Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

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My name is Pamela Childs.

♪

[Pamela] Most people when they hear Special Victims Unit,

think of television drama.

For me, it's been my life.

♪

Since 2001,

people have known me

as someone who closes missing persons cases.

♪

But there's one case that has remained unsolved

for 22 years,

since my first year as a detective

on the job until now.

♪

[reporter] July 6th, 2001.

Tracey Bradley leaves her daughters

home alone while she goes to work.

She returns to find a note

saying they were headed for this school.

They never made it.

[Pamela] We were all sent down.

Every able-body that's working

for the Chicago Police Department.

[newswoman] A massive police investigation

by air, water, and along the railroad track.

[Pamela] It was the biggest manhunt

that the City of Chicago ever had.

♪

Twenty-two years,

five lead detectives.

Several of them have died since these girls disappeared.

We've since seen 9/11,

a housing crisis,

and a major pandemic,

and yet Diamond and Tionda Bradley

are still missing.

♪

From the very beginning,

there were elements to this story

that just didn't sit right.

[newsman] Within the community of the south side of Chicago,

from what I understand,

there's been a great deal of suspicion

against the mother.

That's not to say that she's guilty of anything.

♪

[Pamela] This case has haunted me for 22 years.

At the heart of it,

the Bradley family has changed forever.

♪

[Rita] I saw my mom coming my way

and she was like, Rita, have you seen Tionda and Diamond?

I'm, like, no.

And then she was like, get up, they're missing.

[Tracey] I was feeling like something...

something is wrong.

♪

[Pamela] The mystery remains

and the case is wide open,

[train passing]

and somebody knows

what happened to Tionda and Diamond.

[dramatic opening music]

[music fades out]

[somber music]

[Pamela] When the Bradley girls disappeared in 2001,

I was a new detective.

I gave all of my missing persons' cases

the dedication,

everything I had to give

for 29 years with the Chicago Police Department.

If a victim has been missing for...

a year, or maybe nine months,

that is so unusual, but,

for Tionda and Diamond,

these girls have been missing for 22 years.

[calm instrumental music]

My name is Ed Carroll.

I'm a retired Chicago Police Detective.

I was a Chicago Police Officer for 26 years.

I retired in 2013.

I was a detective for 13 years.

I still miss the job.

♪

[Ed] I came upon the Bradley case

when I got assigned to Bradley in the Cold Case Department.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Leigh] This case did become

the largest missing persons' investigation

in Chicago

that we had ever seen in the city at the time.

For the Bradley family,

the summer of 2001 was like any other.

The 4th of July was two days before the girls disappeared.

[calm instrumental music]

[Kathy] Our July 4th celebrations in Chicago

are very robust, very loud, very crowded.

No matter where you go, you know,

you can ride down any street in any neighborhood

and you can smell the barbecue coming from the grills.

You can hear the kids playing,

maybe you can see the ice cream truck.

You hear the fireworks.

♪

[Pamela] The 4th of July 2001

was one of the last times

that the family was all together.

For Tracey, the girls' mother,

it was a good day.

[Pamela] You guys had a family outing,

is that correct, on the 4th of July?

[Tracey] -Yes. [Pamela] -Where was that?

Washington Park.

[Tracey] We had a little thing out there,

and we had fun, you know?

Okay. Like a family barbecue?

Yes, something like that.

♪

[Rita] Me and my mom

and some of my cousins and my aunts,

you know, we went to Washington Park.

That was the 4th of July.

We was by the lake.

[Victoria] Water, yeah.

'Cause I remember we had a ball

and Diamond kept hitting the ball in the water.

[Rita] So I remember that.

[music gets tenser]

Tionda, the only one wearing a different color that day.

We all had on purple,

[Rita] Tionda had on green.

And Diamond had purple.

[Victoria] And ponytails with little twisties going down.

And how old were you in 2001?

[Rita] Twelve

[Pamela] And Victoria?

[Victoria] Eight, nine.

[Pamela] It's essential with missing people

to retrace their steps

in the days leading up to their disappearance.

You never know what detail might emerge

that breaks the case open.

♪

[Pamela] This is Washington Park.

This is the park that Tracey Bradley and her family

spent 4th of July together.

It was the last place that the family

spent time with Tionda, Diamond,

Victoria and Rita all together.

[dramatic music]

[Shelia] My niece, Tracey, had four kids.

We've always just been one big family.

Ooh, Lord, have mercy. Mmm...

♪

You know, I write them down as each baby is born.

[April] At the time, I was in my early 20s.

Tionda was ten, and Diamond was three.

[tender music]

Tionda was very outspoken.

Very mature for her age.

She knew how to cook during that time.

Umm, she was a little mini adult, to be honest.

[laughs] So, she took the role of having a big personality,

so that way you knew who she were.

♪

Diamond had barrettes and beads all the time.

She was a baby.

She can talk as much as, I will say, at least 20 words.

♪

Diamond was more the shy one.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] At the time, the girls' mom,

Tracey, was dating a friend of hers

named George Washington.

♪

Re-examining the facts of this case 22 years later,

I want to ask the family more about him.

[Pamela] Let's talk a little bit

about your relationship with George.

You had been dating him for how long?

[Tracey] For a while, since '90...

'95, '96. Somewhere about there.

[tender music]

[April] She didn't like George.

She loves him.

She was in love with George,

and I've never seen her

as happy as I was with George.

[Pamela] What did he do?

It was just the attention.

♪

The attention.

He would show up at her house and just spend time with her,

and talk with her.

♪

[Tracey] We would go out for a little bit,

and at night time he would come and get me

and we'd just go to his house.

♪

[Ed] My understanding is that George was never

close to the girls.

[tense music]

[Rita] Only time we probably

may connect with George if we were at my Grandma house

or he pick us up, 'cause mama go pick us up from there.

She would pick us up and take us home

so we get ready and go to school.

I've never been to his house.

Never been to eat with him. Never in life.

♪

[Pamela] Moving on to the 5th of July.

[Tracey] Yes.

[Pamela] You were home with all your daughters, correct?

[Tracey] Yes.

♪

July the 5th. George Washington

asks if we we do wanna go camping...

♪

[Ed] He asked you on the 5th of July

if you wanted to go camping? Okay.

[Tracey] I have to go back to refresh my memory.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Tracey] It might have probably been about a week...

a week ago or something like that, so...

[Ed] So a week prior to July 5th?

[Tracey] -Right, right. [Ed] -Okay.

[Tracey] He was his, hmm...

He say so that he wanted to go camping.

[Tracey] It was only a weekend.

I did not know where it was at, but,

I went to the store and bought some camping stuff,

like a tent.

♪

[Shelia] George was planning to go on a camping trip,

but I was surprised

that he cared enough to take Tracey and her kids.

[Rita] Probably up for months before

that he kept saying we was all gonna go camping,

but then, down the line, it was, like,

we're gonna take Tionda and Diamond first

and then you and Victoria the next week.

[Victoria] 'Cause my mama, she wasn't struggling

but when you got four kids so...

[dramatic music]

you know, it was a hard time,

and they felt like they could not afford to take all four.

♪

[Pamela] Victoria explained to me

that Rita and Victoria

were at their Grandmother's house

the night before,

the evening of the 5th of July,

and Tionda and Diamond stayed home with Tracey.

♪

I didn't really understand that,

but I guess, you know,

people have their reasoning for doing things that they do.

There has to be a logical reason

why the four girls were separated.

[soft instrumental music]

[Tracey] We end up dropping them off and...

I think I... We went back to the house.

Diamond and Tionda were there, they were sleeping on the bed.

[Pamela] What happened the rest of that evening?

[Tracey] I have to think back a little.

Okay, take your time.

[Tracey] We end up dropping them off and...

♪

I think we went back to the house,

or we either went somewhere,

either to the house or somewhere we went.

