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This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.
In a scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Poliansky. But what if we were to turn back the hands of time and relive these events as they unfolded? Follow along each week as we take a fresh look at crimes from the past. Back in Crime is available now.
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics including violence, abuse, and murder.
My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today I'm discussing the case of 16-year-old Allie Lowitzer, who was last seen on a Texas school bus on April 26, 2010.
That Monday night, Allie's mom, Joanne, thinks that her daughter went to her part-time job after school. But when Joanne arrives to pick her up, Allie is nowhere to be found. That night, Allie's reported missing, starting a tireless search to bring her home. This is the case of Allie Lowitzer.
Allie Joy Lowitzer grows up in Spring, Texas, a suburb about 25 miles outside of Houston, and she's involved in a lot of what her neighborhood has to offer. Allie enjoys playing softball and being a Girl Scout. Other than that, she loves being at home. When Allie gets together with her friends, she spends time with them in her house most of the time. She loves watching movies like Anastasia, Rent, and High School Musical.
Allie is also extremely fond of animals. She enjoys the pets inside of the Lowitzer home and outside of it. In fifth grade, she took care of a bird's nest and eggs they found inside the family's outdoor grill. She also takes up a lot of creative pursuits, like making crafts with her mom and spending time in her room drawing and painting. Her biggest canvas so far is her grandmother's garage, where she spray-painted a sunset mural on an exterior wall.
Outside of art, Allie adores music and choir. In 8th grade, she overcomes her shyness to sing the national anthem solo on stage. By all accounts, Allie is a budding artist and just adored by her classmates. During Christmas in 2009, she gets what every teenager dreams of, her very own cell phone. And of course, she uses it all the time. She primarily communicates with her friends through a lot of text messages, about 4,000 a month.
Allie turned 16 on February 3rd, 2010. And like a lot of teenagers, she dyes her hair dark red, has a nose piercing, and wears black eyeliner. Allie also wears a lot of black clothing. Honestly, she sounds like most of my friends growing up. She's also looking forward to planning an Alice in Wonderland-themed birthday party for one of her best friends.
Now, Allie also has this really cute daily tradition with one of her schoolmates at Spring High School. At the end of the day, as they board their respective school buses and they start to pull away, they shout to each other, I love you, see you tomorrow.
And in April 2010, Allie adds something new to her after-school routine, her first job. It's a fast food restaurant called Burger Barn, and it's about a quarter a mile away from her home. Now, Allie had actually been trying to get a job for months, so she's super excited about this. And to make the deal even better, apparently Allie really loves hamburgers.
And then finally, on April 26th, her hard-earned paycheck is ready to be picked up. But first, she has to go to school. Joanne recently described that morning on her TikTok account. It was a typical Monday. You know, I got up and got ready for work. I woke Allie up to get ready for school. And she was in her room getting ready, and I was in my room getting ready.
And, um, we really didn't have, you know, uh, much of a conversation other than, you know, um, bye mom, you know, okay, bye Allie, have a good day. And, and that was about it that morning. Allie rushes to the bus stop and makes it just in time.
After the short ride, the sophomore has a typical day at Spring High School, going to classes and seeing her friends. As school winds down, Allie calls her mom and tells Joanne that she needs to pick up her paycheck at Burger Barn. Allie wants to do it after school, and while she's there, maybe even work a few more hours to earn some extra money. But Joanne reminds her that her grandmother, who usually drives her to Burger Barn, is busy that day. So basically, she's gonna have to wait to pick up her check until tomorrow.
But I think we've all been there. This is her first check. She's super excited, and so she begs her mom to please let her do it. And Allie has a plan. She says that she'll take the school bus home, then just walk the quarter mile to Burger Barn alone. But Joanne is naturally a little hesitant to this. She recently recalled this conversation on her TikTok account. You know, after me telling her no several times, she begged and begged and begged.
And, you know, she's like, Mom, please, you know, she says, I'll be careful. I'll text you when I get there. I'll let you know if I'm going to stay at work because she also, you know, wanted to see if she could work. It was a weird schedule. It was kind of like a day by day schedule. So anyway, teenagers know what buttons to push to talk their parents into getting what they want.
