00:00:00
Hey guys, Karen in Georgia here, and we are very proud to present a brand new season of
00:00:08
Exactly Right's own true crime podcast, The Fall Line. In season five, they'll be examining
00:00:13
the disappearance of eight-year-old Shikimia Pate, who vanished from her own street in the
00:00:17
tiny town of Unadilla, Georgia. In four episodes, The Fall Line is going to examine the events
00:00:21
leading up to Shikimia's disappearance, its aftermath, the investigation, and where the
00:00:26
case stands today, including how listeners can help. With extensive interviews from Shikimiya's family, friends, the local sheriff's department,
00:00:33
and the Georgia Department of Investigations, season five of The Fall Line aims to put Shikimiya's
00:00:37
case where it always should have been, in the public consciousness. So here is the first episode of the new season of The Fall Line.
00:00:43
And then when you're done, you can listen to episode two right now as well. And subscribe to all future episodes of the new season at the official Fall Line feed,
00:00:52
wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening, you guys. Enjoy. This is The Fall Line.
00:01:22
You know, we just feel for the family even. It's been this long. I mean, it's just 1998 was a long time ago.
00:01:29
But the not knowing is, you know, we just feel for the family, and we're going to always do what we can to get an answer for them.
00:01:40
And I hope it's going to be walk in the door or get that phone call, you know, she's alive and well, and that's our biggest hope.
00:01:49
I can just say that anybody can call and give us any information. We will follow it.
00:01:59
We can, regardless of what they heard or what they know, somebody knows something.
00:02:07
And we, you know, just about everything that happens, somebody knows something, they're just scared to come forward.
00:02:12
And, you know, please come forward with information, whether if it's anonymous, if it's something that we can, you know, check out and verify.
00:02:25
I say you don't even have to leave a name. You don't have to leave a contact number.
00:02:28
Just give us some information. September 4th, 1998, Middle Georgia, two hours south of Atlanta, where there's more farmland than population.
00:02:39
It was hot that day, but it usually is, even in the fall. A high of 91 at the height of the afternoon, with the air only a little cooler after sunset.
00:02:51
It was a Friday, prime time for high school football. That night, the Dooley County Bobcats were slated to play the Turner County Rebels.
00:03:00
For Dooley, it was a home game. Six towns make up Dooley County. Vienna, Unadilla, Dooling, Lilly, Pinehurst, Byronville.
00:03:10
Even now, there's only one high school between all of them. Less than 400 students are enrolled.
00:03:16
Still, high school football was, and is, big. And in 1998, the Dooley Bobcats were going to have a very good fall.
00:03:25
Eventually, they'd make it all the way to the quarterfinals. But no one knew that on September 4, 1998.
00:03:32
It was the first game of the season. And in middle Georgia, that date would be remembered for other
00:03:38
reasons. But outside the region, by and large, the news stories never made it past Macon.
00:03:45
Dooley County High is 12 miles, which is about 14 minutes, depending on how fast you drive,
00:03:51
from a street called Crumpler Avenue. That's a road in Unadilla, Georgia, a town with a population
00:03:57
of less than 3,000. That number has stayed steady since the 1990s. The street is mostly residential
00:04:04
with a big grassy field at one intersection and shade trees at the corner. Nearly every house,
00:04:11
mobile home, or duplex has a big front porch. In 1998, the only business on that block was a
00:04:18
combination nightclub and grocery store called Roxy's Club. It's closed now. The original owners,
00:04:24
O.W. and Roxy Shank, were murdered in a 2002 robbery. At that time, the Macon Telegraph noted
00:04:31
that there had been four people killed on Crumpler Avenue in less than a decade.
00:04:36
But in September of 1998, Roxy's was still open, both the club and the grocery. On occasion,
00:04:43
Mrs. Roxy Shank served chicken sandwiches and hamburgers out of the low flat building.
00:04:47
Customers ate inside or out, often underneath the biggest shade tree in the whole neighborhood.