That was it.

I got on a couch and laid down, went to sleep.

The next day I told Tionda

"I'm going to work.

After that, we'll go camping.

♪

Don't open the door for nobody."

George took me to work. He dropped me off.

[Pamela] So you get to work at about seven in the morning?

[Tracey] Yes. Because I have to open up, yes.

[Pamela] Okay. So you two adults

are the only two people

that had knowledge that Tionda and Diamond

- was in that apartment alone? [Tracey] -Um-hum. Right.

[Pamela] When you left for work that morning.

[Tracey] Yes. They was there.

[Pamela] -No one else knew. [Tracey] -No.

[tense music]

[Shelia] Tracey was working the lunch,

what they used to call a lunch program.

[Pamela] Yes.

[Shelia] After work, she was going on a camping trip.

[Pamela] Okay. And you started checking in on the girls...

[Tracey] -Yes. Yes. [Pamela] -By calling.

[Tracey] After that morning,

I had like a little lunch break

so I called, and I called, and I called,

but it wasn't no answer.

It just kept going to voicemail, voicemail.

Then I call my mom.

My mom and... She kept calling.

She kept calling the house too.

[Pamela] Okay. At some point,

George Washington returns.

[Tracey] Yes, he picked me up.

♪

George picked me up from work

and I'm coming home and the back door was open.

♪

[Tracey] We walked up the stairs and everything

and I put my key in the door,

and I called for Diamond and Tionda.

So I was nervous and, you know, like,

where are they, you know?

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] When Tracey entered her apartment from work,

on the morning of the 6th, around noonish,

there was a note

that was discovered in the house.

[Shelia] There was a note, on the back of the couch,

that said that they were going to school

and they were going up to the store.

♪

I find it odd.

[Rita] And when we went up the stairs,

my mom opened the door.

My mom just knocked the TV over and got to crying,

and got to calling the family.

[Shelia] My sister, Marie,

told Tracey, do not call the police.

Let's just look for the kids 'cause if you call the police,

they're gonna take Vicky and Rita.

♪

[Tracey] I was scared. I wanted to find 'em,

you know, like on my own

to see if I could find them, you know,

you know, and see what,

who house they went to, you know, and just look around

so we went by the lake and all,

over there, and everything,

you know, searching. I asked, have you seen two girls,

you know? They're, like, no, no.

[Pamela] And in your mind you're thinking,

[tense music]

you know, I left 'em alone,

I could get in trouble for this.

[Tracey] Yes.

[somber music]

[Pamela] To really reacquaint myself with this case,

I had to go back to where it all began.

♪

[Pamela] I am here

at the Lake Grove Village apartment complex.

This is the home of Tracey Bradley

and her four children.

Around the side of the building

was a door, a side door

that was easy access from her apartment.

The side door that was always held open

by a rock or something that they stuck in it,

to get in and out. Rarely did the kids

use the front entrance,

which would be right here.

Hmm, they always went around to the side entrance.

[Pamela] This is the back entrance

to Tracey's building

where, back in 2001,

this back door was always open and now,

it's 2023 and the back door is still open.

♪

[Victoria] I remember just going home

and everybody just being there,

♪

and everybody looking so devastated,

because you really... Something like this happening,

you really wouldn't think it would happen to our family,

but it did.

And just seeing my mama crying,

putting towels around her forehead.

Just crying. Devastated.

[emotional piano music]

[Tracey] Since my kids have being gone just put...

a totally stop on my life.

♪

Heartbreaking.

You know I just...

talk to my Lord God and Jesus.

I never thought my side.

It was sad.

♪

It had took a lot out of me.

[Pamela] You gotta just let it out.

♪

[Tracey] I remember calling my mom,

she said, hmm, "Call the police."

[Pamela] Now, mom knew before seven hours went by.

Yeah.

[Pamela] Okay. mom came over.

Yes.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] I was in the detectives' division

for approximately one month.

When the Bradley girls disappeared in 2001,

in my heart of hearts,

I felt like it was going to be a challenge

to locate...

♪

Tionda and Diamond Bradley.

♪

[Pamela] We were all sent out

after seven PM on that same evening.

According to their mom, the girls

were not in the apartment

when she returned home from work

at 11 o'clock in the morning.

That's an eight hour jump

that any bad guy has on us

to be successful

in locating these girls,

and tracking where they could possibly be.

♪

[newsman] One Chicago neighborhood

is focused on two little girls

who have been missing since Friday.

[newswoman] A massive police investigation followed

by air, water, and along the railroad tracks.

Canine search teams went through empty lots

and more than 5,000 abandoned buildings.

[newsman] A playground on the south side of Chicago,

empty.

[woman] There's no kids out here.

It's like this now every day

since the children been missing.

[soft dramatic music]

[Kathy] That evening,

when people were getting home and end their business day,

that's when the City started to find out

that the girls were missing.

So we sprang into action. We went to Bronzeville,

to the scene where they say they were missing from,

to find out who knew something.

Any small thing

could help with pieces of this puzzle.

♪

[Pamela] After having a briefing in our office,

we went out,

and we were on the scene. We were in the apartment.

♪

I observed the apartment was in normal disarray,

which means that tables weren't turned over.

It didn't appear to be a fight,

but it was just normal household items

in the apartment.

Family members were there.

Other police officers were there.

It sort of became a scene of concern

for all of the police that were involved.

I interviewed the mom, Tracey Bradley,

for approximately an hour.

♪

That morning, Tracey Bradley leaves her home

knowing that Tionda and Diamond

is in the house by themselves

and Tracey Bradley had with her

her friend, George Washington.

At approximately six o'clock, am,

when Tracey usually left for work.

They walked out of that apartment

and closed that door.

♪

[April] You know, in life,

especially when you have your own family,

any working family

leave their children at home alone at that age.

It was common.

[Rita] When she had stuff to do

she left us in the house by ourselves,

you know, she did...

[Pamela] Okay, but you were 12.

Yeah. I was old enough.

[train passing sound]

[Pamela] At the very beginning,

in the deepest part of me,

I felt that somebody had the girls.

There was no signs of forced entry at the house.

[soft dramatic music]

All types of things were being said,

but, in my heart of hearts,

I felt like the girls were kidnapped

by somebody that they knew,

and George and Tracey were the only two people

that we can look at to...

bring more clarity to...

what happened to Tionda and Diamond.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] When speaking to Tracey,

her demeanor ranged from distraught to afraid,

to defensive.

♪

After a few hours of the investigation,

Tracey Bradley explained to me

that everybody in the entire Bradley family

knew that there was this mad search going on,

and George Washington,

Tracey's boyfriend,

never got involved.

♪

[Ed] Did you start looking for the kids in the complex?

[Tracey] -Yes. [Ed] -Okay.

[Tracey] Ahh, there's a lot of people searching and looking,

like all of us, we all went out.

[Pamela] Everybody in your family, friends?

[Tracey] Yes, yes.

[Pamela] People you know. Is George with you?

[Tracey] Yes.

I was looking, you know, he was just stayed in the car.

He stayed in the car.

[Pamela] He told Tracey to call him...

later,

let him know what's going on

with Tionda and Diamond. That evening,

he never returns.

♪

[Pamela] Tracey Bradley and her boyfriend,

George Washington, were the only two people

who knew that the girls were left

in that apartment

on the morning of the 6th at approximately six AM

when Tracey usually left for work.

Tracey comes back to her home,

the girls are not in the apartment.

George comes up with her to the apartment.

[soft dramatic music]

[Leigh] George decides to leave.

Like everything else in this case,

it's hard to point at any one thing

as indicative of innocence or guilt.

But the timing

adds to the other

suspicious activities and facts

that have kind of been piling up in this case.

But it's important to note that George told the press

that he, quote,

"Tried to help investigators find them at the beginning."

