WA WA - Chalisa Lewis, 14, Bremerton, 2 Feb 1995

Hello to you all...

I am an old classmate of Chalisa Lewis, who went missing on Feburary 2nd, 1995, in Bremerton, WA. Several weeks later on February 25th, 1995, her body washed ashore at Discovery Park, in Seattle, WA. I wanted to open this new forum up, as part of my research on the case, and also in hopes of maybe finding the piece of garbage that murdered her. I've looked up everything I could about her on the Internet, and there almost hasn't been any word about her case. Even though I didn't really know her too well, I had a lot of friends who knew her, and there we're some instances in Jr. High and Elementary School, where I do remember her. It is a really sad case, even today, that remains unsolved. Even today, alot of people are uncomfortable about talking about the case. Alot of people have left town since then also, including members of her family, and there's other people today who knew her, who simply can't remember that far back, so all this further makes things more difficult. So I want to turn to all of you here on Websleuths, for help with this. I told some friends of mine on MySpace already, of my post here on Websleuths.com. I, and very possibly alot of people in Bremerton, are hoping that some people on here can get their research minds together, and figure out this case, and turn in the piece of garbage who murdered her, so that they can face justice. As much as I can research stuff about this case, I know I can't do it on my own, so I hope that people on here can help out.

On February 2nd, 1995, 14-year old Chalisa Lewis went missing after getting off a school bus. It did appear that she made it home, as her backpack and other belongings were found inside the house. They tried doing everything they can to look for her, even using police dogs, but they were not able to locate her. Eventually, on February 25th, 1995, her partially-clothed body was found washed ashore at Discovery Park, in Seattle, WA. Because of all this, they weren't even able to establish a crime scene, wherever it all happened. She was a very happy girl and did not appear to have any sort of issues with her family or other people, so it was determined that she didn't run away from home. And it's already been proven that Chalisa's murder wasn't foul play, so anyone in her family has already been long cleared of any suspicion. America's Most Wanted even had a segment when all this happened, back in 1995, but that didn't help out much. The local public access channel in Bremerton, WA also ran a show about her disappearance and murder, which didn't help out much either.

Here's one newspaper article that was published in the Bremerton Sun (Now the Kitsap Sun), back in 1995... http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/feb/04/, which is in the Code 911 section. If you go forward in the archives, there's other articles about her. You all might have to click on the "Next Day" link for awhile in order to find other articles about her, and they might make you have to register, in order to get access to the archives. I am also in the process of scanning in some articles I found about her case, that I got from the microfilm archives at the East Bremerton library. If any of you want to help out and need those, e-mail me here or here, and I can provide you all with those scanned articles, which when i'm done scanning them in, will be in PDF format.

After these 13 years, let's see if we can get something together, that may solve this case once and for all.

Welcome to Websleuths, Stephen. Thanks for posting this case. I hadn't heard about it before. I wouldn't even know where to begin to search for info on her case, but hopefully some others here will be able to help.

I'm more active on MySpace and have a page for missing kids there. If you want to contact me on MySpace, maybe I can help in getting some more info out to the people in the Pacific Northwest that may have seen something or know something. Here's a link to my page: http://www.myspace.com/4missingkids Hope to hear from you.

Here are some links I gathered about Chalisa's disappearance and murder, from the Bremerton Sun / Kitsap Sun online archives...

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/feb/04/code-911/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/feb/25/chalisa-lewis-king-county-investigating-if-body/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/feb/26/dead-girl-virtually-certain-to-be-lewis/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/mar/02/local-glance-chalisa-lewis/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/mar/03/obituaries/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/1995/mar/05/chalisa-lewis-buried/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2000/feb/10/investigation-no-new-leads-in-lewis-case/

Here's another link I found. This one ins't available anymore on The Sun website itself, but it's been cached by Google.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache...bruary/0202a2a.html+&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

This one was from February 2nd, 2000, on the 5 year anniversary of the case. It also talks about a person who saw Chalisa get into a car the day she disappeared. It was never mentioned though, if he remembers the make/model of the car, or a license plate, so he might have been too far away at the time or not paying attention.

OK, now that I have this case put up on here and people researching it, this is someting I wanted to share and pass along. I don't know if it has any baring on the case, but I told a few people about it back when Chalisa's case was going on, but nothing ever came about it, so I don't know if anything i'm saying has any baring on the case or not.