And Allie definitely knew mine. It was sweet talking me and say, please, please, please. So I gave in. I gave in and that was the worst decision of my entire life. After some back and forth, Joanne reluctantly agrees. At 2.25 p.m., Allie exits Spring High School walking out with her schoolmate. They each board their respective school buses home and yell to each other, I love you, see you tomorrow, just like they always do.
But this would be their last time. When Allie's bus arrives in her neighborhood, it stops about three houses away from her own. She and two boys step off the bus at the same time. The boys see Allie walking toward her home, but she lingers behind them a bit because she's texting. Then Allie walks past her house and away from her neighborhood. At 2.57pm, she texts a friend.
I don't know what that message says or if this was related to the previous text, but remember that Allie is an avid texter. She sends a lot of text messages. But by 3pm, all communication stops, and her cell phone is no longer pinging off local cell towers. It's the last time anyone sees or hears from Allie.
Two and a half hours pass. At around 5.30pm, Joanne Lowitzer arrives home from work and there's no sign of Allie. Now, Joanne isn't instantly alarmed. She figures Allie probably stuck around the burger barn to work a few hours just like she said she might. Maybe Allie will call or text when she's on a break.
Then another hour and a half passes with no word from Allie. But still, Joanne doesn't want to interrupt her daughter in the middle of working the dinner rush. So at 7pm, she texts Allie to see if everything was alright. Then another hour goes by.
It's 8pm now, and Joanne is worried. The burger barn is about to close in an hour at 9pm, and she still hasn't heard from Allie. And Joanne says that it's really not like Allie to go this long without communicating with her mom. Joanne starts to wonder if maybe there's a problem with Allie's cell phone.
Now, Joanne was usually the person that picked up Allie from Burger Barn after work, so she goes there right before 9pm, right before close. But when she drives up, Joanne sees that the Burger Barn lights are off and all the doors are locked. Allie is not there waiting for her.
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Obviously at this point, Joanne knows that something is seriously wrong. She starts calling the rest of the family, including her ex and Allie's dad, John. They jump into action. They start calling Allie's friends. They start checking out her favorite local hangouts. But Allie is nowhere to be found and no one knows where she is.
After hours of searching, Joanne and John call the police and report Allie missing. And here they face another nightmare that is all too common in cases of missing teenagers. This officer arrives at their house, looks at Allie's room for a little bit, and is instantly skeptical that Allie is missing at all. She doesn't take down a report or give any guidance. Instead, she just tells Joanne and John to call the precinct when Allie returns home tomorrow.
Now, of course, naturally, this is really frustrating for parents who are beyond worried about their young daughter, who is under 18. But this officer doesn't rush to investigate or start a police search at all. Joanne asks her, quote, what do we do if she doesn't come home? End quote. The officer responds to call them. And that's it. She leaves without taking any further action.
The Lowitzers are disappointed, but determined. The next day, Joanne and John wake up and Allie still isn't home. Her room is still exactly the way she left it the previous morning. Her cell phone charger, clothes, makeup, money, and jewelry are all still there.
So they don't wait for police, they mobilize themselves to search for their daughter and spend the day calling everyone they can think of. Joanne also posts a message on Facebook, which attracts a really helpful response. Joanne described it on her TikTok recently. I was a Girl Scout co-leader, and one of my friends with Girl Scout Council said,
had messaged me and wanted to help, and she told me to contact the Laura Recovery Center. I had never heard of the Laura Recovery Center. I didn't know what they were. So after, you know, she kind of told me about what they do, I contacted them that evening. The Laura Recovery Center is a non-profit organization in Friendswood, Texas, another suburb located around 25 miles outside of Houston.
Friendswood is where the center's namesake, 12-year-old Laura Kate Smither, was abducted and killed in 1997. A year later in 1998, Laura's parents Bob and Gay Smither founded the Laura Recovery Center. They aim to prevent kidnappings and recover victims of abductions. Knowing that, Joanne calls the Laura Recovery Center to see if they can help.
And the next day, the center arrives in Spring, Texas, organizing Allie's friends and family. They even helped urge law enforcement to take action, and the police start their investigation. Of course, law enforcement wants to speak with the boys who got off the bus with Allie and her Burger Barn co-workers.