♪

[Pamela] According to their mom,

she didn't report them missing

until after seven pm.

That's almost eight hours

that those girls were gone.

♪

So I needed to find out what Tracey was doing

during those eight hours before police got involved.

♪

[Pamela] This is the 31st Street beach area.

They're at 31st Street.

They lived at 35th Street, so that's a five block radius.

This is one of the first areas that Tracey Bradley came to,

as she have again informed us

that she was dropped off on the bridge

by George Washington,

and she walked over to the lake front.

This is the area that Tracey Bradley walked to.

This is the area that the Chicago Police searched,

and there were no signs of Tionda and Diamond Bradley.

[Leigh] Things kind of start kicking in for Tracey.

So she starts calling around to various neighbors,

various family members

asking if they've seen the girls.

[music gets tenser]

[Kathy] George Senor is the family friend

who lived nearby

Tracey and the daughters,

and he was a family friend. He was known, so he was

also just part of the family but not part of the family.

[Ed] Would Tionda know enough to go over

to George Senor's apartment?

[Tracey] Yes. Yes, she know where's he...

she know, right, yeah.

Did the kids used to call George Senor "Porgie"?

[Tracey] Porgie, exactly, exactly.

Did he babysit for you on occasion?

Ahh, he... A couple of times.

[Ed] Did you happen to go to his house that day

and ask him if he had seen the kids?

[Tracey] I think I went up there.

Oh, yeah, I called.

[Ed] Oh, you called? Okay. And he...

- He told he hadn't seen... [Tracey] -He hadn't seen them.

He said, "I haven't seen 'em."

[Ed] Okay.

[music fades out]

[newsman] July 6th, 2001.

Tracey Bradley leaves her daughters

home alone while she goes to work.

She returns to find a note

saying they were headed for this school.

They never made it.

[Rita] I remember my mom kept saying

she just left a letter,

and she just showed me the letter,

"Me and Diamond are going

to the store and to the school."

And I remember the exact words 'cause I read the letter.

[dramatic music]

[Tracey] The note said

we're going to the store.

♪

What store? [laughs]

I was nervous and, you know like,

where are they, you know?

[Ed] -Right, of course. [Tracey] -You know?

♪

[Pamela] After speaking more with the family,

the note doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

♪

Tionda was ten, Diamond was only three.

So it seems to me like a stretch

that a three-year-old could walk very far.

So I decide to retrace the route

the girls could have taken to go to the store

to determine the plausibility of that theory.

[Pamela] This could have possibly been

the store that Tionda and Diamond was going to,

amongst other stores that's in the area.

♪

We are a few blocks away from the complex,

not a great distance

for adults and children to walk,

but a great distance for children alone

to walk to get to the Jewel food store.

I... It has not been stated

that this is the store

that was indicated in the note,

but this is a store that's close by

that could be the location that Tionda was speaking of.

[Pamela] Another theory important to re-examine

is that the girls went to the nearby school playground.

This is the James Doolittle elementary school

that Tionda attended,

and Tionda was also enrolled in summer school in 2001.

But on July 6th, Tionda did not attend school.

[Pamela] We don't have any reliable information

that they actually showed up there.

[newsman] At least a dozen FBI agents

have been working the case.

[Leigh] Diamond and Tionda's family

found the note unusual.

Because they said that the way the note was written

didn't reflect

how she would usually have written something.

After the FBI got involved in the case,

fairly early on after the girls' disappearance,

they did take the note that Tionda wrote

for handwriting analysis to confirm

that it was Tionda's hand writing

and not someone else's.

The results of which had not returned yet.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] It wasn't going to come back

for a little while,

and it's a process.

It takes time.

[music fades out]

[tense music]

[Leigh] The next morning, the morning of July 7th,

Faith, who is Tracey's sister,

was there in the apartment

and Faith had recently set up

all of the family's cellphones.

She decided to listen to Tracey's voicemail

and the family was shocked to find

there was a message from Tionda,

from the day of the disappearance.

[Pamela] Does anybody know

what time that message was left?

- Does anybody recall or... [Shelia] -I remember

it was either eight O-two or eight-twenty AM.

I remember that.

[Pamela] How did you guys come about?

Did she bring it to you? Did she say, "Hey,

listen to this?"

[April] We were all sitting in Tracey's home

on the couch,

when we heard it.

It was Faith, myself.

It was my mom.

[soft dramatic music]

Tracey was in the other room

♪

and it was a few other peoples

that was actually in the home during that time.

[Pamela] Okay.

[April] It was majority of the family,

and then it was some of Tracey's closest friends.

And you don't recall who actually

- played the message? [April] -I don't recall.

[Pamela] Did you hear the message?

[April] I did.

[Pamela] Tell me about it.

[April] It says, "mommy,

I'm going to the store with George."

[Pamela] Would it be unusual

for George to show up at the door?

George Washington? To show up at this door,

♪

trying to get her to open that door?

[April] I would say yes, it is.

[Pamela] Do you know where the message is?

♪

[April] Supposedly, it got into the wrong hands

and it was deleted.

[Pamela] Whose hands?

[dramatic music]

[Kathy] Tracey said there was the voicemail left by Tionda,

the voicemail left so many questions...

unanswered,

and it actually led to...

the speculation that they really ere abducted.

This was orchestrated. It was planned,

and they were trying to find out who.

- Did you hear the message? [Rita] -Yeah, I heard it.

I heard it. She said...

[April] Tell me what you remember.

[Rita] She said, "mom answer the phone,

George is at the door.

He said something about Victoria cake.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Rita] Yeah.

[Pamela] Did you hear it, Victoria?

[Victoria] Yeah, I heard the voicemail.

Yeah, that was about it.

[Pamela] Was there anything mentioned about a cake?

♪

[Apil] Yeah. Her exact words, "We're going to the store

to pick up Vicky a cake with George."

[Pamela] When's your birthday?

[Victoria] July 7th.

[Rita] That'd be why they would

get her a cake or something.

♪

[Leigh] The thing that's strange

about the voicemail is that

it mentions George,

so, there's George Washington,

who was Tracey's boyfriend at the time.

There was also a neighbor named George.

This has caused some confusion in the media

because people say,

what if she was talking about the other George?

Perhaps he should be a suspect.

[woman 1] Look at these two Georges.

Ask them to take polygraphs.

[woman 2] Another thing Nancy,

just because the girls said, "Hey, George is at that door",

doesn't necessarily mean that it was George at the door.

Somebody may have presented themselves as George.

♪

[Leigh] George, the neighbor,

went by a very distinctive nickname

that the girls would have called him by.

[Kathy] George Senor was also referred to

by the family as "Porgie".

[Rita] We never call Porgie George.

- never in our life. [Victoria] -Never.

[Rita] Never went by that name.

So there's no misunderstanding?

[both] No misunderstanding.

[Victoria] No misunderstanding.

[Rita] No

[Ed] They found the note at 11:50 or so,

11:52 at George Senor's house.

She tells George Senor

that she's looking for the kids.

George Senor used to babysit the kids, remember?

[Pamela] Yes.

There's a lot of speculation in my mind.

Tionda had to be talking about George Washington,

Tracey's boyfriend at the time.

[Pamela] Would it have been normal for George

to want to buy a cake for Vicky's birthday?

[Rita and Victoria] No.

[Pamela] Okay, so what do you think about the message?

[tense music]

[Rita] It was weird to me 'cause,

like, how you supposed to go camping

if you're worried about a cake?

[Victoria] If they go to camping

on the 6th of something,

why would you buy a cake for my birthday

if y'all gonna be gone?

[Ed] I always found it odd

that it was Victoria's birthday

one of the days that they were supposed to go camping.

[Pamela] Speaking with Rita and Victoria,

I'm impressed

by how much they remember.

But I never stopped asking myself

different questions as to

if you're going on a camping trip,

why go to the grocery store for Victoria?