00:04:53
Later, at night, people from surrounding towns might drive in to play pool or dance or hear live music.
00:05:00
We don't know what was happening that afternoon or evening, but we know the club and the store were open.
00:05:06
People were there when it happened. And on Friday afternoon, September 4, 1998, LaSuan de Pate, a senior at Dooley High, was tasked with making a banner for the football game.
00:05:18
Though news sources never stated explicitly, it's likely Laswanda was used to such artistic requests.
00:05:25
As an adult, she's actually become a successful tattoo artist with a particular flair for cover-ups.
00:05:31
In 1998, though, she was 17. She was also an ROTC, and she was on the high school color guard.
00:05:38
They were participating in the game, and Laswanda had to be there early. She'd also promised her younger sister that she'd take her along.
00:05:45
Everyone was looking forward to the beginning of the season. That night, the Dooley County varsity football team would run through her banner and out onto the field.
00:05:55
Maybe it had the desired effect The Bobcats won 36 As we told you it was the start to a good season And some residents of Crumpler Avenue and Unadilla were at that game
00:06:08
In fact, by the time the stragglers got home, they found their neighbors out in the street.
00:06:13
They were searching. A little girl had gone missing. Laswanda Pate herself arrived home around midnight.
00:06:22
She did not know that that missing child was her sister, Shakimia Shirez Pate. She hadn't ended up giving her sister a ride because she couldn't find her.
00:06:31
The neighborhood was friendly and full of family, full of people they'd all known since birth.
00:06:37
Laswanda thought that someone else had given Shakimia, who was called Shirez Pate,
00:06:41
a ride, but no one had, though the neighbors had seen her. Walking on the street, talking to friends, even stopping in for a snack.
00:06:50
She'd been there, seen by dozens, by people outside Roxy's and out on their porches.
00:06:56
So where had she gone? That question has haunted Unadilla and the rest of Dooley County for the past 21 years.
00:07:05
Even now, Shikimia's photo hangs on the sheriff's office wall. And Sheriff Craig Peavy, who's the son of Van Peavy, inherited this case.
00:07:14
And he keeps that picture just where his father did. You heard him at the top of this episode.
00:07:20
Shy Shy's mother, Veronica, wears t-shirts emblazoned with her daughter's pictures to this day.
00:07:26
They all remember, and they all work together. The FBI, GBI, Dooley County Sheriff, and Georgia Governor managed to gather a $20,000 reward in the case.
00:07:38
Miles of the rural county were searched, by plane, by four-wheeler, on foot, even with dogs.
00:07:45
Out-of-state tips were followed. 5K walks were held. Even the most formal GBI agents still call the missing child Shyshy when they talk about her.
00:07:55
The details of her disappearance are well known to them all. The same sheriff's investigator has been working her case for two decades.
00:08:03
But as hard as the sheriff's office pushed, as much as Shikimia Pate's family has worked,
00:08:09
the story hasn't crept over state lines. It's gone as far as Macon, maybe Atlanta, and then it disappears.
00:08:16
There's a missing poster and a few Michigan newspapers, but she had family there, and those ads were arranged by people who love her.
00:08:25
A few notable pieces, BuzzFeed being one outlet, have highlighted Shakimia. And that's all.
00:08:33
So you haven't heard of her, a little girl whose name should be as well-known as Polly Class or J.C. Dugard, Elizabeth Smart.
00:08:41
Her story has never reached you. And if it didn't, how many other people never imagined that street in Unadilla, Georgia?
00:08:50
How many could have helped had they known? A hundred police procedurals and true crime specials have told us that, to examine a crime, one starts at the beginning.
00:09:01
So maybe, if we lay it out for you, our listeners will do just that. If her family is ever to have resolution, someone beyond Dooley has got to care.
00:09:12
And it can happen. At the recording of this episode, a citizen, a librarian, has just identified three of the four victims in the famous Bear Brook case.
00:09:23
Maybe the answers can come for Veronica Pate and her family, too. So, to begin. Shikimia Shirez Pate was born in October of 1989.
