Updated July 15, 2024
Details of Disappearance
Shy'Kemmia was last seen playing outside near her family's residence on Crumpler Avenue near The Roxy Club in Unadilla, Georgia at approximately 7:00 p.m. on September 4, 1998. Her family planned to attend a high school football game that evening.
Her older sister decided to get gasoline for her car and pick up Shy'Kemmia afterwards. When she returned from the gas station, she realized Shy'Kemmia was missing. The family at first assumed she must have gotten a ride with someone else or had gone to play at a friend's home.
The authorities were summoned after Shy'Kemmia's family was unable to locate her later in the night, but police incorrectly told her family she had to be missing for over 24 hours before they could begin an investigation. She has never been seen again.
Authorities have received numerous tips regarding Shy'Kemmia's disappearance, but no solid evidence has been located to guide them to her whereabouts. Neighbors in the area gave their consent for investigators to search their homes; police searched every residence, inside and out, in a five- to six-block radius from the Pate home and found no evidence in her case.
Police believe Shy'Kemmia may have been abducted by someone she was familiar with at the time. Everyone in her family has been cleared of suspicion, but she lived in a small town where most people knew each other. The neighborhood where she lived had a high crime rate with a lot of drug use and gambling.
One possible suspect was a neighbor, Quentin "Droopy" Kendrick, who was 18 years old when Shy'Kemmia went missing, was a friend of her family and was one of the last people to see her before she disappeared. As a middle school student in 1994, Kendrick had pleaded guilty to raping a classmate. In 2001, at age twenty, he was charged with multiple counts of rape, kidnapping, burglary, aggravated assault, aggravated sodomy and armed robbery in connection with five separate attacks on girls between eleven and eighteen: three rapes and two attempted rapes.
In most of the attacks, Kendrick would enter the victim's home via a window during the night and kidnap and sexually assault them. Kendrick pleaded guilty to eighteen counts in 2002 and was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life in prison. It's not clear whether he is still considered a suspect in Shy'Kemmia's disappearance, but her mother does not believe he was involved.
Shy'Kemmia is described as an outgoing child who loved skating and new clothes in 1998. She was involved with her family's church. After her disappearance, her mother moved away to another area of Georgia. Her case remains unsolved.