Joanne told me that Allie's dad was actually the one to recover surveillance from the burger barn and a local gas station, and that law enforcement had actually lost the video from the gas station at one point. However, officials do obtain the surveillance video from Spring High School and the school bus. These are the last known images of Allie.
They also check Allie's cell phone records and find, like I told you, that her cell phone stopped pinging on towers at 3 p.m. And then law enforcement goes back to Allie's family and says that there's no evidence of foul play or a crime. And there would be no Amber Alert issued.
So let's talk about Amber Alert laws. Back in 2010, the Texas Amber Alert required law enforcement to believe a child had been abducted, kidnapped, or the victim of a crime to send out the message. And here, the police make it very clear that they don't think that that's the case. They conclude that Allie simply ran away from home.
This is obviously disappointing and devastating for the Lowitzer family. Joanne knows her daughter better than anyone, and she knows that she wouldn't just run away. She also believes that the police are judging Allie as some kind of rebel based on her style, when that wasn't the case at all. Allie loves being at home, and she's been looking forward to the future. Her friend's birthday parties, softball tournaments, getting her braces off, and learning how to drive that summer.
Not to mention she left behind all these teenage essentials. Her cell phone charger, money, jewelry, makeup. They were all still there.
On April 30th, Allie Lowitzer has been missing for four days. So the Laura Recovery Center immediately sets up a command center and launches search teams. They really do what the police should have been doing. They deploy search dogs, ATVs, boats, community volunteers. They're searching wooded areas, creeks, and houses in the region. But they don't find Allie anywhere.
So, like we see a lot of families do, Joanne turns to social media. She starts a Facebook page, and at the time, over 3,000 people follow. She also creates a website. But still, no leads are coming in.
The trail unfortunately goes cold for many years, but Joanne doesn't give up. She keeps updating her Facebook page and website about Allie. She refuses to move to a new house just in case Allie returns, because this is the home that Allie loves and remembers.
Joanne also keeps paying Allie's cell phone bill, keeping her phone number active in case she calls. And eventually, the Lowitzers raise enough money for a $25,000 reward for whoever finds their daughter.
Unfortunately, with the good attention comes the bad. John and Joanne have to fight off calls and visits from so-called psychic detectives who falsely promise that they can find Allie. They also have to deal with other scammers who claim that they'll find Allie if they get their reward money. By 2014, Allie's been missing for four years.
And really, there are no new leads or progress in this case. So Joanne takes action herself, hiring a PI named Amber Kamek, who lends her help to the family pro bono. Soon, Amber gets a lead that gives the Lowitzer family renewed hope. And then it fizzles out fast. Amber believes Allie was the victim of sex trafficking, and later received a tip about a woman who matched Allie's description. They say she's in a brothel all the way in Columbus, Ohio.
Amber passes this information on to law enforcement, and police raid the location. But Allie wasn't there either. Of course, throughout the case, there are a few other false leads, but they're sightings of lookalikes and minor blips that don't amount to much. Allie is still missing. One day, Joanne is watching the local news, and a reporter hosts a national Blueberry Day segment, going through recipes for the fruit.
For many, that would have just been another report on a random social media holiday. But for Joanne, it gives her an idea. She thinks about how that news segment could have been better used to draw attention to missing persons cases, like a local missing persons day. And the rest is really history. Joanne starts a petition and garners the support of local organizations for a Houston missing persons day. And it would be on Allie's birthday, February 3rd.
And it's not like this happened overnight. After several years of emails and phone calls, Joanne's campaign works. In 2015, then-Houston Mayor Anise Parker proclaims February 3rd as Houston Missing Persons Day. The first one is held in honor of Allie Lowitzer.
Along with a volunteer search and the recovery non-profit Texas EquiSearch, Joanne holds a ceremony that day at the Houston City Hall. And Joanne doesn't stop there. She spends two more years contacting people and assembling support for a statewide initiative. A missing persons day for all of Texas.
This time, it would be on April 26th, the day Allie went missing in 2010. By 2017, Joanne makes it happen. The state celebrates Texas Missing Persons Day at the state capitol in Austin. Joanne is there for the ceremony, where she's joined by other families of missing people. Both days are still honored in Texas and the city of Houston. Another local Missing Persons Day is established as Southeast Texas Missing Persons Day.
