Lateche Norris: Missing Indiana woman reunited with parents weeks after disappearance
UPDATE: Lachette Norris, a 20 year-old woman who had gone missing after getting into a fight with her boyfriend, has been found and reunited with her family. Walter Callum, Norris' father, told TMZ that Lateche is with her mother Cheryl Walker at present, somewhere in California.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: A mother from Indiana has been frantically searching for her missing daughter, Lateche Norris, 20, who disappeared three weeks ago on November 5 after getting into a fight with her boyfriend -- Joseph “Joey” Smith. Norris was last heard from when she desperately called her mother, Cheryl Walker, from a stranger’s phone on Nov 5. She sought help tracking down Smith.
Walker has launched a social media campaign in an attempt to find her missing daughter, drawing comparisons to the search for deceased Long Island native Gabby Petito who also went missing after a fight with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie while they were on a trip. In a long Facebook post, she expressed her helplessness at having failed to find her daughter till date. "We hang flyers, pass them out, place them under windshield wipers, leave copies anywhere we order food from, I give a handful of them to other Mother's and beautiful young girls we pass on the streets," Walker wrote. "I see it GRIP them, the weight of it all, as they stare down at her beautiful face ... "how long has it been again?" We tell them the 5th, they wince in individual fashion. "Where's her boyfriend?" and just as we say "He hasn't responded to us since the 5th". I watch empathy transition to grief and they console me as if the outcome is already decided. It's truly an atmosphere indescribable to relay virtually or by word of mouth."
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"I stopped asking the authorities questions and starting talking to the loudest thing in this city... the streets. How Heartbreaking! Shame on you San Diego! Not your citizens! They are kind, caring, empathetic, generous, and resilient! The homeless crisis here... can not be understood from a TV screen, or a Mother's plea to help find her MISSING DAUGHTER!" she continued. "My daughter is just as important as Gabby Petito! As if what happened to that sweet girl wasn't heart breaking enough... the True tragedy is that you learned NOTHING from it that helps prevent this from happening again!"
San Diego PD Spokesperson Lieutenant Adam Sharki said that Lateche’s case is active and ongoing, but investigators do not believe she is “at risk” at this time. Norris is 5 feet, 8 inches, 160 pounds with dark brown/black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen in a San Diego 7-11 store on Nov 4 wearing black leggings, a black sweatshirt and carrying a black and white checkered backpack.
Walker confirmed that Norris had left for San Diego on November 1 with Smith. Smith, Walker claimed, had been living on the streets after leaving a rehab facility recently. Both of them were aspiring tattoo artists and had had a fight the day before Norris disappeared. On the morning of Nov 5, Norris called her mother from a stranger's phone, telling her she had an argument with Smith and needs his phone number to track him down. She promised her mother that she would call back.
Walker did not ask her daughter why she was calling from a stranger's phone and not her own. “I let her go so she could call him, and I say ‘You call me back! I love you,’ ” Walker said. “The last words my daughter said were, ‘I will, Momma, I promise I love you more.’"
Since then, Norris' family has been trying to contact Smith, but their messages have been left unanswered. Walker said that Norris and Smith, who met earlier this year, had been living together in Santa Cruz over the summer. Norris returned home to Indiana after two months and then decided to get back to California three weeks ago. Walker has claimed that the police isn't doing enough to find her daughter. The San Diego Police Department confirmed to New York Post that it received a missing person’s report for Norris on Nov 9, but refused to reveal anything about an investigation into the case.
The Gabby Petito case began drawing national interest after Brian returned home to Florida on September 1 without his girlfriend after a cross-country road trip. While Petito was later found strangled to death, the only suspect in the case, Brian Laundrie, later died by suicide.