[Leigh] Another thing that's strange

about the voicemail is that

outside of the family,

no one has ever been able to confirm its existence.

Some people say that it was accidentally deleted.

Some people say it's in the possession of the FBI.

But no one that I've spoken to in law enforcement

has been able to confirm the existence of the voicemail

but multiple family members say that they did hear it.

[soft music]

[Shelia] I recorded it

from the speaker on there

with my phone.

[Pamela] -Okay. [Shelia] -And I...

took it and sent it to my email,

umm, my email address as an audio file.

[Pamela] Okay. You sent the recording to your email?

[Shelia] Email, yes.

[Pamela] Do you still have it?

[Shelia] I do.

- It's... [Pamela] -Can we hear it?

[Shelia] I can't.

I mean I would love to be able to access it,

but if I don't put the correct code in it

to get it, because I had some technical help

to protect my emails.

If I could I would,

but I'm sure that it would destroy it.

[Pamela] Okay.

[music dramatically stops]

[Pamela] While re-interviewing the family,

their statements have me questioning some things.

The note

and the voicemail.

In my opinion,

it feels like everybody has a different story.

I have to explore this more.

[Pamela] Shelia Smith,

Tracey's Aunt, has a copy

of the message.

[Ed] I've begged her to give that to me.

I told her I'd fly anywhere in the world on my own dime,

with a tech from Chicago to get that message

and we have never to this day heard that message.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] This whole situation is just...

And like I told you,

you know, this is really a messed up situation.

She's holding on to it.

♪

[Ed] Why would any... That doesn't make sense.

Why would anybody hold that message?

[Pamela] What do you think about that message?

[Tracey] -Well he's... [Pamela] -Is it real?

♪

[Tracey] It had to be if she left a message on the phone.

[Pamela] So there is really a message that Tionda left?

[Pamela] That George is at the door?

♪

[Leigh] George Washington has also confirmed

to the media that he, quote,

"Took Tracey to work that morning,

but denied showing up at the apartment later

when the girls allegedly called their mom

to say someone was at the door."

[Shelia] I asked George Washington

about that message.

[Pamela] What did he say?

[Shelia] He said I don't know why

she would say I was at the door,

I wasn't there.

[Pamela] Did you ever speak with Tracey

about what happened?

[Shelia] Well after I got there and she was...

still being questioned.

[Pamela] Questioned by?

[Shelia] The Police Department, Chicago Police.

[soft dramatic music]

[Pamela] Bradley, a single mother of four,

she's had to withstand the subtle,

and not so subtle, accusations

that she somehow was to blame

for the girls' disappearance.

♪

[Pamela] How were you feeling about the police

when they took you in

to question you and talk to you, and...

More than one time. Am I right about it?

[tense music]

How did you feel about that?

[Tracey] I felt, humph...

really...

♪

- kinda angry. [Pamela] -Okay.

You felt like you were being tortured?

[Tracey] Yeah. They hit the table.

"You know where those damn kids at."

[Shelia] In my first conversation with Tracey

about that is,

when they were questioning her,

and I had asked them how long she been in there?

And she came back to the house

and so I looked at Tracey and Tracey says,

♪

Hmm... "Why the [bleep] is everybody looking at me

like I did something to my kids?"

♪

[Shelia] And, at that point

I think I was so angry,

like, you supposed to know where your kids are.

You're supposed to know what the hell happened.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Shelia] So I jumped up to grab her,

'cause I was gonna just push her off...

♪

[Pamela] It's okay. Take your time.

♪

[sobbing]

[humph]

[Shelia] I just wanted to push her out the window.

♪

'Cause I felt if you wouldn't have left 'em,

they wouldn't be gone. [sobbing]

And Tracey left.

♪

She waited till I went in the back

and left out the door.

[Pamela] She didn't want to have a confrontation with you?

Nobody wanted to have a confrontation with me.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] Tracey couldn't deal with the questions for her.

In a city-wide manhunt,

we're looking at everybody

whether you're the mother,

the brother, sister, father.

It doesn't matter.

We need some answers.

[instrumental music]

[Pamela] Tracey shut down.

We were trying to identify

certain things that we were told,

such as they were going on a camping trip

later that evening.

♪

I expected to see something that would say,

"Yes, we are really doing this.

We're going on a camping trip."

But I didn't see anything that told me

♪

they were going camping.

[Ed] I just wonder where the tent was at,

or were they just gonna go for a picnic and come back?

Maybe that's what they called a camping trip.

[Ed] It was Victoria's birthday

one of the days that they were supposed to go camping.

So maybe mom was gonna celebrate it

when they got back,

but I always thought that that was odd.

[soft dramatic music]

[Ed] I understand leaving Tionda with Diamond

because Tionda and Diamond were very close,

but how they made the determination

to take Rita and Vicky to Grandma's house that night.

Usually when they would go over there,

the four of them would go together,

or at least three of the four.

Hmm

How they determined that, I don't know.

I would love to find that out.

It's definitely a question that needs to be asked.

[distant cars passing]

[Pamela] So Rita and Victoria were not going camping.

[Tracey] No.

[Pamela] And I get it that you say

you don't really have an answer

as to why all four girls were not going.

[Tracey] Right.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] There was not enough

to charge Tracey with anything.

I suspected George Washington

as being the offender

of the two girls going missing.

I felt that way because he and Tracey knew

that Tionda and Diamond were alone in the apartment

when Tracey Bradley left,

♪

and they were the only two people who knew.

There was several things going on

in Tracey Bradley's life with George Washington

that I don't think has ever really come to light

as to why George would hurt these girls.

[Ed] Also it's since come out,

Tracey had sued George for paternity

saying that, you know, Diamond was his.

I don't get the impression

that George wanted to pay for a child,

so Tracey suing him for paternity,

they took his DNA.

[Leigh] The results of which had not returned yet.

[Ed] When George found out that you had Diamond,

what was his reaction?

[Tracey] He he was upset

because I think during that time he was married.

[Pamela] -Uh-huh. [Ed] -He was married?

[Rita] I believe that he didn't want Diamond,

and that's why he wasn't claiming her.

He didn't ever want her,

I don't know if it's 'cause he had a wife

or he had other women.

I don't know what the case is, but I feel like,

he just didn't wanna be... He didn't wanna deal with it.

[Ed] So you were kind of going it on your own with Diamond?

[Tracey] Yes. Sometimes you don't know which way

the anger of this man is coming from.

[Pamela] What threats did he make?

[Tracey] He used to always say,

if you leave me, I kill you.

He always do a lot of threats to me and my family.

[Pamela] Do you think that

he gave you the respect that you deserve?

[Tracey] Not at all. No respect.

[Pamela] But you still loved him?

[Tracey] -Yes. [Pamela] -Why?

[dramatic music]

Because I saw interest in him.

[Pamela] -Okay. [Tracey] -You know?

It's like, I mean, I just really...

loved this man, you know?

So I thought that he'd be the right one

for me and all and everything.

♪

[Pamela] He was the trickster

in Tracey's life, but Tracey loved him.

Tracey wanted him to be in her life.

But Tracey wanted more from him.

She wanted him to love her,

something that he was never going to do.

[Leigh] The investigation was starting to focus in

on George Washington.

Several days after the girls disappeared,

George Washington's house and car were searched.

Receipts that they found in his home

indicate that, on July 7th,

so the day after the girls' disappearance,

he went to a hardware store where he purchased

a large package of industrial trash bags

and two pairs of gloves.

When the police came to his home,

there were five trash bags missing from that roll

and one of the pairs of gloves was never found.

George Washington told the police

that the trash bags had been used

in a home renovation project,

and that he had filled them and disposed of them

in a dumpster in a nearby park.

[soft dramatic music]

[Pamela] This is the same location

that George Washington claimed

to have brought those garbage bags

over to the lagoon area.

