LaTonya Roberts: Missing Since 1994
Her locked car was found parked nearby days after she'd vanished
Florida Woman Vanishes Without a Trace
On the evening of December 16th, 1994, 22-year-old LaTonya Roberts told one of her sisters that she wanted to go out to see a movie and then maybe head to a local nightclub afterwards. This would be the last time anyone in her family ever heard from her.
Two days later, her car was found nearby, locked and with a flat tire. But there was no sign of the missing young woman anywhere.
What happened to LaTonya Roberts?
LaTonya Dionne Roberts
One of six children, LaTonya Dionne Roberts was born on October 10th, 1972, in Broward County, Florida, to parents Ernestine and Virgil. LaTonya was fun-loving, intelligent, and cheerful.
The Roberts family was supportive and close. They were also religious and regularly attended the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, where Virgil was a preacher. LaTonya, who was a member of the church choir, was said to have a beautiful singing voice.
After graduating from college, LaTonya secured a position as a medical assistant at the PCA Medical Center in Orlando.
Disappearance
One of her sisters was set to perform the national anthem at an Oak Ridge High School basketball game on Friday, December 16th, 1994. LaTonya, who always supported her family, was in attendance. After hearing her sister sing, she left after receiving a page from her boyfriend.
Later that evening, she phoned her sister Lolita and talked about her plans for that night. LaTonya was thinking about seeing a movie and then maybe going to Hero’s, a local nightclub.
“She said, ‘Do you want to go and hang out with me at Hero’s?’”
But Lolita didn’t feel like going anywhere, so she declined.
During this call, Lolita briefly heard the voice of LaTonya’s boyfriend in the background. He wanted to know who she was speaking to and she responded that it was just her sister. After this, she told Lolita that she was going to head out and ended the call.
(Side note: It sounds like she intended to go out alone, since her sister wasn’t going to come along.)
LaTonya still lived at her family’s home, but her parents were away at a missionary event and wouldn’t be back until the following day, so it’s unknown if she ever returned that night.
When she didn’t come home or speak to anyone in her family for the rest of the weekend, her loved ones became very concerned as this was unlike her. They contacted her boyfriend, but he said that he didn’t know where she might be and that he hadn’t seen her since Friday either. So the Roberts family started to look for her themselves and also reported her missing to the local police.
Virgil soon located his daughter’s 1988 Toyota Corolla, which was parked near Hero’s. The car was locked and the alarm was set, but the vehicle had a flat tire.
Though there were no overt signs of foul play, there was something troubling about the Toyota, which led those who knew her to wonder if she’d even been the one driving it when it was parked there.
“My sister was 4’11,’’ said Lolita, “she was very short, all of us are very short. She drove with a cushion in the seat of the car. When they found the car, the cushion was in the passenger seat. And the driver's seat was pulled all the way back so that gave an indication to us our sister did not drive that car up there.”
It appeared as if someone taller than LaTonya had been behind the wheel, but who? Her family thought they knew the answer to that question.
Domestic Abuse Allegations
It’s unclear how long LaTonya had been seeing her boyfriend, but what was clear from her diary entries is that it wasn’t a healthy relationship. She wrote about his emotional—and sometimes physical—abuse of her.
Furthermore, there was one particularly disturbing incident that she’d told one of her sisters about the previous month. A few weeks before she went missing, her boyfriend had abruptly woken her up in the middle of the night and told her to come for a drive with him.
He took her to a citrus grove in Polk County, where he allegedly brandished a gun and instructed her to walk ahead of him. He made her stop next to a hole (that he’d apparently already dug) and told her that if she ever upset him again, he’d kill her and no one would ever find her body. They’d had an argument recently, but the cause is unknown.
After making this death threat, he drove her home and things seemingly calmed down after this—at least for a time. LaTonya had reportedly been in therapy since he’d threatened her life, though. They didn’t live together, but she still often went over to his place.
Foul play was strongly suspected in her case, but investigators were unable to find any forensic evidence to support this theory. Unfortunately, LaTonya had neither written about the citrus grove incident in her diary nor reported it to authorities. For his part, her boyfriend claimed that he hadn’t seen her and didn’t know what happened to her. He refused to cooperate beyond that.
Law enforcement launched a search which focused on rural areas, especially citrus groves, around Polk County. But it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and they failed to turn up any clues as to what had become of the missing woman.
They questioned employees and customers at Hero’s, but no one remembered seeing LaTonya at all the night she vanished. Had she ever made it there? There were no eyewitness reports to work with, nothing that would help investigators establish how—or with whom—she’d spent the rest of the evening.
And though her boyfriend was an obvious suspect given his history of abuse towards LaTonya, the authorities felt they simply didn’t have enough evidence to press charges or hold him for further questioning. To this day, they have never officially named him as a person of interest. In fact, his name has never been made public at all.
Current State of the Investigation
In the absence of solid evidence, LaTonya’s case soon went cold. However, her family didn’t give up and tried to keep her story in the public eye. Sadly, though, her case hasn’t received much media attention over the years.
“It’s hard,” said her father. “It’s very hard. It’s like we’re always sitting at the edge of our seat waiting for news.”
Lolita echoed this sentiment.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy to have a family member and you have no idea where they are.”
The disappearance of LaTonya Roberts remains open and unsolved.
If you have any information regarding her disappearance you are encouraged to call CrimeLine at 1-800-423-TIPS. You can remain anonymous.
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