Tamala "Nikki" Wells
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Her son was graduating from high school at the time. She would have never missed his graduation. It's just a sad situation that just had to come upon my family. It was strange occurrences that was leading up to this. We just didn't see the signs.

Because we don't live there. I'm looking for Tamla. That's what I'm looking for. I don't just sit here and mope and cry about Tamla. I'll reach out to different people, different communities. But we need to get answers. My baby. These people don't live the pain that I live every day. They don't know what it feels like to go to bed day in and day out and not knowing where your child is.

And there's days I want to change my number, but my baby, she knows this number. And I keep hope alive because I don't know where she is. She just knows that she would have contacted me if she had to put it on a rubber band and tie it to a bird's feet.

33-year-old Tamela Nikki Wells disappeared from her Detroit, Michigan home in early August 2012, leaving her loved ones desperate for answers. According to her boyfriend, the last time he saw Tamela was on the evening of August 6th, when he said she drove away from their home and then disappeared without a trace. The following morning, Tamela's mother, Donna, received an alarming call from her young granddaughter, who told her that Tamela hadn't returned home. Concerned and frantic,

Donna immediately made plans to travel from Florida to help search for her daughter. Days later, the car Tamela's boyfriend said she drove off in turned up abandoned, in a different part of town. But there was still no sign of Tamela. As the investigation progressed, the case seemed to quickly go cold. However, her family believes that not enough was done to properly investigate Tamela's disappearance from the start.

They're convinced that this case could be solved if someone took the time to review it with fresh eyes and renewed determination. More than 12 years after Tamela Wells mysteriously vanished, her family is more determined than ever to keep fighting for answers. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 475 of The Vanished, Tamela Nikki Wells' story.

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Want more? Check out at shopify.com slash wondery. All lowercase and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com slash wondery. Tamela Wells, or Nikki as many close to her called her, grew up in Motor City, Detroit, Michigan. A city synonymous with the rise of the auto industry, rich cultural history, and the challenges that came with economic declines.

While many of Tamela's family members eventually left Detroit and the state of Michigan altogether, Tamela stayed behind. Her mother Donna shared more about her daughter and the person Tamela was.

Tamela is the second oldest. I have a son that's 11 months older than her. I'm a mother of six. So it's four boys and two girls. She grew up in Detroit, Michigan, went to school there, lived there up until she just suddenly vanished. I never really had a problem out of Tamela growing up. Always had a good personality. Everybody liked her.

She's a very helpful kind, outgoing, motivating, always wanted to do positive things, joined fashion shows and dance contests. Just get out there and adventure. Being an everyday teenager and a little girl growing up, Tamela is a sweet person. She always was bubbly, always trying to find ways to help somebody. First she went to school for medical transcription.

We also spoke to Tamela's older brother, James, who offered valuable insight into who she was from a sibling's perspective.

I'm the oldest and she's the second. Her personality was she was just a very likable person. She always loved people and always wanted to help somebody. She had a very strong faith in God. Her personality always showed just to make you smile.

Years before Tamela's disappearance in 2012, her mother had moved from Michigan to Florida. One of Tamela's younger siblings, who also lived in Florida along with Donna, was inspired by Tamela's work in healthcare and decided to pursue a career in the nursing field. Donna mentioned that in the months leading up to Tamela's disappearance, she and her younger sister were making big plans to start a business together, with Tamela planning to relocate to Florida and work alongside her sister.

I was in Florida before all of this even occurred. I've been in Florida over 20-some years, almost 28 years.

She was working in nursing homes and things of that nature. Tamla caught meningitis. And so we almost lost Tamla due to that. So she was afraid to go back. But then she got the guts up again because she had a younger sister who became a nurse as well. They talked about it. And Tamla was planning on moving here in August of 2012. That was part of the plan.

to come help me take care of my mother, be entwined with her sister, get their things together for opening up their senior or whatever they were trying to open up to help people. Because there's a lot of seniors here in Florida. And we want to give them the best care and community love as we can give them. I was proud of it. I

I wanted to give them every sense that I had to see them through with this because it was just so amazing what they were going to put together. Who can't be behind these two young women and help them back up in this right here? James also knew about the plans his sisters were making together and understood that Tamela was excited for the fresh start she envisioned in a new environment.

She loved that field, medical field. She loved and dreamed that. She went from the bottom. She was deep into that. Like I said, she loved to help people, and that was her personality. So for anybody to harm her had to be a wicked person. She even rubbed off on my sister, Cassandra. That made my sister be an RN to this day. It's just a beautiful thing that the spirit she left behind, even though we ain't seen her. When I look at my sister, I can see Nikki in her.

While Tamela and her sister had big plans for the future, those dreams would never come to fruition. When Tamela disappeared from Detroit in 2012, she was in a relationship with a man named Ricky, and the couple had a six-year-old daughter together. Tamela also had an older son, who was living in Florida with Donna. Donna told us more about Tamela's relationship with the father of her young daughter.

often known they were in a relationship 15 plus years. And she was residing with him at the time of the disappearance. She had been residing in that house a long time. Her little girl was six. So at least six years she had been in that house. He manipulated and ruled my daughter. She was 15 years old. We kind of find out, we do the math, and he had...

at least 17 years older than her. So Tamela was born in 78. I think he was born in 55, 56, something like that. Old enough that his ass would have been in jail messing with my daughter. We thinking all the time she was the father of her son because Tamela has a son way before she had this little girl.

I worked hard for Tamla to raise my daughter, to keep her in order and all of that. And this was a secret that she kept. And she kept this secret till she was 18. So at 18, what can you do? We had money and flash. And of course, you can get these young girls, a lot of these young girls...