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Now, fast forward to 2019. The Harris County Sheriff's Office, Springs' local police, moves Allie's case from the missing person unit to the homicide division. A new cold case deputy even gets assigned to it. But ultimately, nothing new comes of it. Four years later, Joanne makes a big decision. She cancels Allie's cell phone line. It's a hard decision, but Joanne feels it's time.
Unfortunately, the Lowitzer family knows as much about their Allie's whereabouts as they did in April 2010. Allie got off her school bus and never made it to work or home. This is another one of those cases. It's incredibly frustrating that, basically, no credible leads have materialized in the 14 years since Allie's been missing. No one seems to have any idea what happened to her. There have been no suspects or persons of interest named in this case.
and no arrests have ever been made. That's pretty much where her case is today. Joanne believes her daughter could still be out there, so she continues to bring awareness to Allie's case. She appears on the local news often, and recently joined TikTok like a lot of families. There, she shares old memories and videos of Allie, along with important information on her disappearance. She's garnered quite an audience of 34,000 followers and counting.
I of course encourage you to follow her and will have the link to that in the episode description. Which brings me right to our call to action. Share Allie's case, share this episode, and share her mother Joanne's social media pages for her daughter. And if you'd like to help even further, her family is accepting donations to Allie's recovery fund via PayPal. I'll have the link for that in the description as well.
As always, please let's rally around Allie's loved ones and show them the support that they need. As a reminder...
Allie Lowitzer was 16 when she went missing from Spring, Texas on April 26, 2010. She is white, with brown hair and blue eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she was 5'2" and weighed approximately 145 pounds. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, dark hoodie, black and white checkered skinny jeans, and black tennis shoes. She was carrying a blue slide cell phone and a multicolored Czech backpack.
She does wear braces and her ears are pierced. If you have any information about Allie Lowitzer, please call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Mallory Cara. A special thank you to Allie's mom, Joanne, for speaking with us for this episode. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice.
Welcome to the Secret After Show. The dogs are in, there's a lot of neighborhood noise, so please bear with me. Um, let's dive into this case. It probably comes as no surprise that I found Allie's case on TikTok. Um, I think the first video I saw was actually when Joanne cancelled her cell phone number and... Ugh, the anguish. You can just feel it. I mean...
It's like, how do you, after so many years, right? It makes total sense that she would cut the phone line. But emotionally, of course, that's so, so hard. I really do encourage you, as always, to go look at these family members' social media accounts. If you want to hear the most raw, real version of these stories, nine times out of ten, that's where you're going to get it, is right from the family.
I will also say that Joanne shared with us that there was quite a bit of misinformation in Allie's case, so just be on the lookout for that as you consume content about her. Now, of course, this is probably, again, no surprise to anybody, I want to talk about law enforcement in this case, and...
How often I see police treating teenagers as runaways. And of course, that's what happened in my sister's case, so I'm especially sensitive to it. Of course I am. It just hurts to see and is so hard. Like...
especially back then, 2010, I feel like that was a really common style. Like, you know, like the stripy armbands and the dark hair and having a nose piercing, like, that was so many kids back then. And to see law enforcement, you know, according to Allie's family, they believe that she was judged based on her appearance. And it's a hard thing, right? Because
In one hand, we're in the face of these statistics that tell us that most kids come back. But I can tell you when it's your kid, when it's your person, those statistics go right out the window. When you know your person and how they should act, and you're just told, well, don't worry, I'm sure they'll be home. It's really, really difficult and an unfair position to be in. And
Like I said, it's hard because I see both sides. I truly do. But this is why I feel like these cases have to be taken seriously from the beginning. For me, it's a situation of like better safe than sorry. And if the resources aren't there for that, that's another conversation that needs to be had.
I also want to say that there's a new name in our credits this week, Mallory Cara. I am so grateful to have her on the team. She is fantastic. I worked with her over at Spotify on Disappearances. She is a full-fledged journalist who also teaches journalism, and I am just so lucky and grateful to have her on this team. I am always looking for ways to make this show better, especially through collaboration.
to just really amplify everything. So if you love this episode, please let me know. I think Mallory is absolutely fantastic and will be an incredible asset to this show.
