San Diego

‘I'm Terrified': Mother Spends Thanksgiving Looking for Daughter Missing in San Diego

Lateche Norris last spoke to her mother on Nov. 5 and was reported missing Nov. 10. Her family says she was last seen at a San Diego 7-Eleven

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A mother spending her Thanksgiving holiday in San Diego searching for her missing daughter says her daughter seemed frantic last time they spoke and fears her daughter is in over her head.

"She’s a good human," Cheryl Walker said describing 20-year-old Lateche Norris who she last heard from Nov. 5. "She’s not afraid of hardly anything, which is scary for us at times like these. She’ll be the one to track the bullies down. She’s not worried.”

Norris came to San Diego to help her boyfriend after he left a rehab facility and was forced into living on the street, according to Walker. The couple had a disagreement before Walker's last conversation with her daughter, and Walker says there have been domestic violence incidents in the past.

NBC 7's Allie Raffa explains how people in San Diego are banding together to search for the woman.

Norris was last seen at a 7-Eleven store at 222 Park Blvd. on Nov. 4, and last spoke to her mother on the phone the following day.

“She definitely would have called me back," Walker said. Norris had to abruptly end their last conversation but told Walker she'd call again.

Walker said she filed a missing persons report with the San Diego Police Department Nov. 10. At this time, SDPD investigators don't believe Norris is at risk.

"It feels like she's in over her head," Walker said.

Walker said she got a ransom demand phone call that she later realized was fake. She was unhappy with SDPD's response when she brought it to their attention.

She said she wasn't able to reach the Missing Persons Unit, so she contacted dispatchers. Walker said dispatchers told her they couldn't help, and that she would have to leave a voicemail with the MPU.

"That sent me through the roof. I said, ‘For a ransom demand for my missing daughter, you want me to leave a voicemail?’ I had left five voicemails. It had been four or five days before I heard from anyone," Walker said. So, she called the FBI.

“I couldn’t even process the logic there," she said.

Walker worries history could repeat itself.

"How many times do we have to see a young girl go missing after fighting with her husband or boyfriend or significant other, and how often does it have to end in nothing positive, before we start taking this a little more serious?" Walker said.

She said she doesn't want to unfairly implicate Norris' boyfriend, Joey, who she said has a criminal record that includes arson and vandalism, but said he's not answering calls or messages despite being active on social media. NBC 7 also reached out to Norris' boyfriend and hasn't heard back.

In an interview with NBC's NBC's "Dateline" earlier this week, Walker said she was afraid she'd never see her daughter again. Walker and Norris' father and stepfather traveled to San Diego from Indiana ahead of Thanksgiving so they could search for Norris.

Whitney Sich, founder of the nonprofit Voice for the Voiceless, was coordinating local search parties before the parents got into town.

"Walker, who's on her way to California right now, she's on a plane, he messaged me and said, 'I need help, please help me.' So I created a Facebook page with her," Sich told NBC 7 on Wednesday.

Sich also doesn't agree with SDPD's assessment that Norris isn't at risk.

"She doesn't have money. The person that she was supposed to be dependent on probably left her stranded somewhere and she doesn't have a phone, so I don't know why law enforcement is saying that she's not at risk," Sich said.

Walker said Norris came to San Diego with only a backpack full of clothes. Norris' phone died before her last conversation with Walker, who she called from a stranger's phone, Walker said.

Earlier this year, Norris followed her boyfriend to Santa Cruz, California, but went back home to Indiana after just two months.

Walker describes Norris as 5 feet 8 inches tall and around 160 pounds with dark brown hair and eyes.

She told Dateline Norris sent a photo on the night of Nov. 4 and she was wearing black leggings, a black sweatshirt, black with some white tennis shoes and carrying a black and white checkered backpack. She has a tattoo of an arrow on her left forearm, a 7-inch blade on her right calf, a dreamcatcher on her left shoulder blade and unknown words on her knuckles.

Anyone with information is asked to call SDPD at (619)-531-2446 and reference case number 21-501043.

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