That's what they want, nails, hairdo, outfits. He has never been to a family outing, family dinner. And everybody found that real strange. They used to always, well, where your boyfriend at, Tamela? But he always wanted Tamela to bring him something back. He would eat the food, but you can't show your face in the plate. So we found that to be weird. My son could not stand it.

And he says, Mama, when I went down there, I did not like the activity that he had my sister up on. And I told him that day, if something happened to my sister, you're going to have to answer to me. And guess what? Something happened to her sister. Completely unaware that anything was wrong, Donna was at home in Florida when she received a call from her granddaughter one morning in August 2012. What Tamela's young daughter said on the other end of the line immediately sent Donna into a panic.

So my whole thing is how do a six-year-old call grandma at 6.30 in the morning and say, my mom didn't come home last night? Someone had to dial a number. Someone had to tell you what to say. And no one got on the phone to address it. My granddaughter, six years old, on one of those burnt phones you call track phones or whatever it is. So

So, you know, it only attained so many minutes. And so I talked her up until the minutes ran out. No one still addressed. No one called and says, well, we think we should call the police. I'm scared to death. I've been here everywhere looking for none of that.

One of the main reasons Donna was so deeply concerned was that she knew the relationship Tamela was in at the time wasn't a healthy one. Over the years, Donna had offered her daughter the chance to move to Florida and live with her, but she couldn't control Tamela's choices or make her leave the relationship she was in.

Things did not seem okay, and yet she did address a lot of things with us. And not only that, we were able to witness things along the way that wasn't right. But what do you do when your daughter is in a relationship and she's not ready to leave that relationship? You can be that support when she's ready. But I always say that when a man puts his hands on you, that's not the man you want to be with.

And yes, he's going to come back 10 times a million to ask for forgiveness, but it's going to still be the same. Escalate it, get worse. It might be a good or weak or month, but then right back to what it was. I mean, we witnessed it. She always trying to figure out which way and direction she was going to go in. All

always had her mind set on doing better for herself, depending on herself. And see what a man don't like is for a woman to be self-sufficient and independent. And when you're broken and you are lost out and your life is falling apart. When Tamela started telling me about these things that she was experiencing, it

It got really scary. The police has been called so many times to that address that I know of, that I have been woken up out of my sleep due to. And through the grace of God, having a son there at the time was able to send him to the rescue right away. He's never there when the police arrive. Nothing was prosecuted. So that means Tamla didn't comply. She didn't press charges.

In the months leading up to her disappearance, Donna could tell that Tamela was finally ready to break free from the toxic relationship she had endured for so long. As Donna had mentioned earlier, Tamela was making plans to move to Florida. Together, they devised a plan to help Tamela and her daughter escape and find safety.

So we put a plan in place for her to leave. And when you're ready, you're going to do exactly what we're talking about. That's the journey we was on. I had tickets to come to Detroit August the 24th of 2012. The plan was to put everything personal, important that you need in a folder and hide it. And so we had a spot. I had not a clue that my daughter would come up missing.

Tamela had confided in her mother that in preparation for her fresh start in Florida, she had been quietly saving money to help her escape. With the plan already in motion, Donna knew that when she received the call from her granddaughter, she had to act quickly. Tamela was at a vulnerable, dangerous point in her life, and now she was missing.

Kamala had already told me about this money she had saved. Over $10,000. And I was like, why do you have that kind of money saved in the house? You're already saying that you suspect that he's doing a drug or something. And then he's jealous. He's watching you every move. Receiving that phone call, the hair stood on my neck. I

I knew something wasn't right. And anytime an adult don't get on the phone and address a situation and allowing a six-year-old kid to do the work, that dirty work, alarms big time. But again, I live in Florida, right? So it's going to take me some time to obtain a ticket, get on the plane. She already had a son here. At the time, he was 16, just about to graduate high school the following year. So

So something a mother has planned for her whole life for a son to graduate her first child, nowhere in the world she could have missed this. She was very attentive when it came to her children. Always there. Always gave the right advice. One of those big sister mothers that would tell you if your grades wasn't good and for you to just zap out just didn't make any sense.

When Tamela vanished, the only lead they had was the word of her boyfriend, someone her family knew she had been trying to escape. Donna shared more about what he claimed happened on that fateful night, August 6, 2012.

He claimed everything was good. They didn't have any problems, no arguments. But all of a sudden, she jumps up and says, she's going to pay you back. And then he says, well, she told me I need to go and get my little girl from around the corner. And she was looking like she was about to go somewhere. But I didn't ask her where she was going. I

I just hurry up around the corner and got my little girl. And then when I come back, I see Tamla driving around the corner. It didn't make any sense because the car, allegedly, she was supposed to have drove and away wasn't her car, first of all. She had just bought a Saturday. And it doesn't seem like her family didn't go too far, too many places without that little girl. Everywhere she went, Navaya, her daughter, was with her. That

That was the alarming point. For her to want to go missing and to disappear, to go talk about she's going to pay you back, where did that come from? What exactly does that mean? None of it makes sense.

On the night that Tamela went missing, Donna had spoken to her daughter on the phone, shortly before her boyfriend said she drove off and disappeared for good. Since then, Donna has replayed that conversation countless times, desperately searching for any subtle hint or clue that Tamela may have dropped, something Donna might have missed in the moment.

It was everyday stuff. But that particular day, I remember as doing yesterday, listen, I relive it every day trying to find something more out of it. But I also know that she was fragile that day and it was almost like something had happened. Because

Because I can hear the rattleness in her voice. And I kept asking her, are you okay? Yeah. I said, so what's going on? She said, don't worry about it, mom. But she did tell me, I believe he heard us. Heard us what? I think he knows. Knows what? That you're leaving? Well, he can know, I told her. Nothing he can do about knowing. And I asked her, I said, do you want me to come early? Then my tickets were set. And she reassured me.