I remember, back when I was on my way to Bremerton Jr. High School, a couple mornings after her body was found washed up in Seattle.... I was on the school bus on my way to school, and I heard something on the bus's radio, about some thugs flipping up gang signs at a Bremerton School District bus, that was on Pacific Avenue, which most likely is the same bus that Chalisa rode. I thought at the time, that it sounded pretty suspicous, (I was Chalisa's age at the time), so I told a couple classmates, and a teacher, about what I heard over the bus's radio. However, nothing obviously came of it, as I never heard anything about what I heard on the bus's radio that morning. After thinking about it, I think maybe whatever I said about it, might have been taken as a tip, but was never followed up on. I never knew what happened to what I told people after that morning, so I don't know if it ever had any barring on the case or not, but it's just something that I wanted to share. It was apparent though, that the day that she went missing, that she got into a car, so if it was indeed something that had to do with her murder, obviously, whoever she got into a car with, was at least 16 years old (legal driving age here in Washington State, back in 1995). But even so, I don't know if any of this had anything to do with the case. But this was something I wanted to share though.

Another thing too, is that before Chalisa's murder, there was a case with another student that attended Bremerton Jr. High at the time we we're all there. A couple months before Chalisa's murder, another student at the Jr. High, Masico Campbell, was gunned down about 2 1/2 months earlier (Masico was in the 9th grade, and Chalisa was in the 8th grade, at the same school). I don't know if in anyway, both events were related, but it's another thing to look into. Masico Campbell was involved in gang activity though, and his killer has already been identified and arrested, and has stood trial. Chalisa however, was not involved in any type of gang activity, as she was a very religious person. She was though, from what i've heard about her, like me as far as groups of friends we had and the very wide range of types of friends we had, where there might have been one or two friends out of our group, who we're involved with gangs. One thing that's been on my mind because of all this though... Were both things related, or we're both things completely separate from each other?

I've been also told, that thugs that are in gangs, sometimes do stuff after some crime happened, and they just want to take some sick advantage of that opportunity, to do messed up stuff, or make it look like they we're responsible, just for attention.

Anyways, I wanted to share that piece of information with everyone on here. I am not sure even today if any of what I just said has any meaning to the case, but it's at least something. For all I know, it could have been a coincedence, but I at least wanted to keep that under some consideration to anyone that's helping out with this.

Just got a couple more pieces of info, to share here...

Out of all the rumors that were passed around our school back when the case started, one of them that was the most repeated, was of her Uncle having something to do with her disapperance and murder. I'm starting to lean more toward that possibility, and so I will look into it more, and eventually see with what I can come up with, and invite anyone else to look into that as well. I don't currently know her uncle's name, so hopefully someone can find that out for me. The other thing that has come out, is that apparently the pastor at her church possibly knew who did it. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's one of the other things I was told.

Hi Stephen, welcome to Websleuths! Hopefully some of us can help you out in the search for Chalisa's Killer(s).

MeoW333 said:

Hi Stephen, welcome to Websleuths! Hopefully some of us can help you out in the search for Chalisa's Killer(s).

Click to expand...

Thank you! It's good to be getting some attention onto this case again, after so much time as passed. I'm hoping that we can bring them to justice, so that my friends, as well as Chalisa's family, can get closure to this.

Well guys, it seems as though i've been getting alot of information lately, but I still want everyone on here to help out with what they can. Here's what I have found out tonight...

Well, I talked to a friend of mine tonight (and I have promised to all my friends, that I wouldn't mention their names on here, for security purposes).... Her and another friend of mine, walked her home the day she disappeared. Chalisa went home, while my two friends went to a store nearby. I hope this doesn't sound too confusing, but those two friends of mine, we're walking back to the home at the time of one of those two friends of mine lived near her. On the way back as they we're passing her place, they saw a note that Chalisa left, saying that she would be back in a couple hours. Chalisa's grandma, who she lived with, had a chalkboard outside of her home, to where people could leave notes and stuff. Chalisa wrote on there though, that she would be back in a couple hours....which obviously, she never came back.

Stephen were you walking with your 2 friends or was it just your two friends walking? You mention "we're walking" (not that it makes a difference) yet if you were actually there, maybe different brainstorms will jog your memory.. How far away from the road was the chalkboard in relation to Chalisa's grandmother's house? Did ya'll walk up to it, or was the writing on it big enough to be seen from a distance? Was the chalkboard easy for anyone to get to and write on?
I don't think it's gang related. For Chalisa to have no gang history whatsoever, i'd lean more towards the uncle bit..
If the boy that was gunned down 2 1/2 months earlier; well that's a good length of time before Chalisa's murder. Gang follow up activity would not be that far of a stretch and murdering a religious girl with no gang ties would not be what they do gangstyle (unless she was in a gang).
Does anyone you know remember what they heard about her uncle?

