Disappearance of Millbrook twins: Terrifying real-life story of Jeannette and Dannette who went missing in 1990
The mysterious story of the Millbrook twins is unlike most disappearances. While most of them have some form of a narrative that tells the story of how the tragedy happened, with Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook, there is none. One moment they were there, the next they were gone — and have remained that way.
Dannette and Jeannette, both 15 years old, were from a large family. Their mother Louisa worked hard to provide for the family, with the children's father having little relationship with them. Prior to the disappearance, the family, who originally stayed in Bethlehem neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia had moved to Jennings Place. The twins went to Lucy C. Laney High School, approximately three miles away from their new home and were worried about how they'd pay for public buses since their school ride wouldn't ferry them back and forth anymore. Their mother suggested they visit their godfather Ted and that he would give them the money.
The twins had not wanted to switch schools immediately and wanted to finish the semester at Lucy Laney. They had been zoned for Josey High School in their new neighborhood.
On Sunday, March 18, 1990, the girls returned home from the Church's Chicken restaurant where they had gone for lunch and told their mother that a strange man in a white van had followed them halfway on their walk home. Not much attention was paid to this observation at first.
Jeanette changed into some comfortable sneakers and kept her church outfit on — a blue pullover shirt over a white turtleneck with a beige skirt, white stockings, and white sneakers while Dannette changed into a white Mickey Mouse tee, white jeans, and black shoes. They then headed to Ted's, who lived on Forest Street in their old neighborhood.
The girls got to Ted's who gave them enough money to last for a week and some change so they could buy themselves some snacks. While in their old neighborhood, the girls visited their cousin at Tin Cup Lane and spent some time. They wanted her to walk them home but their mother had said no, considering it was getting late. They then went to their older sister's home on Picquet Avenue, who had just given birth. They hung out for 15 minutes and requested she drop them home. She declined, considering her condition.
The teens then stopped at a Pump-N-Shop gas station on their way back home from Ted's, on the corner of 12th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. They bought some chips and soda, said the woman at the station, who knew the twins and the family. And just like that, they were gone. Three decades later, what happened to them is still in the wind.
What's strange about the Millbrook twins' investigation is almost like there was none.
The police dubbed them as runaways. the parents had to first wait for 24 hours to file a missing person's report, following which an investigator came by days later to ask questions. Then, he handed the case off to a juvenile who went on to wrongly say that the girls had been in foster care and adopted. They suspended the search a year later, while the family relied on their help, saying that by law, once they were 17 they weren't obligated to return home.
They weren't troublemakers at school either and were good students. The only incident with the twins was a bullying incident by another teen who was a relative of the principal at Lucy Laney. The original investigation misspelled their name as "Millbrooks" and Jeannette's middle name as "Latressa". The family's push to find the twins led to the case being reopened in 2013 and even a reward from the sheriff's department and the family for the information of their whereabouts. However, since then, the police have not spoken about it.
The case of the missing twins has been explored in podcasts like 'The Fall Line', 'My Favorite Murder', 'Thin Air', 'The Trail Went Cold' and 'Unresolved'. The twins would be approximately in their mid-40s now.
Catch Oxygen's special on this extremely baffling case, 'The Disappearance of the Millbrook Twins' on November 23 at 7 pm PST.