No, mom, I'll be all right. I said, are you sure? I told her to call me later. And she never called. I fell off to sleep. It was between 9 and 9.15 when I talked to Tamela. So if I talk to Tamela between 9 and 9.15 and you allegedly she left at 9.30, there's a 15 minute gap. But when I happened to wake myself back up, the phone was ringing and I was shocked.

Because I had talked to Tamela. Now, what the hell happened between 9-15 and them calling me at 6-30 the next morning? Tamela's boyfriend claimed that the last time he saw her was when she drove off on the evening of August 6th. Donna found it strange that he didn't seem to be searching for Tamela. He wasn't reaching out to friends or family. But to his credit, he did report her missing fairly quickly. For Donna, though, it almost felt too soon.

He reported her missing on the 8th. First and foremost, how do you know she was missing? If you didn't go and look for her, you didn't go over to a friend's house, you didn't go to a relative's house. Very alarming.

This also struck James as odd. Tamela had told her brother that whenever she went out with her friends, her boyfriend always knew where she was and would check up on her. When James reached out to Tamela's friends, they found it strange as well. None of them had heard from her boyfriend or had been contacted to see if Tamela was with them.

She had called us the night before and talked to everybody. She talked to me, she talked to everybody. It was kind of odd on how all of a sudden she just come up missing. And I'm like, man, it's on time, right? He got to know something about what happened to my sister. Any other time, if she go over her friend's house, wherever she might go, he always come over there looking for her or something. But this particular time, he never went over none of the friend's house that night. Because I know all her friends that stated and told me, it's mighty strange he didn't come over here looking for her or nothing.

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That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash vanished to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash vanished. When Donna arrived in Detroit, she went straight to her daughter's home, and she said that there were several things that immediately caught her attention.

I arrived in the city of Detroit, and I went straight to Tamela's house. It had to be the 9th of August, and the house was in disarray. It was a hot mess. That was the first alarming thing. The second alarming thing that I noticed is that I had no eye contact with this boyfriend. He was talking to me from other rooms. He never looked me in the face. And the feeling that I received of coming into this place was very dark.

It's a hot mess, like though somebody had been rambling and looking for something. I addressed it. I said, what the heck is going on here? I said, you need to clean this house up. Oh, I was looking for something. That was another alarm, because I didn't put the pieces together, but Tamela had told me about this money she had saved, and this was part of her voyage to be located. This money was to be her support until she got things in place in order for her and the buyers.

A few days after Tamela disappeared, her boyfriend claimed that he found the car she drove off in. It had been parked in a different area of town that both Tamela and he were familiar with. Tamela was allegedly supposed to have been drove off in the car August 6th between 9 and 9.30. She found this car days later.

Because we talked about on the west side where she lives, but the car was found on the east side. From his house to travel to the east side would be maybe eight, nine miles away, 10 miles away. They asked him what was in the car. First, he told the police there were clothes in the car.

Story changed. Clothes went away. And now there's a jack and a basketball in the car. That went away. It became a basketball and a tire. You find the car. You enter the car. How come you didn't call the police first? And Marcellus Ball says it on Crime Watch Daily. He wiped the car clean.

I did my homework. I was calling that neighborhood like the FBI and plenty of people know Tamela in this neighborhood because my mother was a property manager in this neighborhood. She's familiar with this neighborhood. She went to school over here and everybody said, no, Tamela ain't been over here and we ain't seen Tamela in this car since she got her new car. So,

So why would she be in this car this particular day and not in her new car that she had just got? The car wasn't even a month old. So there was a group home that an individual was managing these kids. She said she had to pay attention to the surroundings because these kids could be laid off. Now, you got to understand this neighborhood wasn't the good, best, safe neighborhood and

And so this is why this lady said that she had to keep an eye on these kids. She was alarmed at the car. She watched the car drive up. She watched a gentleman get out of the car, look both ways as though he was spooked. She described that he had on a work uniform with a name tag, sort of like the gas station people or the mechanic people would wear when

Well, she didn't get to see the name tag, but she reassured me that she can identify the person if she's seen him again. The boyfriend. At one time, he worked at St. John Hospital, so yes, he had a lot of those shirts, but a lot of people do. The police never showed this woman the picture of the boyfriend. But the car had been sitting there almost a day or so, she said.

This is a neighborhood that you know so well. Your mother stayed on the next block at one particular time. And you were affiliated with the people who lived in this house who wasn't living on a good side of the street. Everybody pointed back to the boyfriend. You know, he used to beat her up. She'd come over here and talk to us about it. But they never seen Tamla over there in that Pontiac car.

Back in 2012, James was also living in Florida, but immediately made the trip back to Detroit with his mother to search for Tamela. He told us that from the start, something didn't feel right to him either.

When we got the message, I was also here in Florida. We went down there and went into the neighborhoods where the incident had supposed to occur. But my grandmother had an apartment over there in that neighborhood at one time. And plus, I knew a lot of people that was in that neighborhood. It just didn't add up into the area on which she came up missing at. On a whole other side of town, it's just kind of weird. We know everybody in that neighborhood. And it was just kind of strange that her car supposedly came up missing at

When they found it, it was over there. It all sounds so staged on how she left, but they never looked into the case like they should have really looked thoroughly into this case. James admits that he didn't know Tamela's boyfriend well, partly because he was living out of state and had limited one-on-one interactions with him. However, he shared his observations and some memories of conversations he had with his sister about their relationship.

I got to know a part of him, but I didn't really get to know him like that because I never was encounter with him on a level like that. But my sister used to give me scenarios and stuff of that nature about how he was and who he was. But he always portrayed himself to be one of them kind of guys that always was kind of hyper, you know, a hyper attention mode. If you say something to him, he give you that that urge.

