No one’s seen or heard from Timeka Donyale Pridgen since 10:15 p.m., May 12, 2001.
Only 16 at the time, she was with her mother, Cosandra Best, at their home in La Grange. Accounts of the night state Best fell asleep while waiting for the arrival of her boyfriend, but when she awoke at midnight, Pridgen wasn’t there. Pridgen’s shoes, her purse and her belongings were still in the house.
“I know people don’t just vanish,” Best said to WRAL project N.C. Wanted in 2011. “I do know that my first gut instinct on the situation was a person I was dating at the time. I really felt strongly that he knew what happened to her. I could be right or wrong, but I just feel that way.”
Best later found out her then-boyfriend, Eric Moore had prior convictions for second-degree kidnapping and second-degree sexual offense in Pitt County from December 1988. He was convicted of a 2003 attempted second-degree sexual offense in Lenoir County in 2006, and is currently behind bars at Eastern Correctional Institution.
His projected release date is July 21, 2015.
Moore has denied participation in the incident and repeatedly denied media requests for an interview.
Rinde Carter, a brother of Pridgen’s and a local hip-hop artist, has been attempting to get attention for the case in the hopes Pridgen will be found.
“I really feel that if I can make it with this music, I can get the attention of people,” Carter said. “But without that, I don’t think people are really going to take notice. It’s been 12 years … and we really (haven’t gotten) further than we were.”
Carter said the last time he saw Pridgen was when they were together seeing their father in Raleigh while he recovered from a heart attack. In February 2011, he posted an iReport on CNN.com written by his sister Torin Fisher regarding the case.
“Just reaching out everywhere — to CNN, Nancy Grace — just reaching out to get it broadcasted on television and bring insight to people that this is a serious issue that I’m trying to get out there,” Carter said.
The Pridgen disappearance is one of 39 missing children cases in North Carolina listed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
“The reality is, the longer time goes on, the less opportunity we have in finding Timeka,” said Bob Lowery, the Center’s executive director of the missing children division. “But what I want to emphasize is we never give up hope, and nor should anyone else, because there have been amazing finds of children after many years.”
Lowery pointed to the example of the missing women who were held in a Cleveland home, and the case of Jaycee Dugard, who was discovered after going missing for 18 years.
“We’re finding children after long periods of time, when many would have expected the worst to have happened,” Lowery said. “I like to say here at the National Center, we don’t provide false hope to the families, but we also understand we shouldn’t give up hope because of those older children that we have found.”
He added, “When the circumstances seem dire, we have to continue looking until we find that child, and that child has either been returned to their loved ones, or we provide the families with the answers they are desperately seeking.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.
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Can you help?
If you have any information relation to the disappearance or location of Timeka Donyale Pridgen, please call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 800-843-5678, the State Bureau of Investigation at 919-662-4500 or the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office at 252-559-6100.