during the month of August the prayer vigils at the family's home continue every night but they do begin to dwindle in attendance and neighbors lose hope that the girls are coming home alive and then September 2001 9-11 happens and all media coverage is completely dropped for the girls at this point and 9-11 dominates the news from that point out and the girls aren't really mentioned in the news. It's like the staircase that was right when Kathleen died that December.
Yeah. It's not really brought up again in the news until the six month anniversary of the girls being missing and at that point there's no news.
The police say that they have received 504 tips at the six month point and it's during the year of 2002 that police also go to ask Tracy some questions about her daughters and after she says that she needs to talk with a lawyer before she you know she wants to talk to a lawyer before she answers them they witnesses say the police shoved her against a fence and roughly handcuffed her and swore at her and the police say she pushed her or she pushed them of course. She pushed all of them.
She pushed the two plain clothes police officers with guns on them. She pushed them but no charges are ever put against her and she's released that evening so like the relationship between the police and Tracy are just not good and like for obvious reason like they are treating her poorly like the mother of these missing children and Tracy will go on to file a complaint about this incident later but I don't know what becomes of that complaint. Nothing is reported on it at the one year mark.
162 leads have been received at that point but still no signs of the girls. 2003 there's no real updates and then in 2004 on April 5th 2004 a possible sighting in Indiana is said to have happened of the girls so they are reported to be seen at a Walmart near Indianapolis and then on April 25th 2004 another possible sighting of the girls at an event at Garfield Park in Indianapolis and then there's a third unspecific sighting also in Indiana.
I don't know if it's Indianapolis but it's also in Indiana. So police and the family's private investigator look into this but nothing turns up and the case is officially moved into the cold case unit for the Chicago police. 2005 Tracy is interviewed by a local news station and she talks about a reoccurring dream where Tiana is there and Tracy asks her where Diamond is. Tiana says I'll take you there and then the dream ends and then at this point they've been doing yearly prayer vigils.
At the 2005 yearly prayer vigil the group walked to a bridge where the girls were last seen and this is the only time this bridge is mentioned that I found is in this prayer vigil they walked to a bridge where the girls were last seen. I don't know what bridge I don't know where that comes from I don't know if there's a confirmed sighting of the girls that the police have of them being on a bridge.
I wonder if that bridge is a bridge that because some people some folks said that they spotted them playing correct. Yes. I wonder if there's a bridge near wherever that space was that they were playing at. Well there is a pedestrian bridge that goes to the beach very close by that some did say the girls were on and they did comb the beach 31st Street Beach specifically which is where this bridge leads to.
They combed that beach pretty extensively and sent in divers so it could be but this is the only time I see the bridge mentioned as the last place the girls were seen outside of their apartment by their mother.
So in 2006 this is five years since the girls have been missing and at the one year anniversary the police say the only recent tip they've gotten is a caller who had a dream and was calling to tell them about the dream about Tiana and diamonds but I just mentioned that because it's like there really are no leads coming in like I feel like when you're getting to people's dreams like you're really scraping the bottom of the lead barrel you know not
to say that people can't have premonitions or visions but like I think when you're investigating those it means you've run out of like other concrete like I think I saw them at this place I saw them here at this time you know like you've run out of those if you're tracking down dreams and visions. Well yeah in like classic cold cases even cold cases back from like 60s 70s 80s when like genetic evidence is that the word I'm looking for? Like DNA.
DNA thank you before public school before DNA was like really prevalent they would turn to like. Like psychics. Yeah. And you know there are psychics that like assist with the FBI and I assume that they like hit it right if they like are continuously called in you know for cases again and again and again. I assume there have been moments of success. Totally. I'm not one to turn away mystical revelations. I'm not too good to turn away a mystical revelation no. Not at all.
But that was 2006. In 2007 Shalya the girl's great aunt Tiana and Diamond's great aunt she receives an email that says this is Tiana and the word is is spelled with a Z. So investigators track this email to a MySpace page and the young woman whose MySpace page this is looks just like the age progress photos of Tiana I mean looks just like her. When kids in the family see the MySpace photos they ask if Tiana had been found.