On to what I'm watching, what I'm doing, what I'm reading, all of that. I haven't read anything since The Island of the Blue Dolphins. I'm not even going to lie to you, I have not been reading. Maybe I can hold myself accountable by telling you that each week. I aspire to read. To be totally honest, I was an English major, which meant every semester I had to read a
like an unholy amount of books. And it really turned me off from reading. I was a lifelong reader my whole life. I loved, especially as a kid, getting lost in a book. And then when it became work for me, I was like, no thanks. So I'm really trying to get back into reading. I do love it. I just like lost my passion for it. I'm not going to lie. And I think that's why I went back to Island of the Blue Dolphins because I remember it gave me this like visceral feeling of
wanting to read and loving to read and everything in the book, just I could like see it in my head. And that was the beauty of reading is that book to me. So I'm trying. But I did watch something and it is true crime related. I watched What Jennifer Did. I watched it on a plane and it was it was fine. You know, it's a story about a girl who essentially killed her parents. It's obviously as they all are extremely sad. And
But, you know, in terms of like style and storytelling, I didn't think it was anything special, if I'm being totally honest with you. And then after I landed, I found out that there's a controversy. There's an ethics controversy around this documentary that I didn't know about. So, of course, I was like, what's this? You guys know I am always diving into conversations about ethics and true crime.
I think it's just an ongoing conversation that will always need to be had in this genre. And this one was a little surprising. So this one actually is related to A.I.,
Um, and I've been really digging to figure out what the exact issue was, because at first it was just kind of, it felt very vague in the sources that I found about it. But they used AI in this documentary and did not disclose it. Now, it appears that what they did was basically like,
They altered some pictures and I'm going from today.com, the Today Show, essentially. Apparently, they like they took an image of her and then made her like throw up peace signs to make her feel to make it seem like she was dead.
Having a better time than she was. I don't know. It seems like a silly reason to use AI, to be totally honest. But that was the controversy around it is, you know, using AI in something that is called a documentary. Is that right? Is it wrong? Do they need to disclose it? Just disclose it.
and how much do they need to disclose? And I think it's a really interesting conversation. I would love to hear from you. Obviously, I think honesty and transparency is the best policy if you're going to use AI. I think you need to tell the viewer that you're using AI so they know what's real and what's not, especially in a documentary setting. Those are my two cents. Let me know what you think. On to our segment of hope. Um...
Oh, this one's hard. It does hit close to home, which a lot of this stuff does in true crime. It just is what it is. But you guys may have heard about this. It was pretty big. My source material is NBCNews.com. And essentially, a terrible person confessed on their deathbed. And after 24 years, a mom and daughter who went missing have finally been recovered.
So back in August 2000, Susan Carter and her 10-year-old daughter, Natasha Alex Carter, went missing. Their bodies were recovered in suspect Larry Webb's West Virginia backyard Monday. He actually died, it looks like, a few hours before the bodies were found.
Now, this mother and daughter had been living there when they went missing, and it seems that it was just 18 months ago that they obtained a search warrant for this home. Here, they found a bullet in the wall of a bedroom that was 10-year-old Alex's. The bullet was covered in blood, sent out for testing, and it was determined that the blood was 10-year-old Alex's.
Now, this makes me so frustrated, I think, for obvious reasons, but in October 2023, a grand jury did indict Webb on charges of first-degree murder.
Um, the, the prosecuting attorney said the quote evidence they possessed was so overwhelmingly in favor of Larry Webb being the individual end quote, believed to have committed the crimes. Um, but it was delayed because of Webb's health. Um, but essentially, like I said, he made this deathbed confession leading to the recovery of their bodies, um,
He died just a few hours before they were found, and that's how this ends. Now, obviously it makes the segment of hope because there is hope for deathbed confessions. And I think it's really timely, especially because of the news of O.J. Simpson passing and this weird story. And I don't know, I'd have to look back at official sources, but there's kind of these rumblings about his family signing NDAs that he might have possibly dead a Beth dead...
deathbed confession. But we don't know. We don't know that for sure. Now, I really do want to point to Alex's dad who was featured in this article. He talks about how it was a really sad day, but a happy day. And also that the case had just gone cold so many times that he almost lost hope.
So I want to point to this quote that I thought was really powerful. He says, quote, I can tell anyone that's in my position, just never give up. Never give up hope on finding your child. End quote. So that's where I'll leave you with our segment of hope. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.