San Diego

Indiana Parents Spending Holiday in San Diego Searching for Missing Daughter

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

NBC Universal, Inc.

The parents of a missing Indiana woman last seen at a San Diego convenience store in early November traveled here to spend their Thanksgiving trying to find their daughter.

Lateche Norris, 20, was last seen Nov. 4 at a 7-Eleven store at 222 Park Blvd., according to her family. A San Diego Police Department spokesperson said investigators don't believe Norris is at-risk, but her mother, Cheryl Walker, told NBC's "Dateline" she's terrified and "afraid I’ll never see her again.”

Before Walker and Norris' father and stepfather made the trip, locals coordinating through a Facebook page dedicated to the search for Norris have been posting flyers around the county, including in San Diego, Imperial Beach and Chula Vista.

"[Norris'] mother, Cheryl Walker, who's on her way to California right now, she's on a plane. She messaged me and said, 'I need help, please help me.' So I created a Facebook group with her," Whitney Sich, founder of the nonprofit Voice for the Voiceless told NBC 7 Wednesday afternoon.

Walker told Dateline she last spoke to Norris Nov. 5. She said her daughter had a fight with her boyfriend the night before and ended up at the 7-Eleven.

"She got into a disagreement with her boyfriend. She called her mom from a stranger's phone. She asked her his phone number, she said, 'I'll call you back.' And she never called her mom back, and she's not someone who doesn't call her mom back," Sich said.

Norris grew up in Indiana and followed her boyfriend on a move to Santa Cruz earlier this year, Walker told Dateline.

“We didn’t love the idea of Teche going so far away,” Walker said. “But California was the dream for her - an Indiana girl’s dream. So she went.”

Two months after the move, Norris came back home, Walker said. Then, on Halloween weekend, Norris took a trip to California to be with her boyfriend once again, this time in San Diego.

Walker filed a missing person's report with SDPD on Nov. 10, according to the spokesperson.

"He is the last person to see her, technically, and we can't get ahold of him and he's not returning phone calls," Sich said.

Sich disagrees 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.

NBC 7 has reached out to Norris' boyfriend and hasn't heard back.

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.

Contact Us