I just never dealt with him to knowing him like she knew him. And I got into an altercation with him and let him know, if you ever put your hand on my sister, it ain't going to be nothing nice, you know what I mean? Because I don't think a man should do that to a woman. He always, you know, oh, no, no, I don't ever do nothing to your sister, James. I love your sister. I always believed what my sister said because she ain't had no reason to laugh when she said that he was very verbally abusive and physically abusive. She had just came down here a couple months prior to her coming up missing.

She came down here and they went to Disney, her and her son and my mom. And she was just talking like, you know, I'm getting tired of living in Detroit. I want to come down here and move with y'all. I'm getting tired of being with him and all this. Tired of the situation of being around him. It ain't working. I told her, you know, Nikki, you might as well just leave. You know what I mean? I don't see why you should stay. She was setting it up. I'm sure she was setting it up to come on home. He overheard her steps and everything and something happening. And it stopped the plan, man.

Early on in the investigation, Donna was informed that investigators may have found blood inside the home where Tamela lived with her boyfriend and their daughter. Donna believes this could be a crucial piece of the puzzle, but to this day, she remains uncertain about the results of the testing.

That first beginning year, they told me that they found some blood. They were waiting on forensics. And that could take up to two years. And they called me a year after Chandler went missing and asked me if I can go into the house and get a brush for a DNA sample. Who is going into that house after a year to search for a brush?

I gave y'all DNA samples at the police station. What the hell do I need to go in her house for and get a brush? But what the heck do I look like coming all the way from Florida, knocking on the door and asking if I can have a brush at town? How would I know if it was her brush or not?

Donna felt a growing frustration as the investigator assigned to Tamela's disappearance seemed to make little progress in searching for her or uncovering what may have happened to Tamela. But there was something else at play. Tamela had been a witness in an upcoming trial, and an investigator working that case seemed to take a surprising interest in finding her. What connection, if any, did this have to Tamela's sudden disappearance?

A police officer that was helping me went door to door as well, asking questions. She took charge of something that the missing didn't even do. Because at one particular time, Tamela was a witness in a case that killed a child. And she was a witness to what had happened and occurred that day to that baby. And it was a friend of hers, Chow, who had got caught up in a fire. Friend of hers, her boyfriend, he died.

He goes and throws a firebomb in the girlfriend's house, not knowing that there was a child in the house. So this detective was on the case. And October something, they were having a trial. Family went missing in August. And this is why this detective reached out to me, because she seen me on the news.

And she knew Tabula was her witness. And she stepped in to see if this was connected to her case. Maybe they came after Tabula. But that wasn't the case. She automatically came back and said, no, that is not it, Ms. Wells. This is not affiliated. And we think we should be looking somewhere else.

According to Donna, Tamela had two cell phones when she disappeared, but law enforcement was never able to locate them. However, Tamela's boyfriend later claimed to have found some cell phones. The question remains, were these the phones Tamela was using when she disappeared? And if so, why hadn't they been handed over to investigators?

She had two cell phones and we ain't found the phones yet. But all of a sudden he comes up with these cell phones in the house somewhere, which he didn't turn them over to the police. How come? And the phone can be some information. Who's going to leave without their cell phone? Come on now. The phones were in his name. It was him, my grandson and Tamela on his phone line. Soon as Tamela went missing, it wasn't even two weeks that he had my grandson's phone disconnected. Now,

Now, me and my son had found code to get into Tamela's voicemail, and he had changed the code, and so he had that phone disconnected. They could have forced him to give them them phones.

As Donna dug deeper into the events leading up to Tamela's disappearance, she revealed that police had been called to the home Tamela shared with her boyfriend in the days before she vanished. Donna can't shake the feeling that something crucial transpired during that time and questions whether it played a role in Tamela's sudden disappearance.

I remember because I was the one that they called. 4.30 in the morning, police being called at Chandler's house, August 4th of 2012. There was a fight, domestic fight. I called my son, the one that has passed away now. I said, you got to get over to your sister's house. Something bad. Please go and see and tell me if my baby is okay. He got over. He said, mom, he has jumped on her. She's crying. He

While in Detroit searching for Tamela, Donna canvassed the neighborhood where her daughter lived and also where the car was found. She hoped to find anyone who may have seen or heard something around the time she disappeared. And Donna did find one neighbor who said she had information to share.

There was a young lady that when I showed up at Tamela's house, a lady ran out her house and said, hey, hey, hey, are you Tamela's mother? You're Tamela's mother, right? He was arguing with her. And I don't know what happened after that. I just see him jump in a car and drive behind another car. She heard him say, you ain't going nowhere. You ain't taking my baby nowhere. I'll kill you first. The lady clay, she heard those words.

Never said the description of the car, never told who she thought could be driving the car, nothing like that. This woman was the same woman who called me one time when I was in the city of Detroit to tell me he was throwing things out of the house. She said he's throwing away purses. I seen him carry a purse out and put it in the trash.

The purse was in the trash. We tried to distract the boyfriend. He's got these pit bulls, and we don't know if he won't kill us. Snooping around, we had to be very careful. This is dangerous, and people don't understand how dangerous you can get yourself in situations. There was a purse in the trash. I wanted to get the purse, but the garbage can was so big that I would definitely have to climb up in it.

Donna held a prayer vigil for Tamela across the street from the home where she lived with her boyfriend. While members of the community gathered to show their support, many couldn't help but notice the unsettling behavior of Tamela's boyfriend during the event.

I remember that day, the boyfriend, he was marching up and down the street. You know how somebody that's really ready to just go off on the deep end? That's how he looked. And he was like, everybody was looking like, what's up with dude? He looking like if he had something up under his shirt, we all hit. He acting like he wanted to straight up do a massacre. I'm serious. It

It was very alarming. It was alarming to the people who attended the visual who was paying attention because everybody knew that Tamela stayed across the street from this house that we were attending and having this visual at. He wouldn't even allow the little girl to come over with her family in that circle and pray for her mother. Now, that's cold-blooded, don't you think?