00:09:36
She vanished seven weeks shy of her ninth birthday, from a neighborhood where all the children played outside and everyone kept an eye on them.
00:09:46
It was the 1990s when most kids still rode bikes, played in the woods, and walked alone.
00:09:52
They were probably the last generation to do so. In Unadilla, that innocent time would end earlier, after Shikimia's disappearance.
00:10:01
After that, they kept their kids close. Then there was a child murder in another county, and another disappearance, and a series of rapes and attempted rapes of young girls.
00:10:14
In 1998, two different law enforcement agencies worked in Unadilla, the police and the Dooley County Sheriff's Office.
00:10:22
The police force was small, with only three full-time officers, including the chief, to cover a town of 3,000.
00:10:30
According to the Macon Telegraph, they were given three more officers in 2001 after a series of violent rapes and robberies occurred in the Crumpler Avenue area.
00:10:39
But in 1998, they worked with a skeleton crew. The Sheriff's Department was more thoroughly staffed and would remain so
00:10:47
until the Unidella Police Department was finally dissolved in 2008. Another expansion came to Unidella in 2001, too.
00:10:54
$250,000 in state funds meant to improve low-income housing. That included, indeed focused, on Crumpler Avenue.
00:11:04
In 2002, the Macon Telegraph reported that streetlights were added through town and, quote,
00:11:09
city workers also cleared out wooded areas around neighborhoods controlled by the Unadilla Housing Authority.
00:11:17
Understandably, there was a lot of talk of safety that year. But in 1998, Crumpler Avenue residents hadn't yet experienced those improvements.
00:11:24
At that time, the overall U.S. poverty rate was at 11.3 percent. Dooley's poverty rate was at 22 percent.
00:11:33
Una Dilla's poverty rate was at 30 percent, with many of the lowest-income residents residing on and around Crumpler Avenue.
00:11:43
In the years preceding Shaikimiya's disappearance, local newspapers include descriptions of some crimes faced by the larger county.
00:11:50
Mostly small-time stuff, but there were a few major events. Mostly outside Unadilla and Dooley Like in Cordille a man robbed two motels and then took employees as hostages He eventually shot himself
00:12:05
Or just outside Unadilla, there was an officer-involved shooting of a man described as evading arrest.
00:12:11
And then there were those crimes we mentioned at the top, the homicides and assaults and rapes on Crumpler Avenue.
00:12:18
In fact, by 2002, a local woman, Tawny Lawson, told the Macon Telegraph, quote, There's no way I would let my kids play out here alone.
00:12:27
I always sit outside with them and make sure they're safe. You never know what could happen.
00:12:33
But that was after Shikimia. In 1998, the delicate, asthmatic eight-year-old had felt perfectly safe on her street,
00:12:41
playing with her siblings and neighbors, just like 100,000 other little girls in the southeast.
00:12:45
In 1998, all the parents of Unadella viewed their daytime streets as safe for children.
00:12:54
Shaakimiya's aunt, Sue Blackshare, lived a few hours away, but often noted how family-centric the area seemed to her then.
00:13:01
There were always children out playing and running around. So it was kind of like a close-knit area where children would visit each other, houses and back and forth.
00:13:16
And even the adults would always be out sitting on the porch observing the children out playing.
00:13:22
And it was very, very safe. Very safe. It was a loving family community. Shaikemia went to Unadella Elementary, a school of a little over 200 children.
00:13:36
The school actually closed in 2004, so the last available statistics are a little outdated,
00:13:44
but they describe the student body as 78% Black, 15% Hispanic, and 7% White. It was a close-knit
00:13:52
neighborhood school with fewer than 50 children per grade. Nearly every single child in the school
00:13:58
qualified for free or reduced lunch. In 1998, Shy Kimia was in Mrs. Watkins' third grade class,
00:14:05
and the Cordial Dispatch describes her as, quote, standing out academically. And she enjoyed school,
00:14:11
even though she was often tired. In a 2017 BuzzFeed article by Jessica Testa, her mother Veronica remembers that she sometimes had to actually carry her daughter to school.