He rode with CPD detectives over here

to give them the exact location

as to where the garbage cans were

and where the garbage was, but by the time they got here

it had been taken.

♪

[Leigh] When they spoke to George's neighbors,

the neighbors said that they

had seen George Washington

burning something in a barrel in his garage.

[Ed] I actually found

one of the young men sitting on the porch,

and he said George Washington

was burning the barrels in his back yard

and had taken the barrel after it cooled

and threw it in the trunk.

[Leigh] George Washington denied that this ever happened

and also denied even owning a barrel.

However, when the FBI went to investigate,

they found evidence of charring

on the rafters of his garage

and in the trunk of his car they found striations

that were consistent with the size and shape

of an industrial barrel.

The kind of industrial barrel that his neighbors said

that they saw him burning something in.

[music intensifies]

[tense music]

♪

[Kathy] George Washington was really scrutinized

but, again, nothing much

led to him being a person of interest.

Just questions and no answers.

♪

[Pamela] George gave a statement

to the media saying,

"I don't know who did anything

I just know that I had nothing to do with it."

But I have had a lot

of different scenarios go through my mind

as to why George would hurt these girls.

It has crossed my mind that it's a possibility,

George didn't want to pay Tracey child support,

♪

killed Diamond,

and Tionda saw it.

♪

Therefore, he had to kill Tionda as well.

Is that a possibility?

Absolutely, it is.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Ed] George Washington.

We put him on a polygraph back in 2001.

The brass at the Police Department

just love polygraphs.

I think they just thought the sun rose

and set on 'em, although they're not admissible.

Polygraphs are a tool that we use.

They're not the be all and end off.

I've seen people that I've known were guilty pass them.

I've seen people that were innocent fail them.

♪

But, in George's defense, he passed a polygraph.

♪

[Kathy] The consensus was...

wherever the girls are,

they went with someone that they knew,

and all of the speculation at that time

was around George Washington where...

it led all of us to believe,

if he didn't do it,

he knows something and what is he hiding?

♪

[reporter] George, can we talk to you for just a moment?

[man] No comment at all.

He has no comment at all, okay?

[Pamela] There was not enough

to charge George with anything,

charge Tracey with anything.

At this point, they're just two people

that might have the answers to the last steps

that Tionda and Diamond took inside of that apartment.

♪

[sad music]

[Pamela] After a few days of the investigation,

Tracey shut down.

Tracey stopped communicating with the Police Department

when the questions for her got tough.

I get it.

I understand that.

Not being able to deal,

and just the initial trauma

of dealing with your two daughters

that's missing. I understand that.

But as a detective,

I still need to do my due diligence

and probe this further.

♪

[Pamela] At some point,

you shut down and no longer wanted to communicate

with the Chicago Police Department.

[Tracey] I fell like they took...

♪

like I was a criminal, [laughs], and I wasn't.

You know?

You took a...

♪

Me being afraid,

you know what I'm saying, scared, you know?

And...

Tell what you were afraid of.

[Pamela] You didn't want what to happen?

♪

[Tracey] I go to jail.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Tracey] I took Rita and Victoria to school.

You know, they followed me everywhere,

detectives, and everything

and detectives get out the car,

took me to the gate. [chuckles]

♪

Put me in a car.

Had me handcuffed and everything.

♪

Now they take me through a tunnel and stuff.

They take me all through there.

♪

So the Sarge came in

and he found out who I was and he told them,

"Take them damn handcuffs off of her now."

[Pamela] Why did they arrest you?

[Tracey] For no reason.

♪

No reason at all. I didn't...

talk to them, I didn't,

you know, do anything to them.

See, that's another reason

why I kind of went back a little bit

'cause I felt that, you know?

♪

[Pamela] You felt what?

[Tracey] Disrespectful.

[Pamela] It's sad.

It's sad she shut the Police Department down

when they were trying to help her.

[Ed] But it doesn't make sense.

That may... It just doesn't make sense.

She had, I think, two arrests her entire life.

[Pamela] I know that.

Why would she shut us down?

[Pamela] This case has always been very complex,

but one of the most solid leads we have to go on

is the note that Tionda left in the apartment.

[soft dramatic music]

[Kathy] After a certain amount of time,

the note that Tionda left,

it was examined by law enforcement

and it was confirmed that it was her hand writing.

[tense music]

[Pamela] Would Tionda have left a note on her own?

[Shelia] Reading it, I'm, like, nah,

that's not the way Tionda speaks.

♪

Well, Tionda did have a minor reading disability.

[Pamela] Okay. Okay.

[Shelia] That's why she was in summer school,

because she had reading problems.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Shelia] For example, if you said "need".

♪

Write the word, "I need to go",

it'll be "I need", but it might have been

NEID versus NEED.

[Pamela] Do you think Tionda wrote the note?

[Rita] Yeah. I...

[Victoria] I think she wrote it.

[Rita] She was forced to write it,

but it was her handwriting.

Because we never had to write a note

when we knew my mom's number.

You know, we was always in the house by ourselves

we would call her.

[April] My sister Faith brought out another note

that Tionda had wrote and compared the two.

♪

The grammar doesn't sound like it.

[Pamela] It doesn't match?

[April] It doesn't match.

[Pamela] I felt that it had to be

somebody that they knew,

who forced Tionda,

but who?

[soft dramatic music]

[newsman] Chicago hasn't given up

on Diamond and Tionda.

A private investigator even volunteered his services.

♪

I'm Foster. I'm a local private investigator

in Chicago, Illinois area.

[Foster] Late August of 2001

I was asked to join the case

to assist the local law enforcement agency,

interviewing people that did not have a good relationship

with the Chicago Police Department at the time.

[Ed] Investigator Foster is an excellent investigator.

That gave me a bridge to the family.

When I did my due diligence on him,

I found that they didn't have

much contact with the police at all.

[Tracey] Yeah, I talked to Foster.

And we would sit up on the phone

till ten to twelve, one o'clock in the morning,

and I be crying. He gives me...

advise me and then at the end of the day we...

He help me pray, pray with me.

[Shelia] I had got...

♪

Acquainted with the investigator Foster,

and my mind was set that this would be the firm that help

♪

look for Tionda and Diamond.

These would be the private investigators.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Leigh] With Diamond, before her disappearance, umm,

Tracey had asked George to take a paternity test

and three weeks after the girls disappeared,

but after George Washington's house and car were searched,

the results of it came back.

[Pamela] DNA testing was completed.

[Shiela] -Uh huh. [Pamela] -And,

it's safe to say

that the test came back positive

that George Washington

is the father of Diamond.

[Shelia] Yes.

♪

[Pamela] That right there, you know, makes, you know,

for the hairs kinda go up on my neck

because, you know, there could be

several things that could have taken place,

especially if George was so determined

to not pay child support.

It just brings to life, you know,

so many other conclusions

that we can come to about what happened

to Tionda and Diamond.

[Foster] We're talking about

a three-year-old and a ten-year-old.

They just don't walk off the face of the Earth.

The first thing that popped in my mind

was to do more of a serious investigation

of George Washington.

[dramatic music]

[Ed] The paternity came back

positive that George was the father of Diamond,

so when Diamond and Tionda went missing,

George got out from underneath paying paternity.

♪

[Ed] George's first wife in Detroit was named Diamond.

When Tracey told me that in the interview,

you could've knocked me over with a feather.

I'm, like, "Oh, boy, this is...

this is getting interesting." You know?

But he denied paternity.

So George knew he was,

he was gonna end up paying.

♪

[Pamela] George has maintained

that he is not Diamond's father.

This has always perplexed me,

so I feel that I need to dig deeper on this.

[Pamela] He was married to a woman named Diamond?

[Tracey] Yes and I named my baby after her. [laughs]

[Pamela] Uh-hum. Because?