There was something else that happened before Tamela's disappearance that Donna has always found strange. She's not sure whether it's a sign that Tamela's boyfriend was paranoid or something more, but it's another unsettling piece of the puzzle that Donna can't ignore.

See, this started before Tamela even went missing. It was strange occurrences that was leading up to this. We just didn't see the sign because we don't live there. A year prior to this, the boyfriend was supposed to have had a home invasion on his house. He said, Tamela set up the home invasion. Why would she do that at somewhere where she lives and keep her baby safe? Just didn't make any sense. He called us with this mess. Oh.

Oh, they came in here. They had guns and everything. I doubled back. I heard them in here. I wrestled with the guy. I got the gun. I let him go. You let him out the door. Something is wrong with this picture.

Donna has countless lingering questions about the investigation into her daughter's disappearance. She's desperate to know what became of that possible blood evidence that was collected and sent for testing. She also wonders how thoroughly the vehicle was searched. But no matter how many times she asks, she can't get a clear answer about what happened to the cars.

I asked them where was the car. They said the car was in police custody. I've been asking for years. They told me now that the car has probably been crushed. First, they told me they gave it back to them. And then they told me later on, no, it was crushed. Did you give it back to them or was it crushed?

Donna was alarmed when she learned that carpet had been removed from the home Tamela shared with her boyfriend. It left her wondering whether it was just a home improvement project, though she felt that seemed out of character for him, or if it was done to conceal potential evidence of a crime. The boyfriend rented a U-Haul truck to remove some carpet from his house.

to drive it all the way to the east side in the area where I'm telling you this car was found. And he illegally dumped it where he told his daughter at the time that the police had stopped him. He was dumping, gave a $500 ticket, and they took the U-Haul truck. I don't know if that's true, but I do know there was carpet removed from that house. And my whole thing is when I reported it to the police, no one went looking for that carpet.

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After Donna reached out to us to ask us to cover Tamela's case, we filed a records request with the Detroit Police Department and also asked for an interview. As of the recording of this episode, we have yet to receive a response to our interview request, though they did provide the records we asked for. The records we received began on August 9th, when it says that Tamela's boyfriend reported her missing. He stated that he last saw her leaving their home in a white 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix.

and that she hadn't returned or answered any of his phone calls. According to him, there were no major family issues, and Tamela was in good physical and mental health. He also noted that she had never gone missing before, and that he had driven around looking for her, but was unable to find Tamela. There are several reports dated August 12, 2012, six days after Tamela was last seen. These reports reiterated the story that Tamela left her home on August 6th, and

and was last seen by her live-in boyfriend, Ricky. He explained that he didn't report her missing until August 9th, because she had left before and returned only a day or two later. Donna had told us that over the years, she tried repeatedly to request records, but her requests were always denied. When we received the reports, we sent them to Donna for her to review. After that, we spoke with her again to discuss the 28 pages of documents. Here's Donna again.

because there were so many papers. So it makes you see like, oh yeah, oh, something good going on here. That's what I thought too when I seen it. But then when I scanned it through it, I was like, okay, I went on the staples, right? And got it ran off so I can have it paper form in front of me. I'm looking at this and I'm like, okay, really?

On August 12th, Ricky said he received a call from someone who had spotted the car Tamela was last seen driving. One detail that stood out to Donna was that the records indicated Ricky found the car after receiving a phone call from someone described as a known person. In a separate report written by a different officer, this caller is identified as a friend.

Ricky told the officer that he went to the car, opened the trunk, and noticed the spare tire was missing. Another report penned by a different officer documented his meeting with Ricky at the vehicle. Ricky explained that he had told people in the neighborhood about Tamela's disappearance before receiving a call from someone named Bud.

Ricky claimed he found the car unlocked and again mentioned the missing spare tire. He also told the officer that he believed Tamela was staying nearby, but was avoiding him because they had argued about her being in that area before. When asked for Bud's phone number, Ricky refused, stating he wasn't sure if Bud would approve of him sharing it. A nearby witness reported seeing the car parked outside the residence since the evening of August 7th, a day after Ricky said Tamela drove off in the Pontiac.

The report also noted that Ricky suggested Tamela might be with someone in that neighborhood, though their name was redacted. The officer contacted that individual, who confirmed she knew Ricky didn't approve of Tamela visiting her, but that she hadn't seen her friend since August 5th, the day before her disappearance. The friend also mentioned that Ricky had yelled and cursed at Tamela in the past when she visited. The report concluded by stating that the car was towed and held for fingerprint analysis.

He found the vehicle that Mr. Wells was last seen driving. He stated he received a phone call from a friend who told him where the vehicle was, but you can't tell us who the guy was, who it was. It could be anybody, somebody you made up. And then it says that he went to the vehicle and opened the trunk and noted the spare tire was missing. That ain't what you told him in the first place. You told him it was closed in the car. What happened to the phone? Oh,

Oh, they even told me back in the day, they said, oh, we have them under surveillance. Okay, well, show me. I don't see nothing like that. I don't see anything past 2012 in here. Something wrong with this picture, don't you think?

Earlier, Donna mentioned that she was told at the outset of the investigation that possible blood had been found inside the home, but she never heard what came of the testing. The August 12th reports describe the home as a brick, ranch-style single home with a living room, dining area, three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The report goes on to state that suspected blood was found on the floor of the southwest bedroom and on the landing to the basement. One report details this further, noting that a red drop resembling blood was found on the floor of the southwest bedroom.

was found in Tamela's bedroom, followed by numerous red spots at the top of the stairs. An officer requested that the scene be photographed, the suspected blood be collected, and the samples sent for analysis. The report confirms that this was done and the samples were submitted for processing, but curiously, the reports never mention the results of any testing. In reports written by various officers also dated August 12th, it was noted that a handgun had been found underneath a bed.

