EPISODE 504: Whitney Wilken

Whitney Wilken had always been known as a free spirit to those who loved her. She grew up in South Dakota but later moved west to Olympia, Washington. Life in Olympia wasn’t always easy for Whitney, and the distance made it hard for her family to know what was going on in her day-to-day life. Still, they stayed connected, and her family could always count on hearing from her.

Then, in October of 2019, the calls from Whitney stopped. Her family reached out to friends in Olympia who went to look for her, but it was as if Whitney had vanished without a trace. No one seemed to know where she had gone or why. When Whitney was reported missing to the Olympia Police Department, their search yielded few answers, and the questions only grew heavier with time. In the years that followed, new information surfaced that raised even more concern. Other women in the same area, with circumstances similar to Whitney’s, had been victimized, leading investigators to consider whether her disappearance might be connected to something much darker.

Six years later, Whitney’s loved ones are still waiting for answers. They hope that by sharing her story, someone out there might remember seeing or hearing something that could finally bring them closer to finding her.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Whitney Wilken, please contact the Olympia Police Department. For urgent or time-sensitive tips, call 911 or the non-emergency line at (360) 704-2740. For other information, please call (360) 753-8300 and ask to speak with the detective sergeant assigned to Whitney’s case.

EPISODE 503: Teekah Lewis

On January 23, 1999, 2-year-old Teekah Lewis vanished from New Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington. That night, Teekah was there with her mother, Theresa, and several other relatives. She was playing in the arcade when her mother briefly looked away to bowl. When Theresa turned back, Teekah was gone. Panic set in as family members searched every corner of the building, hoping she had simply wandered out of sight, but Teekah was nowhere to be found. Police were called, and despite extensive searches, no trace of Teekah surfaced.

Witnesses offered only fragments of clues. One recalled a maroon Pontiac speeding out of the parking lot around the time Teekah disappeared. Another described a suspicious man inside the bowling alley who had followed a child toward an exit that evening. He was able to give a detailed description of the man, including that he had a pockmarked face. Then, more accounts emerged of unsettling incidents involving children at or around New Frontier Lanes, raising the possibility that the bowling alley and the surrounding neighborhood may have been used as a hunting ground by a predator or predators. For decades, those scraps of information were all investigators and Teekah’s family had to go on, but in 2025, Teekah's case finally began to gain momentum. 

Through it all, Teekah’s mother has never stopped searching for answers. Theresa has worked tirelessly to keep her daughter’s story alive for nearly 27 years, clinging to the hope that someone may have taken Teekah to raise as their own, a far easier thought than the darker alternatives. Today, she wants what any mother in her position would: the truth about what happened to her little girl, and the chance to bring her home.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Teekah Lewis, please contact the Tacoma Police Department at 253-287-4455 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.

EPISODE 502: Samantha Tolbert

In late February of 2024, 46-year-old Samantha Tolbert vanished from Carroll County, Georgia, a rural area in western Georgia, along the Alabama state line. At first, Samantha’s absence didn’t raise an alarm. She kept in touch with her daughter, but it wasn’t unusual for some time to pass between calls. 

That all changed on March 7, 2024, when deputies from the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call in Tyus, a small community in Carroll County. There, they discovered Samantha’s ex-husband was deceased. What stood out immediately was that the vehicle he had driven to the scene wasn’t his; it was Samantha’s truck, but she was nowhere to be found.

Investigators attempted to contact Samantha because she was the registered owner of the vehicle, but all efforts to reach her were unsuccessful. Friends and family they contacted said they hadn’t heard from her either. In that moment, the troubling truth came into focus: not only was Samantha’s ex-husband dead, but Samantha herself was missing. Suddenly, two stories collided, one ending in death, the other vanished. With Samantha’s ex-husband no longer alive, investigators were left with a haunting mystery: what really happened in those final days, and what secrets did he take with him?

If you have any information about the disappearance of Samantha Tolbert, please contact Investigator Amber Cardell with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office at 770-830-5916 or email acardell@carrollsheriffga.gov.