[soft instrumental music]

[Tracey] Just normal, right? [laughs]

Yeah, he just didn't wanna...

I don't think he really wanted me to have that baby.

[sad music]

He was upset.

He was just upset, you know.

♪

He was upset.

♪

He already lied, said he can't have any kids

'cause he had a vasectomy,

♪

you know?

So, when Diamond came, I knew he lied about that,

and then when...

[Pamela] He lied to you a lot?

[Tracey] Yeah.

Exactly.

♪

But all the time, the...

♪

I never saw the wife,

but I think the wife, when the wife found out

about Diamond, I think she completely left.

♪

Left.

[Pamela] And you've been in a relationship

with this man for, you know, at least,

I mean, Diamond's three.

[Tracey] Three, yes.

[Pamela] Hmm, so at least three years.

[Tracey] Um-hum.

[Foster] George Washington

was the biological father of Diamond,

and it seems like all the evidence

seems to point to George Washington,

but it's always been circumstantial evidence.

Unfortunately, we live in the world where

there has to be certain evidence

to meet the burden of proof.

♪

♪

[Kathy] Two months have passed,

leads had gone cold

and when leads start to go cold,

you know, resources are diverted

to other more pressing cases that are fresher.

Without fresh leads,

there's not much more that they can do.

♪

[newsman] The unthinkable happened today.

The World Trade Center, both towers,

gone and we are all witnesses to it

and, to some degrees, degree we are all victims.

[somber music]

[Leigh] The girls disappeared on July 6th of 2001,

and two months later,

was the September 11th attacks.

♪

At the time, huge amounts of resources

were suddenly being diverted to, you know,

potential terror attacks and that sort of thing

and, so, not only did the media attention

on the case dry up, but I believe

also some of the interest from law enforcement

because of kind of the situation

in the rest of the country.

♪

♪

[Tracey] I never go outside.

I would stay in the house 24, 24.

Didn't come outside no more.

I even stopped that.

♪

[Leigh] I think the further

that the Bradleys got from the day of the disappearance,

the more difficult things became.

They were left

almost on their own.

♪

[Shelia] Whoever you are,

your family knows what you did.

Y'all need to break the silence.

[Pamela] Every year, there's a vigil.

Every year, there's a little bit on the news,

and every year, it becomes less and less.

[crowd] We love you, Tionda and Diamond.

[Shelia] When my nieces went missing,

I was 39 going on 40.

2001 was a...

felt like a death sentence.

2002 felt like a execution.

2003 felt like I was up on the chopping block,

but they still had it in their mind

that they would probably find them.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

[newsman] Four difficult years later,

Tracey Bradley's prayers have yet to be answered.

[music intensifies]

[Kathy] Some leads were coming in that could just...

change the trajectory of an investigation,

including a discovery of some bones

and, when that came across,

it was immediate,

like, you know, let's find out what's going on.

[tense music]

[Pamela] For the missing person's case,

that's a total game changer.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] Back in May, 2005

there was a major discovery on the south side of Chicago.

So I decide to drive out to that location,

about 20 minutes from the Bradleys' home,

to see if anything new will come back to me.

♪

[Pamela] There was some workers working out here

along these railroad tracks

and some bones were discovered

and so, you know, of course, the Police Department

came out immediately and they brought forensics with them

and they did gather the bones that were found.

♪

[newswoman 1] Human bones found

at a former south-side construction site

are being sent to an FBI lab in Virginia

for DNA testing.

It's possible that the bones could have belonged

to one of the missing Bradley sisters.

[newswoman 2] News of the bones

have been both good and unsettling

at the South Side Church

ten-year-old Tionda and three-year-old Diamond

Bradley's family are members.

[Kathy] Revered forensic scientist,

Dr. Clyde Snow,

best known for working with the John Wayne Cacy case

was called in to analyze

and test the bones that were found.

They were of a teenage girl.

[Shelia] There was reason for concern

because of her age and they didn't

quite have her ethnic background

profile worked up

and, you know,

of course I wanted to make sure that it wasn't Tionda,

you know, 'cause she would've been too old to be Diamond

according to the bone sizes.

[newswoman] Friends at the church say

the girls' family would like some closure,

but at the same time, they still hold out

that Tionda and Diamond are still alive.

[soft dramatic music]

[Pamela] Of course, you know, the FBI came out,

forensics came out, and the FBI did

a DNA analysis on the remains that were found,

and it turned out to not be

any association with Tionda or Diamond Bradley.

♪

[Kathy] It was not them.

There was a sigh of relief, umm,

'cause that still gives you hope

that the girls are still alive.

♪

[soft dramatic music]

[Ed] With a case that was this big,

I mean there's, I think, six file cabinets full

♪

of information on the case. I still forage forward.

I would work leads when they came in

and a very good bit of advice

that the lieutenant gave me was

start from the beginning, so that's where I started,

and I came upon, what I thought at the time,

was a tremendous piece of evidence.

There was hairs recovered from the trunk

of George Washington's car in 2001

when detectives had gone to George's house

a couple of days after the kids had gone missing.

For some unknown reason,

the hairs were never submitted to the crime lab.

[newswoman] Investigators did find evidence,

including a hair in the trunk of a car

but nothing conclusive enough to make an arrest.

[Kathy] To know that there was evidence,

or potential evidence that was just sitting there,

knowingly, untested

[tense music]

is disappointing. It's actually infuriating.

♪

You have two girls that are missing.

Whatever evidence you come across,

you make sure it's processed.

You don't leave it out,

you just don't.

♪

[Ed] This is the first positive

piece of evidence that we've recovered

in years, and it was recovered from George's trunk,

so I submitted these hairs

to the FBI crime lab at Quantico

to see if it was a match to Tionda and Diamond.

♪

[soft dramatic music]

[Ed] I was sitting in the State's Attorney's Office

with an Assistant State's Attorney that was...

I was keeping up to date on the case

and we got a call that the hair

came back a mitochondrial match

to Tionda and Tracey,

and I was ecstatic.

♪

And the State's Attorney's Office

kind of tempered my enthusiasm by saying

it wasn't gonna be enough to bring anybody in,

and I'm not an expert on that kind of stuff, so...

kinda burst my balloon at that point.

♪

I still took it as a positive.

I was... I was energized by it.

[newswoman] It does sound a bit incriminating

when you hear it on its face

but, you know, there are a variety of ways

that may have happened.

The little girl may have put her backpack

in Tracey's boyfriend's car on her way to school one day

or she may have placed an object in the trunk

that may have had a piece of her hair on it,

and so, there just wasn't enough evidence.

[tense music]

[Pamela] George had always denied

that the hairs were in his trunk

for any suspicious reasons,

but I still have questions.

♪

[Ed] In a prior interview, Washington had said

he used to put the kids in the trunk

and sneak 'em into the drive-in.

Well, I couldn't find any drive-ins that were open

in the Chicago land area back in 2001.

Most of them were closed.

♪

[Ed] Did you and George and the girls

ever go to a drive-in?

♪

A drive-in theater that you can recall,

or a movie theater, for that matter?

♪

[Tracey] Wow. I can't recall or remember.

[instrumental music]

[Ed] All right.

Do you ever recall George putting your girls

in the trunk of his car to sneak them into a drive-in?

♪

[Tracey] -No. [Ed] -No?

[Pamela] Why would he say he took

your girls and you to a drive-in?

♪

Why would he say that?

I don't know. When you say that he took me to a drive-in,

I don't recall him taking me to no drive-in.

[Ed] He said that.

[Pamela] Never happened?

[Ed] You don't remember nothing like that.

[music fades out]

[Shelia] I talked to George about that, I said,

"George, why was Tionda hair in your car?"

[sad music]

And he said that he snuck 'em into the movie theater,

and I say,"But Tracey said you never went to a drive in."

He said, "That's a damn lie."