One report specifically mentioned it was located under Ricky's bed. The weapon was described as a gray semi-automatic handgun. The officer was instructed to determine who owned the gun, and if it wasn't Ricky, to confiscate it and place it into evidence. When asked who owned the gun, Ricky replied, me and my girlfriend. The officer pressed further, asking who the gun was registered to. Ricky answered, it's registered to my girlfriend. The officer informed him that the weapon would be confiscated.

For Donna, reading these reports was a startling revelation. This was the first time she had ever heard about a gun, and it raised more questions than answers. They said they found the gun up under the bed. First time I ever heard that, and it was supposed to have been Tamla. The boyfriend said it was Tamla that didn't own a gun. My baby didn't own no gun. And she definitely wouldn't have had no loaded gun under no bed with a six-year-old kid. No way. That was so scary to me.

The final report, dated August 15, 2012, details an anonymous call from a citizen who claimed to have seen Tamela. The caller described driving her car when she possibly saw Tamela approach her window and say, Mama, I'm going to rehab. The woman replied, Just go to rehab and drove off. The same caller later claimed to have seen someone she believed to be Tamela sitting on some steps, wearing a gray and white striped jumpsuit with yellow double-breasted buttons.

The description stood in contrast to Ricky's report, which stated that Tamela was last seen wearing a white shirt and blue jean shorts with a cuff. That was the final detail in the reports we received. Donna noted that a friend of Tamela's was briefly mentioned in the report, but it seemed like little effort was made to speak with her, or any of Tamela's other friends, in a more thorough way to understand what may have been happening in Tamela's life leading up to her disappearance.

Donna has been frustrated by the lack of support from Tamela's friends, who seem to have remained distant since her daughter went missing.

He never called anybody. He never went around to friends' house and all of that. And like I said, these friends, I don't really know them like that. I knew of them. But when Chandler went missing, they all scattered and went their own way. They was out there for the first three, four months. But after that, they all faded away. And I can't tell you from A to B what happened to these people.

Donna had previously mentioned that she believed law enforcement had been called to the home where Tamela and her boyfriend Ricky lived with their daughter on multiple occasions. To follow up on this, we filed a records request for calls for service to that address in the years leading up to Tamela's disappearance. Donna also brought up a home invasion Ricky claimed occurred in 2011. The records we received detailed this. They stated that on December 31, 2011, police responded to a call at their home.

Ricky told the officer that he and his girlfriend had argued over money that she had left at that location.

Rickey also mentioned a home invasion that occurred the week prior, though the report noted there were no signs of forced entry at the time. The officer's report states that Rickey returned home to find an unknown intruder in his hallway. Rickey struggled with the man to remove him from the house. During their confrontation, the offender allegedly pointed an AK-87 at Rickey. Afterward, Rickey found a 9mm handgun on the couch and a blue vest with a knife in the bathtub.

For Donna, the story remains puzzling, and she's still uncertain about what, if anything, it might suggest about her daughter's disappearance.

James believes that law enforcement didn't do enough from the very beginning to search for Tamela, and he feels that part of the issue lies in deeper systemic problems within the city of Detroit. Detroit has long faced complex challenges, including economic decline and intense relations between the police and the community that have undermined the ability of law enforcement to effectively respond to cases like Tamela's.

That's just not my system. A lot of girls coming up missing and all kind of stuff is happening. And it's just sad that the police system is not doing nothing and letting this crime just go through the city like this. They didn't do enough for anything because you got to realize at the time when she came up missing, the police force was basically not even patrolling the street. They never went in and did a thorough search in the house. And then they could have made their leads from that point. They did nothing. So he could have easily tried to hide it.

He got to take a polygraph. He lied on them as well. I guess it wasn't enough evidence in today's matter or however they do things, like they stated, once he's found not guilty, and then you can never convict him again. So it still didn't make no sense. It took so long, 12 years, they should have figured out something. It was all bad at the time, but they should at least backtrack and fix the situation. She got two kids for a mother like that to come out missing in the city of Detroit where she was born all her life. And then no authority to step up, do nothing to try to find her.

It's really kind of odd. It's just sad that they did nothing. People in that neighborhood, they know him. And they all stated the same thing, that he got to know where she at. I just asked for somebody to step up, which having nobody stepped up all this time. It's been a very quiet situation. You know, it's like one case gets leased to this captain. This captain retires. This captain gets the case. He puts it in the back burners.

It's a cold case. Don't nobody want to touch it. And it's really sad they allowed it to go this far without trying to at least find out, drain some water fields, whatever they got to do to find her. Just find her.

No one has been more frustrated by the response from law enforcement, or rather, the lack of response, than Donna. From the very beginning, she felt as though her daughter's case wasn't being taken seriously. The delays, the unanswered questions, and the lack of urgency in the investigation have only compounded her heartache. As the months and years have passed, Donna's frustrations have only grown as she continues to seek answers that seem just out of reach.

They have done nothing but led my family on to believe that they were doing this and that and the other. It's almost like, you know, I don't live there. So tell her whatever. Get her off the phone. Because I know I've been a complete thorn in their side by showing up and calling. But for y'all to say that this is still an open investigation, it's not a cold case. But then it was a cold case. Now make your mind up. Which one is it?

This is a drop the ball from the day one. This is a guy who has failed the lie detector test in 2012, 53 times and smoked it and got so combated that they thought they were going to have to put handcuffs on him. Nothing has been done.