That's how immediately recognizable this person was as Tiana and a forensic artist was asked to compare the MySpace photos with Tiana. And so she went in trying to disprove and to not give any false hope to the family. So she really was trying to prove that this MySpace person wasn't her. But slowly she compares three MySpace photos and five photos of Tiana before she disappeared and she says oh my god it's her.
So this bleeds into 2008 and the Chicago police department they disagree with the sketch artist and eventually in 2008 the MySpace girl's father comes forward and says like this is not Tiana and he even offers to give his DNA to the FBI to like. How is he contacted.
It's just says that like he comes forward so I don't know like I'm sure police were like contacting this person who's ever MySpace it is and like you know it is said that they got the IP addresses so they would know where it was coming from. They didn't know if the picture had started circulating and it was like. No it remained within the police I believe.
So yeah he offers his DNA but I don't know if the FBI ever take it but they seem very satisfied and knowing that this is not Tiana and not related to the case at all. And so when the sketch artist was later asked about like the misidentifications she said that this was the first time she had been wrong in her career. So that was like the big news of 2007 2008. There's no real updates in 2009 nothing in 2010 2011 nothing really.
Victoria Bradley which is Tiana and Diamond's sister and that's whose birthday it was the next day after the girls went missing. She becomes like a local high school like superstar in basketball and she's very good at it and so she's interviewed in a paper about like how basketball has helped her deal with her sister's disappearance.
But that's really all the media coverage for 2011 nothing in 2012 in 2013 Shalya this is the great aunt again and she's really becomes like a spokesperson for the family and like the main driver in keeping this in the media.
She's amazing but Shalya receives an email from a woman in Gary Indiana and the woman said that she needed to clear her conscious and the woman wrote or told Shalya that her boyfriend was unaccounted for on the morning that the girls went missing and when he returned home he was visibly shaken and upset and he had said that he had done something messed up. And then he says quote she saw it I had to kill her end quote.
So police have never talked about this tip and pretty quickly after the woman stops cooperating with police and stops responding to the family but the police never talk about this tip or what it's related to or who it's related to or if it's related to the girls at all.
But that is something that happens in 2013 and in 2013 the police officer Ed Carroll he retires from the Chicago Police Department after 26 years and he had been working on this case since the beginning and on and off throughout his entire career and this is what he said about the case quote almost every case I've ever worked especially the violent crimes you're always able to either include someone or exclude someone and this was the
only case I worked in my entire career where I couldn't exclude anyone or include anyone end quote. 2015 nothing happens but there is noticeable difference in the family they talk less about them coming home alive and just like wanting to find them and bury them and know where they are.
In 2016 the yearly vigil is still being held every year on the anniversary that the girls went missing and this year Shalia was interviewed at the vigil and she mentions that two men were in the apartment after Tracy left that morning. This is the only mention of it at this point but Shalia says that two men were in the apartment after Tracy had left that day.
In 2017 Jim Miller who was the family's PI and who had been working on the case pro bono since the beginning he dies and this is a big blow to the family because he had been working this case for free but he had also gone to Mexico, Morocco like different countries following tips in regards to Tiana and diamond so like he was able to do just like what the police weren't and he focused so much of his time on it. So it was a big blow to the family when he died in 2017. 2018 nothing no news.
In 2019 a woman in Texas comes forward claiming to be Tiana.
She reaches out to Shalia the great aunt and this is like reported in the news and on the news they had like Shalia showed her texts with this woman from Texas that was claiming to be Tiana and I paused it so I could read the whole screen because I am Snoopy and Shalia asks this woman in the text who did your mom leave you with question mark and the woman responds back that they were left alone but I thought that question was really interesting
considering that in 2016 Shalia also mentions that there were two men in the apartment so were the girls left with somebody was somebody supposed to come watch them. The woman in Texas she is willing to take a DNA test to prove that she is Tiana but it ends up being a lie she just reached out to kind of fuck with the family which is messed up. 2020 no updates obviously that's the year COVID happened there's no coverage about the yearly vigil.