[Pamela] He never put you in the trunk of his car?

[Rita] I never got in his trunk, nothing.

[Victoria] Never been in the trunk of his car.

Never went to a movie with him.

Never went out to eat. Not to Chucky Cheese. Nowhere.

[Victoria] It was never like that.

[Rita] That's why I'm like, no,

never went to the movies with him,

never got in his trunk, never went nowhere.

Ever.

[Pamela] In 2003,

there was a very interesting development

that piqued our interest.

Tracey had another baby with George Washington.

[Pamela] Now there's a little boy, George Junior,

[soft dramatic music]

and so George took her to court

in 2011 to get custody.

I believe that George played mind games with Tracey.

He would make her feel like,

you know, as he loved her at some times,

and then at other times he would make her feel like,

you know, she was the dirt under his feet.

♪

[sad music]

[Pamela] Eventually, you had a second baby.

[Tracey] Yes.

[Pamela] Which is George Junior.

[Tracey] Yes.

[Pamela] You lost custody of George Junior.

[Tracey] Yes, I did.

I fought the best fight I can, I could.

I didn't have a lawyer, I didn't have no money,

you know what I'm saying?

♪

[Pamela] He disappointed you in your life?

[Tracey] Yeah.

And you feel like he stole your children

out of your life.

[Tracey] I feel like he snatched

a lot of stuff from me.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Tracey] My dignity, my heart,

my mom.

I know she's passed away, she's turning over now.

♪

My children.

Me. Knowing that...

♪

They're not in the house with me, you know,

they sleep sometimes.

[Ed] To live in fear is no way to live.

♪

♪

[Pamela] As time went on,

despite the case remaining unsolved,

occasionally, the media would revisit the story

which has helped in keeping this case present

in people's minds.

[Kathy] And I do appreciate

the national media outlets who...

did highlight this case all the time.

TVOne, they had a show called "Find Our Missing",

and one episode was dedicated to Diamond and Tionda.

[S. Epatha] We reached out to George Washington

via Facebook and he responded.

He said he wouldn't agree to an interview

but he did say this.

"It's funny that the family points the finger at me,

but the courts seem to feel differently."

[soft dramatic music]

[Leigh] A woman in Indiana named Leticia Hicks

commented on

that piece on their website,

saying that she had information

about where George Washington was

the day that the girls disappeared,

and that that information implicated him

in their disappearance.

♪

[Pamela] My next person that I'm gonna bring up, Ed.

[Ed] Yes.

Is Miss Leticia Hicks.

♪

[Pamela] What do you know about this lady,

Leticia Hicks?

[April] So I received the message from her

stating that...

she know what happened to the girls.

♪

[Shelia] Have to get it off her chest

that George showed up at her house.

He had been drinking.

♪

He was shaken.

[April] So received the message from her that she...

think George has something to do with it.

[Pamela] So do you text her back?

[April] Yeah, of course, 'cause I wanted answers.

[Ed] Well, when I interviewed Leticia,

[tense music]

she said that George had blood on him,

he had a pair

of over-sized gym shorts underneath his pants.

[Pamela] He took a shower at her house.

He took a shower at her house, yes.

♪

[Leigh] When police followed up with her about that,

however, the time line

did not match up at all with...

♪

The facts of the case.

So she first claimed that this incident

had happened on the 4th of July.

♪

Which is two days before the girls disappeared.

♪

In addition to that,

even if she had gotten the date wrong,

so even if this alleged incident

had happened on July 6th when the girls did disappear,

Washington's cellphone records

do not match up at all with her version of the story.

So, she lives in Indiana,

and his cellphone records

show him to be definitively in the Chicago area

for the entirety of the day.

[soft music]

[Ed] I'll be the first one to say I was...

I dismissed her too quickly.

It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong,

it won't be the last

but I just...

the, again, I just wish I could find something

that ties her to him.

And that's why the negative Nellie

- is coming out. [Pamela] -Okay.

[soft dramatic music]

[Pamela] Despite the fact that this case is 22-years-old,

every year brings new surprises,

and in May of 2023,

I learn of a new development.

[newswoman] Good afternoon. We begin today

with a possible break

in a Chicago missing persons' case

that's more than 20 years old.

[newsman] A woman claims she is Diamond,

and she's gone to the FBI.

[woman 1] Here was Diamond Bradley.

[woman 2] And that's you.

[woman 1] This is Diamond Bradley.

Can I see you scar?

[dramatic music]

Do you have the scar?

[Liz] Shelia Bradley-Smith said this young woman

submitted a swab of DNA and fingerprints

at an FBI office in Texas earlier this week.

♪

[Pamela] If what this woman in Texas is saying is true,

this could be the biggest break in the case

in 22 years.

[soft country music]

The Bradley family and I decide to fly to Texas

where this woman is located, to try to meet her,

and see if there's any truth to her story.

♪

[Pamela] So, we're sitting here with Tracey Bradley,

and April Bradley,

and investigator Foster,

and we have traveled from Chicago

to Houston, Texas.

All because a young lady

♪

put on Tik Tok

that she is Diamond Bradley,

and Tracey's feeling was that...

you wanted to come here

to meet the girl

that could possibly be your daughter.

[Tracey] Yes.

Just to meet my daughter

that has been missing for 22 years.

[Pamela] And you'd know immediately

it's your daughter?

[Tracey] I'd know immediately...

I need to know that that's my daughter, yes.

[April] If she really are Diamond,

I wanna make sure that she get the help that she needing

to the right peoples.

So I end up Face-timing her while I was at work

and I just asked her, I said,

"What made you think that you're Diamond?"

And her response was the way that she grew up

and her parents are treating her wrong

every time I ask a question

about where I'm from.

And I said, well, you know what,

I have the right person for you to get in contact with

so that's when I contacted Detective Foster.

[Pamela] Okay. So all of these conversations has...

led us to where we are right now,

right here at this moment.

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] Once in Texas,

we set up a phone call with the young lady

claiming to be Diamond.

Our hope is that she will meet with us

that afternoon to reunite her with Tracey and determine

if she really is Diamond after all.

♪

[phone dialing]

[music intensifies]

[Foster] Yes I'm here. I'm here.

[dramatic music]

[Foster] I'm here.

[woman] Yeah, because we're just trying to get the point

is we're working that is,

if it's not no DNA came in

why did y'all fly all the way from Chicago to Houston?

Like what, like what was the point? It's weird.

[Pamela] The mother wants to see her.

[Foster] Because the mother of Diamond

wants to meet her daughter. That's all.

[woman] Okay, that's fine. I know. I understand that.

But why does she wanna meet her without a DNA?

[Foster] Listen we don't know

when the DNA is gonna come back.

At the end of the day,

we are here trying to unite a family.

That's all we're here for.

[woman] Nobody's going to have the DNA test results back.

[Foster] Yeah, I'm sorry, you said,

you said you're not comfortable until

- you get the results back. [woman] -And so...

Yes, to be honest.

And I honestly feel like we should all meet

at the FBI office if that's where it's given,

so I don't feel comfortable meeting anybody anywhere.

Let me ask you this.

Would you be comfortable doing a Zoom

right now or no?

[woman] Why would I do a Zoom

and I haven't even got the DNA back?

I keep getting threats.

I've had to deactivate all my social medias.

No, I don't wanna do anything.

I don't even want nobody to see me.

I let my auntie see me and that was good enough.

Until I get that DNA back, I don't wanna see nobody.

I don't wanna talk to nobody.

I don't even know if y'all, if you who you say you is.

[Foster] My God, I'm done.

Okay. No problem. All right. We just...

[woman] Y'all have a good one.

[dramatic chord]

[Pamela] Damn.

[tense music]

[Foster] None makes me feel like it just [bleep].

♪

[Foster] She [bleep].

♪

[April] Let's just settle down.

[Pamela] These people are backing off

for whatever reason.