Feeling increasingly frustrated by the lack of action from law enforcement, Donna turned to the online missing persons community, as well as local supporters in Detroit. From the very start, a dedicated local activist stepped up to help, knowing Donna lived far away and could use a pair of boots on the ground. This activist has been a constant ally, working tirelessly to keep Tamela's name in the public eye and ensure that her disappearance isn't forgotten in the city of Detroit.

Minister Malik Shabazz has walked with me since day one. He breathes Detroit. The minister Malik does footwork and advocate work for me when I'm not in the city of Detroit. He has went out on many walks, passing out crime stopper flyers. And each time he takes a knock at the door, he don't give up.

In a desperate bid for answers, Donna turned to an unlikely source for help, the Steve Wilkos Show, a well-known television program hosted by a former security guard who got his start on The Jerry Springer Show. Donna knew going in that the show often leaned into the drama of the situations they covered, but she was willing to take the chance. At that point, she felt she had nothing left to lose and hoped the exposure could shed light on her daughter's case, even if it meant navigating the spectacle of television.

It was a bold move, but Donna was determined to see where it would lead, hoping it might spark something, anything, to get closer to the truth.

I've been trying to get him here for years, but he kept playing games with the show. They looking for your girlfriend. They looking for the mother of your daughter. You said you loved her. One of the reasons why I went on Steve Wilco's show, because people like drama. That's where you need to get in. So the Steve Wilco show was the perfect show to try to get the boyfriend on. It aired January 9th, 2024. And you told that show that she lived in an apartment.

with you and you woke up and she wasn't there. But then you tell us that you had to go around the corner and get the little girl and come back. Tamra was going around the car, the opposite direction of you guys. So how many lies are you going to tell here? This is not what you've been saying the whole time. If you became the number one suspect

And you're the only one that know everything. The car came up on the east side, allegedly. I don't believe my daughter drove that car over there unless it... Where's your love that you claim you have for this person? Why aren't you concerned where she is?

Tamela had confided in her mother that she had been secretly saving up a significant amount of money to fund her escape from her boyfriend and the toxic cycle she had been trapped in. Donna is still left wondering what happened to that money, as no trace of it has surfaced. In an eerie twist, when a media outlet eventually tracked down Ricky, he made an astonishing claim. He had won the lottery.

when they approached him at the car. He told Hudson and Ponce he hit the lottery. It was so arrogant. The reporter called me and told me, Ms. Wills, this is the most alarming interview I have ever did. And it gave me chills up my spine. I sent the entire interview without editing to the Detroit Police Department. You know they can't tell me where that interview is. They

This young lady had this money. I'm telling the police people that if he hit the lottery for $10,000, there's a way of confirming if he hit that lottery because there's papers you have to sign for that kind of money. So did he hit the lottery or did he ramble in that house and find that girl money? Did he kill my daughter? What did he do? But they could never prove to me that he hit that number for $10,000.

Donna can tell you, without hesitation, exactly how many days it's been since she last heard from her daughter. As of today, it's been 12 years, 6 months, and 5 days that she's been waiting and searching for answers. Over the years, Donna has faced many losses in her life. But with each one, she knew what had happened and could find a way to say goodbye. Every culture has its rituals to help us grieve and find peace when we lose someone.

As heartbreaking as those losses have been, Donna was able to lay her loved ones to rest, knowing the truth. But this is different. The mystery of Tamla's disappearance is an open wound that continues to haunt her, a pain that grows deeper with each passing day.

This girl would call up out of a doggone rat trap to give me a message. And see, this is one thing that we all have in common as a family unit. At the time, my mother was alive. I lost my mother during this process, and we always sit and discuss this. We always say that he definitely knows something. Where else do you look other than an abusive relationship? Nobody out there wants to harm this young lady.

And believing in my mother, she would never give her opinion unless she really trusted the fact she just wasn't that type that just dipped off and had something to say. But this is a young lady that my mother knew very well, her granddaughter. And she is like, ain't no way in God's heaven that this young lady just vanished.

without him knowing something. You're too controlling, too abusive, jealous. When I showed up there, my son and I, I lost that son just two years ago. And so it's like yesterday with this. It's almost like I keep reliving this ordeal in different people. Losing my mother a year after Tamela went missing. It just became too much. But then you have to see how much life is valuable.

And when you have circled yourself around a lot of these people that's not here today and they are gone, you have to go by the experiences and the conversations that we all share. I don't want this to ever keep happening to people, but it is. It's like a disease and it's running rampant. I try to make sense out of this whole thing, but I can't come up with anything that

That makes sense. It hurts so bad. I try to get through each day without even shedding a tear. But I can't stop them. I can't live in gloom. I got work to do. I've got to keep looking for my baby. I want to know. We all want to know.

James has witnessed his mother, heartbroken yet unwavering, summon the strength to fight for Tamela for over 12 years. He sees her as a source of inspiration. But more than anything, he wants to bring her the answers she's been searching for and the peace she so deeply deserves.

I think if my mother could have cracked the case from the get-go, she would have did it. She's a strong lady. She ain't going to stop. She's not going to give up. She's just not going to stop. She's not like most of the people that you might come across. She's just going to keep going. You're going to tell her one thing, she's going to keep digging and digging and digging, and that's what she's been doing this

this whole 12 years. And I just thank God for having a strong mother like that. It just hurt everybody to know that we just don't got no answer to know where she at. We don't got no remains. We don't got nothing, man. But we just ask anybody that's out there, you know, whoever knows something, speak up and tell us something. But people don't believe in talking. But one factor that always came to me, we ain't got too many suspects on this case. The writing is right on the wall. Y'all can see it. Here's the day.

Tamela's family is convinced that her boyfriend played a key role in her disappearance. Donna believes that he may have discovered her plans to leave him and found the money she had been secretly stashing away to start over. In cases of intimate partner violence, statistics show that the most dangerous time for a woman is when she attempts to leave her abuser. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the risk of violence increases drastically when women try to escape.

