Press Conference
20th Oct.
Sergeant - First and foremost we'd like to thank everybody for coming out here today. My name is Blake Roberts. I am a Sergeant with the Houston's homicide division. I also have with me, here today, Commander Stephen Spiers, also with the homicide division, as well as Liet. Steven Hope. In addition to Tim Miller with Texas Equusearch. I am the primary investigator in regards to the disappearance of Nadia Lee.
Y'all may already know, Nadia is the child of Nancy Reed and Jyron Lee, who were involved in an incident on Tuesday, October 18th at 525 Bay Area Blvd. This was a homicide investigation and since then Jyron Lee has been arrested and is currently in the Harris County Jail.
While continuing this investigation, we've received some information that there may be an additional child involved that was missing. We then identified that female as Nadia Lee. We then identified that female as Nadia Lee. We began reaching out to all of our partners in the community and we were unable to locate Nadia. So, the investigation was temporarily worked by our missing persons division. At one point they received information and evidence that there was potential foul play involved. Therefore, the homicide division took over the investigation. Since then we have received information, as well as physical evidence and digital forensic evidence to determine there was foul play involved. At this time, Nadia still has not been located.
Reporter - What kind of evidence have you guys found?
Sergeant - So, of course we can't divulge all the evidence of what we have, but we do know that Nadia's last known location, based off of the totality of the evidence we have was -October 16th., this past Sunday at approximately 8:00 pm. at 331 S Ritchie St, which is the apartment complex right behind me.
Reporter - Can you confirm that Jyron lived here, that's why you guys are... ?
Sergeant - That's correct, yes.
Reporter - So, is there anything you can clarify, as far as (
inaudible) , but they had several children right? So, at the Bay Area they had 2 kids? Was Nadia with Jyron separate from the others? Can you clarify that?
Sergeant - Right, so the incident that occurred at Bay Area Blvd. - there were two children at the location present when that incident occurred. The children are now in the custody of another entity. I'm not going to divulge any specifics on that, but those two children, at least one of them, is a child of Jyron and Nancy.
Reporter - We're those two children, one older and one younger than Nadia?
Sergeant - That's correct, yes.
Reporter - How long had Nadia been with Jyron prior to her last known?
Sergeant - I still don't know the entirety of their relationship. But we obviously know that they have at least two children up to the age of almost 3.
Reporter - Is he forthcoming with any information?
Sergeant - So, initially he was the individual who did contact the police the night of the incident on Bay Area Blvd., but since then he has no longer divulged any additional information in regards to her whereabouts.
Reporter - How long has Nadia been under Jyron's custody?
Sergeant - While I don't want to divulge the specifics on the custody of the children, it was a short period of time recently, yes.
Reporter - At this point do you not believe that this little girl is going to be found alive?
Sergeant - I believe on the totality of all the evidence that we have at this point. While we do still have hope that she is found, we do have to put in efforts to search with Tim just to see if we can locate her by any means.
Reporter - Can you speak at all to any if evidence you've found? You said that there's some DNA evidence. Can you speak at all and give us any type of insight into any of that?
Sergeant - Of course when you work these investigations, we process, you know, every aspect of it. We have a 2 yr. old child who's now missing and potentially could have been killed. So, we have an immense amount of DNA evidence from, you know, the apartment and what not and that's going to take some time to obviously process.
Reporter - Any surveillance video showing their comings and goings?
Sergeant - Obviously this is a very active investigation and we're in the early stages, so we do have detectives continuously looking through spans of video to get a better understanding what happened.
Reporter - There was a storyline that he went out to take the trash, came back, Nadia wasn't there and he said.... Did he give any further details on why he didn't report her missing from Sunday to - we're at, Thursday?
Sergeant - Not specifically, no.
Reporter - So, they called police to the hotel/motel on Tuesday. Police checked it out said it was Ok. Did mom not say 'hey we haven't seen Nadia.'?
Sergeant - So, yes there was a prior call to service at that location, but there was no claims of any domestic abuse at that location.
Reporter - And there was no calls to this address prior to the 16th, like, recently that would... ?
Sergeant - Not to my understanding. Of course this is a Pasadena Police Department jurisdiction, but I don't know anything, any kind of call out here.
Reporter - Do you know if their argument or the disturbance at Bay Area, like, had any.. location or whereabouts and the well being of Nadia was part of that conversation that may be (
inaudible) for that disturbance?
Sergeant - Unfortunately, we're still in very early stages of this investigation and the only people that know what had happened was Nancy and Jyron and unfortunately he's not divulging that information.
Reporter - Is this being treated as a homicide investigation, or is it still missing person?
Sergeant - This is a homicide investigation.
Reporter - Can you talk to us about the search efforts going on right now?
Tim Miller - I got a call last night, from Sgt. Roberts, about the disappearance of a little 2 yr. old child. We met with him this morning at HPD homicide for literally a couple hours. Went over a lot of things that they had. Felt as though this was the area that we needed to start searching. Of course, we we're concerned with the Bayou, that is right behind us here, and some wooded areas and stuff. I think we've checked them, in as much as we can check them. From now, we're going to continue checking the Bayou in case something happened in there and something has possibly not floated yet. I don't know whether... you know, I don't want to get too far into the investigation either. I don't know whether our timelines are going to take us very far away from here at this time. I know their investigation is... god only knows where we're going to end up, you know. I don't know so, you know, whatever comes up in the investigation, wherever it takes us, that's where we're going to be. But we're going to continue concentrating on this area throughout the day and even possibly tomorrow, unless the investigation leads us to somewhere else.
Reporter - Tim, I guess they don't call you when things are looking positive. You're always here when things are not looking good (
inaudible) the family. I mean just your fear?
Tim Miller - Well, you know what my fear is in this and, again, I don't I think.. I shared this with somebody earlier, I don't think this is going to have the positive outcome we would like to have. You know, one of my biggest fears is that there will not be an outcome, you know? So, I think everybody working together, doing the right thing for the right reasons, hopefully, we can kind of bring this to a close and if something's happened to her, of course, as soon as she's located the better chance there is being evidence and cause of death. And, so again, time's not on our side but, again, I think we're all working together for same reason and I don't any of us expect that happy ending. We do believe in miracles, and it would certainly take America to get her back alive right now.
Reporter - So, since this is now a homicide investigation not a missing persons investigation - Do you expect that additional charges could be filed against Jyron?
Sergeant - Of course, at some point, additional charges could be filed if Nadia's located and (
inaudible) evidence.
Reporter - You said you found suspect evidence inside his home that is leading this to not being a missing person's investigation but a homicide investigation now?
Sergeant - Yes, so, we still have to... the evidence that we collect we just have to process it, but at some point, yes, it could lead to additional charges against Jyron.
Reporter - Just to clarify. The other two children who are currently with CPS, do they not have the same parents as Nadia?
Sergeant - I was not going to specify on where they're at but I believe they have different fathers.
Reporter - Neither of them are Jyron's children?
Sergeant - One of them is.
Reporter - Was Nadia (
inaudible) care?
Sergeant - Nadia was under the care of the father at the time of her disappearance.