00:14:23
In fact, Veronica was a fixture at Unidella Elementary. After all, she came to campus at lunchtime to give her daughter a breathing treatment.
00:14:33
Veronica told us that Shachemia was used to medical challenges. She'd already had surgeries and there were plans for more.
00:14:40
Some, like a bladder repair, couldn't happen until she was finished growing. She'd been born with an underdeveloped kidney and combined with her bladder issues,
00:14:48
she was often forced to wear protective undergarments. She also had a large abdominal scar and often wore a leg brace to steady a displaced kneecap.
00:14:59
And Shikemia was on a variety of medications, and sometimes she struggled with her bladder issues.
00:15:04
She remained a happy, friendly, and bright child who loved church, school, and her family.
00:15:10
There are pictures of her personal Bible in that BuzzFeed article. She's filled in the names of all of her loved ones in the front in loopy, girlish handwriting.
00:15:19
Her father, Chris Foster, described her in a 2002 Macon Telegraph article as his best friend.
00:15:26
Though she had medical complications, she still managed an active life. Shikimiya often traveled with her father's extended family to Michigan and even as far as Disneyland in California.
00:15:38
She often spent weekends with her aunts and her cousins. Shikimiya loved to visit, though she was always happy to come home, too.
00:15:47
Her mother's cousin, Sue Blackshear, remembers how much Shikimia loves sleepovers.
00:15:52
In fact, the last time she saw Shikimia, the little girl had asked to come over for a visit.
00:15:56
The last time I talked to her, it really kind of shook me because I had gone over to visit.
00:16:05
And when I got ready to leave, she called me, Auntie, she said, Auntie, I won't go home with you.
00:16:10
And I never see her again, never got to see her again. she loved to smile and laugh
00:16:15
and talk she enjoyed her conversation I couldn't keep up with a conversation with her because she was
00:16:23
bouncing around and talking and talking and talking and talking and I think that's what everybody knew about her
00:16:29
she's going to give you a grown person conversation when you're talking to a she's going to give you a grown up conversation
00:16:39
she's going to ask questions she's going to give advice And how would she know to hear it?
00:16:45
I don't know. But she was just a breath of fresh air. She was loving it. She loved her family.
00:16:55
She made everybody her family. If she didn't mention, she was going to talk to you just like you was family.
00:17:04
She's leaving a lady field. Loving people. In the first week of September 1998, school had only just come back into session.
00:17:15
Shai Kimia was fresh from a trip with her paternal grandfather and cousins. She was glad to be at home. She'd missed her mother.
00:17:22
And she wasn't feeling her best either. Just that Tuesday, she'd been hospitalized for her asthma.
00:17:28
Another surgery was planned in the near future. Still, Shai Shai was happy to be back at school.
00:17:34
She was known fondly by her teachers and by the staff, like her former school counselor, Sandra Ferguson.
00:17:40
We actually got to speak with Sandra, who reached out when she heard that we were covering the case.
00:17:46
Sandra went on to work at several schools in Unadilla, but always remembered Shikimiya.
00:17:51
Because of the eight-year-old's health challenges, Sandra had begun to think of plans that might be enacted to keep her on academic track during hospitalizations and surgeries Sandra was unexpectedly transferred right before Shikimi third grade year the semester that she disappeared
00:18:08
But she's never forgotten her. When we spoke to her, Sandra still had a clear memory of Shikimi.
00:18:14
I remember that Shasha had a lot of childhood illnesses. I don't really recall what all they were.
00:18:23
I know that they were present, but she wouldn't let you know that. I mean, you had to know.
00:18:32
I don't ever remember her complaining. I remember the year before she went missing.
00:18:38
She missed a lot of school because of doctor's appointments or feeling ill. So up until last year, actually, I kept the doctor's excuse of hers
00:18:48
because, like I said, I was the school counselor the year before she went missing.
00:18:55
And I kept that excuse because it was my goal the following year to monitor her attendance,
00:19:02
you know, to see if we could come up with some kind of a plan to ensure that she was not missing a lot of academics.
00:19:09
I didn't know at the time that I was going to be transferred to another school before we could actually put a plan into place.
00:19:16
As a little girl, I can remember that Sha Sha was very energetic and bubbly. Seldom did you see her without a smile.
00:19:26
She had a beautiful smile. And her personality would really shine like when she danced.
00:19:33
She would love to dance. And I can remember she was just a real bubbly, smart, smart little girl.
00:19:39
Her school counselor held on to a doctor's note for 20 years. That's the kind of effect Sha Kimia Pate had on people.
00:19:46
She was sweet and bright and loving, but she was also a girl with common sense. As Veronica told us, she was like every other child who'd been taught by McGruff the Crime Dog.
00:19:58
She knew to stay away from strangers. The stranger danger approach to children's safety was something that we all learned,
00:20:05
with the unspoken promise that these rules would keep us safe. Stay away from the man in the van, the man who says he has a puppy,
00:20:13
the man who doesn't know the secret password. but we were taught that we could still trust friends and family.
00:20:19
And maybe, in a little town like Unadilla, an entire neighborhood could be like family,
00:20:25
especially to a child with so much love to give. It wasn't a perfect town. By now, you know that.
00:20:31
Crumpler Avenue, where Shyshy grew up, had its share of crime. More than its share if you consider the four homicides that decade.
00:20:39
And there was also drug activity, which was gaining steam right around the time of her disappearance.
00:20:44
Law enforcement notes that, besides marijuana, crack cocaine was the primary substance being sold and used.
00:20:51
Unadilla's placement, right on the highway system running from Florida to Atlanta,
00:20:56
meant that the town did see trafficking. By 1998, the infamous Miami Boys were known to the county's law enforcement.
00:21:03
At the time, they were the southeast primary drug runners. Much of the illegal activity on Crumpler Avenue occurred near Roxy's Club,
00:21:11
a natural gathering point. Some of the foot traffic outside the club, though certainly not all, was drug-related,
00:21:17
and it was more pronounced after dark. In 2001, then-Unadilla mayor Sidney Hughes told the Macon Telegraph, quote,
00:21:25
Shank had control of the inside of the club, but outside was another matter. There was always a lot of people gathered in front of the club after it closed,
00:21:32
and that's where trouble would start. When discussing Unadilla's crime statistics, Hughes explained, quote,
00:21:39
For the most part, this is a great small town. We do have our share of problems, but that happens in any town.
00:21:46
At the time of that article's writing, Shai Kimia's disappearance was three years unsolved.
00:21:52
By all accounts, September 4th, 1998 was a normal day. Shai Shai's elementary was just behind her duplex,
00:22:00
so that afternoon she made the short walk home. She was surrounded by other kids in the neighborhood.
00:22:05
Grownups sat out on their porches. Others were already at Roxy's, in the store or the club or playing dominoes outside.
00:22:13
On Fridays, Mrs. Roxy Crosby cooked chicken and hamburgers, and half the neighborhood would eventually make it over to eat.
00:22:20
School let out at 3.30, so Shikimia arrived home just about the same time as her older siblings.
00:22:26
The buses had to go to Viena first to pick up middle schoolers and high schoolers,
00:22:30
so the elementary day actually ran later than in larger districts. Shaikimiya had last seen her mother, Veronica, at lunchtime when she had her breathing treatment at school.
00:22:41
Everything had been fine then. Routine. It was the beginning of Labor Day weekend, so Shaikimiya could look forward to three days off school.
00:22:50
And her celebration was to begin with the Dooley-Turner football game. Shyshy was dressed for the occasion.
00:22:57
She wore a neon green Atlanta Braves jersey, the kind that has snap buttons up the front,
00:23:03
and jeans and white case-with sneakers. At nearly nine years old, Shikimiya was small for her age, about four foot, four inches, and 59 pounds.
00:23:13
That day, she wore her hair in shoulder-length braids. The braids framing her face were loosely curled.
00:23:20
Her hair was black and her eyes were brown. She had a medium brown complexion and dimples that appeared when she smiled.
00:23:26
When it came time for Laswanda to leave for the game, she couldn't find Shy Kimia in the house.
00:23:32
That wasn't unusual. With so many family and friends leaving nearby, children often spent their afternoons visiting this aunt or that cousin or playing in another yard.
00:23:43
Laswanda needed to gas up the car, so she decided to do that first, see if she could spot Shy, and then swing back by and check for her sister.
00:23:51
Some sources, both individuals and media, describe Laswanda as picking up a friend, but when we spoke with her, she specified she left a guest.
00:24:01
The sheriff's incident report describes her as seeing Shikimi on the street, up near the corner of Crumpler and West Streets.
00:24:08
Liswanda waved to her younger sister and planned to swing right back and get her after filling up the car.
00:24:13
But when she came back down Crumpler, her sister wasn't on the corner. She didn't see her anywhere else in the neighborhood either.
00:24:20
But the banner still needed to be delivered. The color guard was waiting. So at that point, Liswanda called her mother.
00:24:27
After a day full of GED classes and receptionist training, Veronica had headed to get her hair done at Faye's Beauty Parlor in Vienna.
00:24:36
That's where Laswanda reached her. So my daughter called and said that she was heading to the game and she didn't see Shy, which is Laswanda.
00:24:45
So I told, I called one of my friends and asked her since she stayed right up the street from me, would she watch out for it?
00:24:52
After Laswanda's call to Veronica, the timeline gets a little fuzzy. Shikemia was variously seen between 6 and 8.30, but not by Tara Kenshin's, the friend Veronica had asked to keep an eye out.
00:25:05
Shikemia may not have even known that she'd missed a ride with Laswanda. She could have continued to wait, albeit at different houses.
00:25:13
Here are the sightings as we know them, in the most linear order they can be arranged.
00:25:19
Shikemia's aunt, Regina Manning, who's also Veronica's sister, reported seeing her niece sometime before nightfall.
00:25:25
To the family's knowledge, Regina was the last relation to actually speak to Shai Shai.
00:25:31
I remember seeing her that Friday evening. She had come to my mom's house and she was sitting on the step and she told me that she was going back home and waiting for Swanda to come get her to go to the game.
00:25:43
Because I tried to get her to stay. And she said, no, because Swanda's not going to go in the warm-matter.
00:25:46
So I said, well, okay. So I watched her walk back because I could see where she was going from my house.
00:25:51
And so I watched her go there. And then another neighbor, a friend of Veronica's named Felicia, said she saw the little girl.
00:26:00
We guess this occurred after Regina's sighting because it seems like Shikemia was no longer waiting for a ride from her sister.
00:26:07
Veronica actually remembers hearing the story later in the night when the panic had already set in.
00:26:12
She said, well, she did ask me to take her to the game, but I told her I had just got out of work.
00:26:16
And she said, I told her that if I came back and she went on towards your house.
00:26:22
So to clarify, Tanya had offered to take Shikemia if she, that is, Tanya, left the house again.
00:26:34
But she didn't have the chance. At least one neighbor reported seeing her walking with a few other girls.
00:26:41
And another few neighbors said they'd seen her alone, both near her own house and on the corner.
00:26:46
Which occurred first, second, third? It's not entirely clear. A family, the Atkinsons, spotted Shai near the Roxy.
00:26:56
They called her over because they wanted to check out her bright green Braves jersey,
00:27:00
and she stayed on for a few minutes to play with her new baby. She was also spotted by a local man, Ira Robertson, who'd been driving by.
00:27:09
At that point, she was alone and not in any obvious distress. He told us that he told Shai Kemia to get on home, and then he went on his way to Roxy's.
00:27:17
And then there was Keith Caldwell and his partner, Sharon, who also lived on Crumpler.
00:27:24
They reported seeing Shikimia in the early evening too We told this occurred at approximately 6 p When we spoke to Veronica and her sisters Regina and Rotunda they thought it was possible that Keith and Sharon were
00:27:37
actually the last people to speak to or see Shaquemia. Well, Keith called, I think, probably was the last one to talk to him because they questioned
00:27:45
him several times because he had said, remember, he said he had took her to his house and gave
00:27:49
her some hot dogs. You know, he used to stay right up the street. Yeah, when she went over to Cheryl, she was over to their house.
00:27:57
She went on Cheryl, caught up. She was over to Cheryl's house with the little girl, and Cheryl had gave her two hot dogs because she said she was waiting on Swander.
00:28:05
But, yeah, I forgot about Cheryl. But, you know, they questioned them. They went through their house.
00:28:11
They questioned Keith. Yeah. Keith was the one that questioned him several times.
00:28:15
He lives here in Perry. Well, he used to live in the project right up front back then.
00:28:20
Two dollars up from me. This sighting wasn't immediately known. In our second interview, Veronica recalled that Sharon and Keith never directly told her of the visit.
00:28:31
They were both her cousins, though unrelated to each other. And to our knowledge, this sighting only became part of the timeline after Sharon spoke with the sheriff's department.
00:28:41
When we spoke to Sharon, she told us that she'd come home from work that day, loaded down with party supplies for her daughter.
00:28:48
Hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, and she'd planned on having two little neighbor girls over to celebrate.
00:28:55
Sharon told us that the night Shy went missing, Shy had unexpectedly arrived with those same neighbor girls,
00:29:00
and Sharon had fed her along with them, though she couldn't remember if she'd actually given the girl a hot dog or a hamburger or something else.
00:29:08
She did remember, though, that Shy Kimia had come in their house. That's a sure thing.
00:29:13
She also recalled Shy Shy leaving their house in search of her sister. This makes it even harder to understand the event in the context of the larger timeline.
00:29:23
Had Shikimiya gone from waiting for her sister, to asking for a ride, to waiting again?
00:29:30
Time passed. When Veronica made it home from Vienna, she was worried, but not panicked, not yet.
00:29:38
She hoped Shishai had ended up catching a ride to the game. It was certainly possible.
00:29:43
There were a dozen people on that street who would have happily given her a ride had she happened upon them.
00:29:49
Though Laswanda hadn't come home yet, Veronica wasn't willing to wait and see if Shaikimiya was with her.
00:29:54
Instead, she began to search in earnest. As you probably know, in 1998, most people didn't have cell phones,
00:30:02
so there was no way to check except through landline calls and personal visits. Veronica checked in with her neighbor, Tara Kinchins.
00:30:10
No Shaikimiya. Then she began to speak to other neighbors, and they began to help her look for her child.
00:30:16
This was mostly done door to door. Each knock held the expectation that Shikimia might be on the inside,
00:30:23
sitting on the couch with her friends, smiling to see her mother. But there was nothing.
00:30:29
One by one, other friends and family returned from the football game. None of them had given her a ride.
00:30:35
When Laswanda arrived home at approximately midnight, her sister wasn't with her.
00:30:39
That's when the real fear set in. Regina, Shakimi's aunt, remembers the late night phone calls they made.
00:30:46
And so I thought Swan had took her to the game until 1230 that night when Veronica called me
00:30:52
and told me, she called me, she asked me, what's shy with me? And I said no I said you mean you don know where shy at So then I got up and I went to her house and then that when we started going everywhere you know frantically and stuff Because at that time in the little neighborhood we had
00:31:09
it was not uncommon for kids to go to each other's house and stuff because nothing like that had ever happened.
00:31:16
So we just figured somebody, one of the other neighbors had, you know, and it was just about finding out who.
00:31:23
So y'all had been going around, like, knocking on neighbors' doors? Yeah, calling each other because we were so close and everybody knew each other and it wasn't, you know,
00:31:33
uncommon for her to be the her house or my house or the next door neighbor house.