2021 this is 20 years after the girls had gone missing and there were a lot of media stories about them and in 2021 the police cast doubts around the note because of how well written it is and that goes back to like the family commenting on the grammar and commenting on the spelling of the letter police believe it was someone they know that the girls knew because they would not have opened the door for a stranger.
Now in this case I think the main suspect that jumps out is George Washington Diamond's father. I thought it was the neighbor. The neighbor George. Well so these are some of the other suspects in the case so the neighbor George is also like a suspect or somebody the family has considered a suspect. What makes me think that is that who was it that called to ask like can I leave for the cake or can I leave. So that would have been Tiana. Which she was nine or ten. She was ten yeah.
But George Washington isn't her father so she would call him George. Okay never mind. Yes so she would call him George and the girls called their neighbor George by a nickname. So the other suspects in this case a registered sex offender spent time around the girls and would later dedicate a book to them. Yeah Eli's face is very disgusted by that.
Some family claim that Tracy paid a family member five dollars to watch the girls that day and so this brings into question the comments that Shalya their great aunt made of there were two men left in the apartment after Tracy left. Could that be the family members that were asked to come watch them. And then also when Shalya asked the woman from Texas who did your mother leave you with. It's only been reported that they were left alone.
So something that only you know they would know somebody close to the crime or Tiana and Diamond would be if they were left with somebody actually. But yeah it's that is a rumor that some family claim the neighbor George who would babysit the girls once made a comment that something bad would happen if Tracy kept leaving them alone which again it's like everything is suspicious after somebody goes missing or somebody is murdered right.
Like everything can be suspicious but it's like you have to like you have to hold up everything to the light and make sure that like it passes you know. Another suspect is a man that had once been believed to be Tiana's father and it's reported that he even had paid child support for a time for her as her father and he is from Morocco.
He's a Morocco immigrant investigators and the P.I. traveled to Morocco to look for the girls but there's no evidence that they were ever there and the kids that claim they saw Tiana and Diamond playing on the playground the day they went missing. The kids claim to have seen a light skinned man in a trench coat approach Tiana and Diamond to talk to them and then saw the girls leave with him.
Those are kind of the suspects in this case but to date no trace of them has ever been found no trace that's ever been reported and Tiana she would be 31 years old she was four foot two inches when she disappeared obviously that is not the height she is now but she does have brown hair brown eyes she has a burn scar on her left forearm about the size of a quarter and she was last seen with green ponytail holders and a scrape on her left calf.
Diamond she would be 24 years old today she was three feet tall when she went missing she has black hair and brown eyes she has a scar on the left side of her scalp and she has very deep set eyes. Anyone with any information regarding Tiana and Diamond Bradley are encouraged to contact the Chicago FBI office and that is at 312-421-6700.
And today's sources for today's podcast or the sources for today's podcast come from a lot a lot of newspapers so the Chicago Tribune, the Times, the Dispatch, the Daily Chronicle, Iowa City Press, USA Today, Journal Gazette, Courier Post, the Indianapolis Star, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Louis Dispatch, Des Moines Register, the Daily Herald, Quad City Times, Arizona Republic, the YouTube channel, did you say Des Moines? Des Moines. You said Des Moines. Oh did I? The Des Moines Register.
You're great you're perfect. The YouTube channel Truly Criminal, Case Files Chicago, CBS Chicago, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Fox 32 Chicago WGN News, and Block Club Chicago are all sources for today's podcasts. And again if you know anything about the disappearance of Tiana and Diamond Bradley either from the day they went missing to where they are now please contact the Chicago FBI office at 312-421-6700. And that's it. Will we be back next week?
We will be back next week, next Monday with another story. So have a great week y'all. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening.