The search for missing LSU student Kori Gauther has ended after human remains were found in the Mississippi River.
The 18-year-old Louisiana State University student was last seen alive on Tuesday, April 6. Her car was found abandoned around 1 a.m. on April 7, after another car crashed into it on the Mississippi River Bridge.
The abandoned car - with her cell phone and wallet inside - led investigators to speculate that she jumped off the bridge.
The body was found in the Mississippi River in Reserve, Louisiana, about 50 miles southeast of where the searchers were looking for Gauthier.
LSU police said the search focused on the area of the river after a cadaver dog targeted a dangerous stretch of water twice, Fox News reported.
The remains have not yet been identified by the coroner.
Police said late Saturday they do not suspect foul play in Gauthier's disappearance.
Gauthier's family and friends want answers.
The family said she went missing after arguing with her boyfriend, Tyler Toussant. He was the last person to see her alive.
Gauthier's sister defended Toussant in a social media post.
"STOP attacking her boyfriend. He has been in her life for a long time now. The way y’all are attacking him is sick. He is hurting just as much as us. He’s her family too. repost the posts and pass out a flyer and let the police do their job."
A Florida teenager was found dead in a swamp after his family tracked his iPhone to a nature preserve in Central Florida.
Sumter County officials organized a massive search for 18-year-old Charlie Roberts, Jr., whose phone was tracked to the Green Swamp Wildlife Management Area.
Searchers combed the densely wooded, 50,000 acre swamp that spans three counties.
They used helicopters, ATVs and drones until they found his body Wednesday night, according to People magazine.
Detectives say Roberts was shot to death and his body dumped in the swamp.
On Thursday, detectives arrested David Anthony Gracia, 19, of Lakeland, and charged him with first-degree murder in Roberts' death.
Investigators declined to explain the relationship between Roberts and Gracia.
"I want the person to be prosecuted to the fullest, of course. This was a family member, a child, nobody deserves death," the teen's cousin William Gamble told Fox13.
"What would cause you to want to kill a child? What did he do so wrong that it deserved death... and to be left where he was left at?"
Police in California canvassed an apartment complex where adoptive parents lived before two brothers went missing without a trace.
Trezol and Jacqueline West previously lived at the Casa Loma Apartments in Bakersfield, with their six children, including missing boys, Orson and Orrin West, ages 3 and 4.
Police spoke with neighbors after the family moved to a new home in California City in September. The Wests reported the two boys missing from their home on December 21.
Trezol told police the boys were playing outside when he went to gather firewood at a back gate. His wife was inside the home wrapping gifts, he said.
"I came in the house. I saw them there, went into the house, came back out, didn't see them there," he said.
Police searched the house and dug up the backyard. They said the couple have been cooperative, but there is evidence that the couple know more than what they are saying.
"They did something," said the boy's biological mother, Ryan Dean, who arrived from Bakersfield to help with the search. "I feel like my kids are somewhere around here. I can feel it."
The couple's four other children -- two adopted and two biological -- have been taken into protective custody.
Investigators are searching a South Florida landfill for the remains of Leila Cavett, a missing Georgia mother whose toddler son was found wandering alone in an apartment complex in July.
FBI Special Agent Michael D. Leverock said investigators are searching Pompano Beach's Monarch Hill Landfill on Thursday.
Cavett was last seen on July 25 on security footage at a RaceTrac gas station in Hollywood, Florida.
Her 2-year-old son, Kamdyn, was found wandering alone in an apartment complex in nearby Miramar on July 26. The boy was barefoot and wearing only a t-shirt and soiled diaper.
A self-proclaimed "witch doctor" Shannon Ryan was arrested and charged with kidnapping and lying to the FBI about Kamdyn.
Investigators found blood droplets and a shovel inside Ryan's gold Lexus. A car identical to Ryan's Lexus was seen on surveillance footage outside the apartment complex just moments before Kamdyn was found by a resident.
Kamdyn remains in foster care while family members go through the legal process to gain custody of him.
A 22-year-old college student was reported missing after he left his dorm room to withdraw money from an ATM machine.
Adam "Belle" Dowdell is a second-year student at Alabama State University in downtown Montgomery.
He left his dorm around 8 p.m. Tuesday to get money from an ATM, but his friends say he never returned.
His mother, Toya Cohill, says Dowdell did not have a car on campus. He left his backpack and cell phone charger and now his phone is dead.
He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, black and white checkered pants and a pair or Air Jordan "Taxi" 12 sneakers.
"I've slept three hours a day," Cohill said. Cohill and relatives made the 70-mile trip to Montgomery from the Alabaster area, where Dowdell is from.
"He always talks to all of us," she said. "From my mama to my daughter to my son, somebody's going to talk to him every day."
Cohill said she last spoke to her son on Monday, and his siblings spoke with him the following day. But on Wednesday, she got messages from friends saying he hadn't returned to his dorm and no one had heard from him.
A Florida man has been arrested in the case of a missing Georgia woman whose 2-year-old son was found wandering around an apartment complex.
Shannon Demar Ryan, 38, was arrested on Saturday, Aug. 15, in connection with the disappearance of Leila Cavett, 21.
Cavett was reported missing after her son, Kamdyn, was found wandering alone in a Miramar, Fla. apartment complex on July 26.
The boy wore only a t-shirt and a soiled diaper. He is currently in the custody of Florida's child protective services.
Ryan, a self-described "witch doctor," was the last person to see Cavett alive.
According to a criminal complaint, Ryan claimed he knew Cavett for over a year and he persuaded her to drive to Central Florida from Georgia to sell him her truck for $3000.
Police located Cavett's abandoned truck in Hollywood, Fla. and set up surveillance on the vehicle.
Police spotted Ryan near the truck and surrounded him. He claimed he did not know where the young mother was. He said he took Cavett and her son to Fort Lauderdale beach, then they returned to Hollywood, where he dropped them off at a RaceTrak gas station around 2:30 a.m. on July 26.
After dropping Cavett and her son off at the RaceTrak gas station, Ryan said she and her son left in a dark sedan "with several unknown black males." He said that was the last time he saw her alive.
The criminal complaint accuses Ryan of lying to investigators about his interactions with Cavett.
"The video surveillance did not show Ryan's car at the pumps where he described it, nor did it show [Cavett] leaving in a dark sedan," FBI agent Samuel Band said Monday.
Video surveillance did show a gold Lexus similar to Ryan's in front of the Miramar apartment complex minutes before Kamdyn was found, Band said.
FBI agents are still searching for Cavett who is presumed dead.
Ryan used Cavett's debit card to make purchases at Walmart and RaceTrak gas station., according to the complaint.
The complaint revealed he bought bleach, duct tape, a box of extra large 39-gallon trash bags and two boxes of extra strength carpet deodorizer.
A search of Ryan's Lexus turned up a half empty bottle of all purpose cleaner with bleach, several black trash bags and a white powdery substance under the front passenger seat.
In Cavett's truck, investigators found shovels with what appeared to be blood droplets on them.
Band said Ryan's phone records showed Google searches on July 26 for "What day does commercial garbage pickup for Hollywood, Florida" and "Does bleach and alcohol make chloroform."
"According to the National Institute of Health, chloroform is commonly used to incapacitate a victim by rendering them unconscious," the complaint says.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel spoke with Ryan's mother who said there was no way her son was involved in a kidnapping.
"Shannon is not no evil, violent person," she said from her home in Alabama on Monday. "Shannon loves every living thing around him. My son ain't kidnap no child. That's a bunch of bull. He's not that type person. He would not harm anyone."
She said Ryan traveled back and forth from South Florida to Alabama to do psychic readings.
"He'd stay with a friend or at a motel or wherever he could stay," she said.
"My son would not hurt a flea or a fly," she said. "There's no way I believe he would do anything to anybody. He's not that kind of person."
Ryan made hundreds of posts on Facebook after he was initially questioned by law enforcement more than a week ago. Some of the posts taunted the police to come and arrest him.
Ryan, who describes himself as a witch doctor, spiritual adviser, teacher and CEO on his Facebook page, posted a video on Aug. 9, stating he was the last person to see Cavett but he denied being involved in her disappearance.
"Why is it you have a missing woman, and the last person that's seen her, which is me, who talked to the police, you ain't heard nothing about me," Ryan says in the video.
Ryan said investigators called him to do a follow-up interview earlier this month, but he declined to meet with them unless they had an arrest warrant in hand.
He is being held without bond in the Broward County Jail.
Cavett, who has been missing since July 17, was not in the truck, according to Hollywood police who took over the missing person case from Miramar police.
She was reported missing by her family after her 2-year-old son, Kamdyn Cavett Arnold, was found wandering alone inside an apartment complex in Miramar, Fl. on Sunday morning. He was wearing only a soiled diaper and a t-shirt.
A neighbor, Lori Rodriguez, took the boy in and changed his diaper before calling 911.
Police collected surveillance video from a Walmart store in Hollywood, not far from where Kamdyn was found. A witness spotted Cavett and Kamdyn with a man at the Walmart on Sunday.
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"Miramar Police received information that Leila Cavett had recently traveled to Florida from Alabama, and that her last known location was possibly in the area of Hollywood Boulevard and US 441. Additionally, Miramar Police located Ms. Cavett's vehicle in Hollywood's jurisdiction," Hollywood police said in a statement.
A man who says he is Kamdyn's father, Daniel Lee West, told the Miami Herald he wants to take custody of his son. He has been in contact with the Florida Apartment of Children and Family Services.
"CPS [the Florida Department of Children and Families] is supposed to tell me what to do. I am coming there as soon as they do," West told the Herald.
CPS requested a DNA test from West to establish paternity. He said he was never in a relationship with Cavett, who was dating another man, Levi Arnold, at the time.
"We were never together; it was just a hookup. Our relationship was about Kamdyn only," said West, who is currently engaged to another woman.
Arnold's name is on the birth certificate, but he denied being Kamdyn's father. West said he gave Cavett money for Kamdyn, and he was supposed to see his son on Friday, July 24, but Cavett never answered her phone.
Kamdyn was reunited with his two aunts who traveled from Alabama to Miramar police headquarters on Wednesday, but he will remain in the care of a foster parent until a court hearing in August.
Cavett's grandmother is prepared for the worst because Cavett would never abandon her son.
"I think she been snatched up off the streets. She would have never left her baby, never," said Carol Ferdinand, Cavett's grandmother, from Nashville, Tennessee. "She's my granddaughter, I know her, she would never have left Kamdyn; that's not her character."
Police in Miramar, Florida have identified the toddler who was found wandering barefoot in an apartment complex on Sunday.
On Monday evening, Miramar police confirmed that the abandoned boy is the son of a missing Georgia woman, 21-year-old Leila Cavett.
Cavett lives in Atlanta and works at a Dunkin' Donuts, according to her Facebook page.
"Detectives are actively searching for Leila Cavett, who may be the mother of the child found yesterday," Miramar police tweeted. "We are concerned for her safety and well-being," police said.
Cavett was last seen driving a mid-to-late 90s white Chevy 3500, with a red tailgate and a "Baby on Board" sign on the passenger window, according to police.
Ebony Williams, a resident of an apartment complex in Miramar, had just returned from the store when she spotted the toddler standing alone in a parking spot before 8 a.m.
"I heard him crying when I got out of the truck, but when I approached him he wasn't crying anymore," Williams said.
The barefoot boy was wearing nothing but a soiled diaper and t-shirt, she told WPLG-TV.
"He's very pleasant, very friendly. I asked him, 'Where's your mommy?' And he kind of just like pointed everywhere."
The mom-of-4 said the boy grabbed her two fingers when she held her hand out to him.
Williams approached neighbor Lori Rodriguez, a blonde Latina who has children who resemble the toddler.
Rodriguez took the boy in and changed his diaper. The two women continued searching the apartment complex for the boy's parents before calling 911.
"All of my friends, we are all still waiting for the Amber Alert to say that somebody was looking for this baby," Williams told WPLG. "It's heartbreaking because nobody is looking."
"Please help me find my sister my heart is breaking," Gina Lewis, who said she was Cavett's sister, wrote in a Facebook post Monday afternoon.
"I cannot breathe," she added.
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Lewis, who asked for donations to travel to Miramar on Monday, said she was certain that the curly haired tot in social media photos is her 2-year-old nephew, Kamdyn Cavett.
"That is my nephew, 100%," Lewis told 7News via FaceTime. She said she last saw her sister on July 17.
Lewis said she is relieved the boy is safe, but now she's worried about her sister, who doesn't have friends or family in Florida.
"She never mentioned to us about going anywhere. We're in the middle of a pandemic, so I don't understand why she would just go on vacation to Florida," Lewis said.
According to True Crime Society, Dannylee West, who claims to be Kamdyn's biological father, posted Facebook photos of himself with a toddler who looks like Kamdyn.
He took offense to Facebook users saying he was a deadbeat dad.
"I do know my son," he wrote. He added that he was supposed to see his son on Friday, July 24, but Leila never responded.
West, who is engaged to another woman, said he last spoke to Cavett on Friday, and he was waiting for child custody to call him back.
According to Websleuths, another man, Levi Arnold, is named on Kamdyn's birth certificate as the biological father.
But Arnold denies fathering Kamdyn. He said he dated Leila when she was pregnant, but they broke up and he hasn't seen her in a year.
Cavett wasn't friends with her siblings on Facebook and none of them 'liked' any of her photos.
"Only the worst things possible are going through my mind because I know my sister, and she might do some crazy things sometimes," Lewis said.
"I definitely worry that she's in danger, sure. It would mean everything to find her and know that she's safe because this is just out of character. She would not leave Kamdyn in those conditions."
The woman who found Kamdyn wandering alone credits God with putting her in the right place to find him before anything bad happened to him.
"He could have gotten hit by a car... anything could have happened to him," she said. "I wanted vanilla coffee creamer at 7 in the morning — that's really how it happened. God's good. He knew what he was doing and he put me in the right spot. I am not a hero, not anything else. I'm just a mom."
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Miramar Police at 954-602-4000.
Police in North Carolina are asking for the public's help to find a missing lesbian couple who recently got engaged after moving in together.
Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, disappeared shortly after moving in together. They have not been seen since April 15, the Wilmington Police Department said Monday.
The women recently became engaged though they haven't known each other long, Escalera's sister Stevie Jenkins told Oxygen.com.
She said one of the women left her cell phone behind on her bed. The couple's new roommate found the phone.
"They had only lived there a week or so before they went missing," Jenkins told Oxygen.com. "As I have been contacting her close friends, I have found that every single one of them had been blocked from her social media over the last week or two.
"It is normal for family to not hear from her, but not her closest friends. As I spoke with Stephanie's friends, they say it isn't normal at all that they don't hear from Stephanie."
Jenkins said Mayorga's phone had been cut off on April 15 -- the same day they vanished.
"Her boss says he tried calling her when she never showed the next morning."
Jenkins said her sister has had her share of troubles but said "she is an amazing person and has always pulled out making the right choices."
Police believe the women may be traveling in a dark grey Dodge Dart with South Carolina tags.
Sandy Springs police are still searching for Sheree Whitfield's 77-year-old mother, Thelma Ferguson, who was last seen in March.
Whitfield, an original cast member on Real Housewives of Atlanta, said she last saw her mom on March 23 when she left her Sandy Springs home to go to a bank.
Ferguson was last seen wearing grey pants and a black shirt and driving a grey 2009 Honda Accord with Georgia tag RMZ5773.
Her family says she has no medical or mental problems.
In a post on Instagram.com, Whitfield said her mother has "taken personal vacations without letting the family know" in the past. "However, this is the longest she have gone without reaching out to anyone from the family or her friends."
She asked anyone with information on her mother's whereabouts to call Sandy Springs police at 770-551-6923.