No, I meant "were". I was not there with my friends at the time (sorry for this misunderstanding).

The chalkboard as far as I told, was just sitting outside on the patio at her grandparents place, near their front door. My Mom had a friend who lived a few doors down from that house (I don't know if they lived there at the time she disappeared though), so If I remember correctly, as with most of the houses in that area, it was one of those places where you had to walk up a short set of stairs up to the patio and front door. i'd say the patio and the chalkboard were about 200-300 feet feet from the sidewalk. Later today if one of my friends who was with her at the time is online again, i'll ask her if she was sure the writing was Chalisa's or not and if it was big enough to be seen from the sidewalk.

As far as the rumors about her uncle...from the stuff that I heard so far, I am really leaning toward the possibility it was her uncle, on top of everything else. I am still trying to find out which uncle it could have been though, since it looks like Chalisa's Mom has been married and divorced once or twice before the incident. I haven't gotten any answer so far though, as to the name of that uncle that everyone is suspecting, and haven't heard anything else past that yet. I'm thinking the gang incident directed toward the school bus near her place most likely was a coincedence, and had nothing to do with her murder.

MeoW333 said:

was the writing on it big enough to be seen from a distance? Was the chalkboard easy for anyone to get to and write on?

Click to expand...

I talked to one of my friends last night and got an answer... The writing on the chalkboard was her's, and it was able to be seen from the sidewalk.

Just wanted to keep everyone updated... I am still doing research on the case and still check back here often, but I have gone into a part of my research, where the information would be inappropriate for putting out here in the public (specific names, addresses, technical stuff). For the people out there that are helping out, keep looking for things on your ends, and feel free to share anything on here that might help in solving the case if any of you find anything.

I wanted to update everyone early this morning... I have talked to someone close to the case (whom I will not mention, as stated way earlier). I wanted to go ahead and say that the possibility of any of her family members, including her uncle, having anything to do with her murder, has been eliminated. I can not say more at this time though. So we can put that to rest.

Just read through your posts and just wanted to say I was astounded that a minister might have information about a murder that he had not revealed.

There is another missing person's case on here that happened in Bremerton, WA. Joe Pichler disappeared about two years ago and has not been found. The families involved are less than pleased with the Bremerton PD and the way they handled the case. His car was found abandoned, had been ransacked, there was vomit on the floor and the cops never processed the car - or the vomit. They also never talked to any of the people Joe was with that night. Joe's apartment was broken into and the cops never investigated it. Completely negligent in all ways. The family is trying to get the FBI to take over and the Bremerton PD has been widely ridiculed by other PD's for the way they mis-handled the case.

Stephen - do you know if this has been an issue in this case and pehaps why this is still unsolved?

Hi Stephen, I don't think there is anything wrong with the police interviewing the uncle and asking him for a polygraph. Were there any other homicides similiar to hers at that time? I was thinking Washington state had quite a few young girls disappeared in surrounding cities in the last 10 years. My friend, Kathy, lives in Bremerton, Wa and she was asking me to pray for quite a few girls that had disappeared. If the method of operation was the same, it might be the same person.
I would ask the uncle be interviewed.
She left a note saying she would be back in a couple of hours? But she didn't say where or with whom?

Sharon999 said:

Hi Stephen, I don't think there is anything wrong with the police interviewing the uncle and asking him for a polygraph. Were there any other homicides similiar to hers at that time? I was thinking Washington state had quite a few young girls disappeared in surrounding cities in the last 10 years. My friend, Kathy, lives in Bremerton, Wa and she was asking me to pray for quite a few girls that had disappeared. If the method of operation was the same, it might be the same person.
I would ask the uncle be interviewed.
She left a note saying she would be back in a couple of hours? But she didn't say where or with whom?

Click to expand...

The Bremerton PD had already done all that, and cleared him.

No, she didn't say whom she went with.

Trino said:

Just read through your posts and just wanted to say I was astounded that a minister might have information about a murder that he had not revealed.

Click to expand...

It was ony what I was told by a friend. It is possible that he did tell the police, but was not allowed to say to anyone else what he told them.

Hello to you all...

Just wanted to update you all on things, even though there's not much I an update on. Chalisa's family has still been in contact with me, but I still can't share some of the things they have told me. But if anyone here has anything they can share, please let me know, so I can forward it to them. I wish there was more I can share, but I can't share it right now. What I can say though, is that I have friends of mine, who were also friends of Chalisa's, also getting in contact with the family. I don't want to risk jeprodizing the case or anything, but whatever I can share, I will definitely let you guys know. Just keep this thread and case in mind, so if any of you know anything, PLEASE let us know....