A 2010 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that nearly 70% of women murdered by their intimate partners were killed after leaving or while trying to leave the relationship. Many people often wonder why someone hadn't left sooner, but the reality isn't so simple. A 2003 study done by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that women who had recently separated from their abusers were five times more likely to be killed

than those who are still living with their partner. These studies highlight the brutal reality that leaving an abuser is often a deadly risk, but it's also a complex psychological and emotional challenge. For many, the fear of escalated violence, financial instability, or the loss of custody of children can make staying with an abuser feel like the safer option, even though it's often far from safe.

The constant manipulation and control in abusive relationships can make it difficult to see a path to freedom, often leading survivors to stay out of fear or because they feel trapped.

Tamela was doing her best to navigate the dangerous process of escaping, while also protecting her daughter. Donna believes this is exactly what happened to Tamela. She was trying to escape, but in doing so, she became caught in the tragic reality that so many women face when leaving an abuser. Yet Donna refuses to let her daughter be dismissed, and she deserves to be seen for who she truly is, not reduced to a statistic that gets overlooked.

Donna is determined to make sure her daughter's story is heard and that she's never forgotten.

I don't believe she drove that car away from the house. I don't believe that she ever left that house. Now, for someone to start to do the strangest things after someone goes missing is just weird. She wasn't doing any of these things of improvement while she was here. Why all of a sudden did she leave? Why would you tell your daughter after six months that we have to move on? What happened to the clothes she was wearing? I mysteriously found a pair of shorts and a white shirt and some sandals downstairs in the basement.

I started feeling that strangeness the very day that I arrived there. I wanted to give you the benefit of an adult, but when it got strange, I believe they had a fight, you hit her, you fell, hit her head or something, boom, she's gone. Now you got to get rid of the body. This has been torture to digest. There's days that I can't sleep. Today will mark 12.2 years today.

The day is October the 6th, 2024. And so every month that a calendar strikes just gets that much weary and that much scary for me. Because this is a young lady who would never go without contact with her mother. Young lady would never leave her daughter. And every picture I got, her baby was with her. This is a little girl that ain't going to sleep until her mama's in her presence.

So what happened to Tamela Wells after she spoke to her mother via phone on the evening of August 6th, 2012? According to Tamela's boyfriend, she drove off that night in a Pontiac they owned, and that was the last time he ever saw or heard from her. The following morning, Donna, who was back home in Florida, received a call from Tamela's six-year-old daughter, telling her that her mother hadn't come home. Alarmed, Donna immediately began making plans to travel to Detroit and search for Tamela. When

When Donna arrived in town, she went straight to Tamela's home and was unsettled by her boyfriend's behavior. Donna later learned that investigators had found what appeared to be blood inside of the home, though the test results have remained elusive.

In the days that followed Tamela's disappearance, the car that she was reportedly driving was found abandoned in another area of town. Her boyfriend told the police that a man named Bud had called him about the car's location. But when asked for contact information for Bud, he refused to share any details.

Tamela's family has long believed that the evidence points to her boyfriend. They know that Tamela was planning to leave him and start fresh in Florida. She had even been secretly saving money for that purpose. But Tamela never got the chance to make her dreams a reality. Just weeks before Donna was set to travel to Detroit to bring Tamela and her granddaughter to safety, Tamela disappeared without a trace.

As the years have passed, Donna has grown increasingly frustrated. Despite what she believes are mounting signs that point to Tamela's boyfriend, little has been done to push for answers. The case, which many feel could be solved with further investigation, has simply been left to gather dust on the pile of unsolved cases. And this is a sad reality that many families grapple with as Detroit's unsolved case files have grown to staggering numbers, largely due to chronic underfunding, systemic issues, and strained police-community relations.

Many believe that without the necessary resources and attention, cases like Tamela's will continue being neglected, pushed aside, or even overlooked entirely. Donna feels that her daughter's case is another victim of a broken system, one that consistently fails to give families the answers they desperately need. But Donna has never given up. Through every setback, every unanswered question, and every dead end, Donna's strength and resilience has been unwavering.

She has fought tirelessly for her daughter, refusing to let her case become just another forgotten statistic. Despite the obstacles, Donna continues to search for answers, to demand justice, and to keep Tamela's name alive.

Her determination is a testament to the love she has for her daughter, and to the bond that cannot be broken, by time, distance, or even an unsolved mystery. Donna will never stop fighting for Tamela, no matter how many years pass, because for her, giving up is simply not an option.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Tamela Nikki Wells, please call the Detroit Police Department at 313-596-2200. Or Crime Stoppers at 1-800- SPEAK-UP. She left a little bit of her spirit in everybody. These women and these girls are coming up missing, and they're in relationships, and they're with men that does things like this of this nature. My heart goes out to every mother that's got a child out missing, you know?

Why don't they look deeper? Just so much that I can go into on this case is so deep and scary. He think he has outsmarted the police. I was a hot mess. The first five years, you couldn't tell me nothing. I still hurt. I still cry. But not as bad as it was. I have fought my strength and I kept my voice because this is my child and I'm going to be the voice for Kamala.

And again, that these people have been playing on the heart of a loved one. It is so important to me. He is knowing where she is and what happened to her. That brings us to the end of episode 475. I'd like to thank Donna and James for speaking with us. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook.

You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. Be sure to tune in next week. We'll be covering a case from New Jersey. Thanks for listening.

If you like The Vanished, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Ben hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a month. So during one of his restless nights, he booked a package triple broad on Expedia.

When he arrived at his beachside hotel, he discovered a miraculous bed slung between two trees and fell into the best sleep of his life. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights and hotels and hammocks for less. Expedia. Made to travel.