[Foster] So we... They got all night

until we leave tomorrow to make a decision.

I'm just going back and forth.

It's crazy.

[Tracey] Le's get set, accept what is given.

[Pamela] Yeah, just...

[Tracey] And if anything, whenever she wanna meet again,

we fly back down here again.

[April] See, if she ever wanna meet again,

you know we're down for it.

[Foster] Father God, as we stand here

as humble as we are,

[soft music]

looking for resolution.

[Tracey] Yes.

Father God, guide us,

give us understanding,

give this mother, Father God,

♪

your son's blood that...

The family is looking to reunite

with this individual who claim to be Diamond.

[soft guitar music]

[Pamela] The DNA results did not come back

while we were in Texas,

and have yet to be revealed.

But back in Chicago

the family has not lost hope.

♪

[distant city sounds]

[newswoman] It will be 22 years in July

that the sisters have been missing.

[Tracey] Been a long, long journey

and hopefully this journey will be over.

I don't know when, I can't promise you guys when,

but just hopefully it'll be over.

I just hope it's over, that they return home and...

to the... to me and my family.

[newsman] Another year has passed

and still Diamond and Tionda Bradley are not home.

[Tracey] I thank each and every one

for coming out again.

It has been 22 years and...

next year it's gonna continue...

Every year's gonna continue going on and on

until we find Diamond and Tionda, okay?

[April] And Tionda.

We need, I need you guys' support.

I love you guys

and continue y'all supporting my family.

[Pamela] What do you think happened?

[sad music]

Your honest, the honest true, what's in your heart.

[Victoria] Man.

[sad music]

[Rita] You crying?

[Victoria] I think it was so...

you really don't wanna think the worst...

♪

About a situation.

I still be thinking...

it's a possibility, but I... [sobs]

♪

I feel like they gone.

♪

[Shelia sobs] That's my mama's seed.

That's my mama's generation. That's my mama's blood.

[sobs]

♪

I can't let that go.

I will...

♪

Do what I have to do to find my nieces.

These are my nieces.

Everybody in the family should be

as adamant as I am about finding Tionda and Diamond.

Everybody.

♪

[Ed] Thousands of man hours

from the Chicago Police Department,

people like us have been put into this,

I'm gonna ask you point blank.

Do you know what happened to your kids?

[Tracey] No, I would have told you.

[Tracey] I want justice for it.

[sad music]

For 21 years of suffering.

♪

Couldn't go outside without somebody saying,

"There go Miss Bradley,

she had something to do with them kids being missing."

And I'm strong and I'm better.

♪

[suspenseful music]

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] Even though I was just in Texas with Tracey,

we've received some new information

that sends our heads spinning about her phone records.

So I'm on my way to meet Tracey

for a follow-up interview

to discuss an inconsistency in her story

that has come to light.

I have to know

what Tracey doesn't want to say.

What Tracey's afraid of.

♪

[Pamela] On the evening of the 5th,

on the night, he... when he say the 6th,

he's talking about any time after midnight.

[Tracey] No, I was at home.

[Pamela] You did not go to George Washington's house?

[Tracey] No. Because I had to go to work the next day.

Just that day, on that date, midnight, I mean,

I have to be at work at seven o'clock.

♪

[Foster] Go ahead.

[Pamela] So here's what's happening.

Well, you had previously told me

on the night of the 5th,

after dropping off Victoria and Rita,

that you were at your place, is that...

We have some information

that calls were made to your home

between the hours of seven

and two AM.

[Foster] That's correct. 2:17 to be exact.

I don't remember.

And you were not home.

On the 5th?

On... Well, 2:17 AM is the 6th.

- and so... [Tracey] -Two AM?

[Pamela] Yes. Yes.

[Tracey] And it's going into the 6th?

[Pamela] -Yes. [Tracey] -No, I was at home.

[Pamela] Well...

[Foster] We got the facts, we just want you...

We just need you to...

Maybe I did, maybe I did.

[Foster] Maybe you did what?

Was at Mr. Washington house.

[Foster] That night of the 6th?

♪

[Pamela] The night of the 5th...

Six, going to the 6th.

[Foster] That is correct.

[Pamela] It's a possibility that you left

- Tionda and Diamond... [Tracey] -Wait a minute.

[Pamela] Go ahead, I'm listening.

[Tracey] Yeah.

[Pamela] Yeah, what?

I was at Mr. Washington house. [sobs]

[Pamela] Tell me how you know.

[Tracey] 'Cause early in the morning the sun was shining.

[Pamela] Uh-huh.

[soft music]

[Tracey] And I remember I was coming down State Street,

we was coming down State Street

early in the morning, we took hmm,

we never did get on...

- the expressway... [Pamela] -Okay.

[Tracey] Because I remember us coming down.

♪

No, we took the expressway.

And we was coming up from 47 ramp

and we got off,

and he dropped me off right in front of my job.

♪

[Pamela] And you remember that now?

[Tracey] Yeah.

[Pamela] Okay.

[Foster] What time was that? Do you remember?

[Tracey] I had to be at work at seven

'cause I had to open up.

♪

I had to open up and I had to...

'Cause I was serving lunch for the summer school,

you know, for the summer school stuff for the kids.

So, for the Park district.

[Pamela] Uh-hum.

♪

[Tracey] Just begging.

[Pamela] It's all right, it's all right.

[Tracey sighs]

[Pamela] Come on, we gotta be strong here.

♪

[Tracey sobs]

[Foster] So when you were at George's house that night,

what did you guys do?

[Tracey] I don't know. We probably went out,

we probably get something to eat

and you know, just go back, you know,

to the house.

[Foster] Did you guys stop any place to get something to eat

before you arrived at his house that night?

[tense music]

No we stopped at... I don't know,

we had Burger King McDonald's, I don't even know.

[Foster] Burger King or McDonald's?

So the question still hasn't been answered.

The question is,

why did you tell the police department

that you last saw your children

that morning before you went to work?

[Tracey] Scared.

[Foster] The final... I'm sorry?

[Tracey] -Scared. [Pamela] -Then just say it,

Tracey, it's okay to say it.

It's all right to be afraid.

♪

[Foster] It's okay. We gonna see you through this.

♪

[dramatic music]

[Pamela] Tracey has been so inconsistent

in her behavior,

in her interviews. She nonetheless

umm, is now stating, which is totally different

from what has ever been reported to CPD,

that she didn't leave her house at six in the morning,

and said, "Tionda, don't open the door

and don't go outside for anybody."

[Ed] Right.

[Pamela] She's telling me that...

she spent the night at George Washington's house.

[Pamela] This means that the girls were on their own

all night from the evening of July 5th,

all the way through July 6th

with no supervision.

[Ed] I was shocked simply because...

that has been her story all along.

[Pamela] Yes.

Now, part of the problem

is that we can't establish some sort of time line

of what time did all of this actually occur?

We don't definitively know

what time the kids have gone missing.

[music dramatically fades out]

[Pamela] Now that the time line

for when the girls disappeared has changed,

I've decided to form a task force

to get to the bottom of what really happened to the girls.

We can bring something to the table

to try and find Tionda and Diamond.

[Foster] At this point, there's a lot of information

that we're still seeking

and we will bring a successful solution

in prosecuting this case

for the individuals that are responsible

for Diamond and Tionda being missing.

[soft dramatic music]

[Pamela] And we are going to crack this thing wide open

and we're gonna bring some peace to this family,

some peace to this city,

and some peace to ourselves,

because this is what we've been waiting for.

♪

[Pamela] We need to, you know, let the spiders out,

you know, clear the webs. Let us...

♪

get into your secrets.

Everybody has secrets.

Every family.

That's what we are going to do

here with working this investigation.

I want to know

what you don't want me to know,

and somebody knows

what happened to Tionda and Diamond.

[music fades out]