00:31:38
Because that's just what type of community we had. That's why it's so unbelievable that someone just came in and just snatched her from us and nobody knows anything.
00:31:49
Because that's the kind of city we come from. So it's just hard to believe that nobody don't know.
00:31:56
Something. This is strange and unbelievable to me. I just can't see that because I'm saying our children never.
00:32:06
I mean, we have never had to worry about our children because we know somebody in the neighborhood will go see to them.
00:32:15
Rotonda Freeman, another aunt of Shakimia's, found the lack of any clear information to be equally strange.
00:32:21
She'd also grown up in the neighborhood, and though she was living in Michigan at the time that her niece disappeared,
00:32:27
she knew how Crumpler Avenue functioned, that Veronica's house was just across from the Roxy Club,
00:32:33
and that dozens of people would have been outside. In fact, she, Veronica, and Regina discussed that on our very first visit.
00:32:40
In that specific area, there was always somebody outside. Always. It was a big tree right across the street.
00:32:49
And people would just sit under that tree. After an exhaustive search of Crumpler Avenue,
00:32:55
Veronica called the Unadilla Police Department. Family members took turns waiting on Veronica's porch with the light on
00:33:01
in case Shakimia came home or the police pulled up. More phone calls were made, and people from other neighborhoods joined in the impromptu search party.
00:33:10
Veronica called the Unadilla Police Department again. And again. And then her friends and neighbors began to call the police department.
00:33:19
The family's recollection is that it actually took two or three hours for an officer to finally arrive on scene.
00:33:26
Since the police department is long since dissolved, we can't verify that through official records.
00:33:37
On September 5th, 1998, which was the next morning and a Saturday, Sheriff's investigator Randy Lamberth arrived at work.
00:33:45
It was about 10.30 a.m., and it's likely that Randy wasn't expecting any major issues.
00:33:52
If something had gone down overnight, he would have gotten a call at home. So when he walked in and greeted the dispatcher, he was taken aback to hear a question.
00:34:01
And that question was something along the lines of, Did you find that little girl?
00:34:06
What little girl? Randy asked. And then he was invited into the Pate family's nightmare.
00:34:12
because, as he would later discover, no missing persons report had been filed on Shaikimia Shirez Pate.
00:34:20
Because when the Unadilla Police Department officer finally responded to the frantic calls
00:34:25
from Crumpler Avenue, he had advised Veronica that she must wait 24 hours before filing a police report And since no report had been filed the sheriff department had not been informed While Veronica friends and neighbors searched in the dark
00:34:41
calling out for Shikimia, the trail went 14 hours cold. Investigator Lamberth couldn't get that time back.
00:34:49
Immediately, he called Sheriff Van Peavey. Immediately, the sheriff contacted the GBI.
00:34:56
They'd arrive at Veronica's apartment very soon afterward to file the first incident report that exists on this case,
00:35:03
and to begin an exhaustive search that has carried on for decades. But they weren't the first visitors.
00:35:10
Though the Unadilla police officer had not reported Shakimia missing, he had called in another organization.
00:35:16
He didn't do anything. He didn't even report it. The next morning, what he did was he called defects on me.
00:35:22
So the defects later came, and she was like, what's going on? I was like, I can't find my daughter.
00:35:27
And she was like, so ain't nobody been to help you? I was like, no. Roughly 14 hours. That's enough time to make it to Detroit, to New York City, to Dallas, to 100 other cities by car.
00:35:41
And Shikimia must have left Crumpler Avenue by car. It was another five years before the first Amber Alert would be issued in Georgia, which our state actually calls a Levi's call.
00:35:52
So there was no way to send out an alarm in every direction, to catch drivers on highways in dozens of states.
00:36:00
No one knew to look for a little girl in a neon green jersey. In those 14 hours, Shy Kimia and whoever coaxed her from Crumpler Avenue and into their vehicle, they were in the wind.
00:36:14
This season on the Fall Line, we explore the GBI and county sheriff's extensive efforts to find Shy Kimia,
00:36:21
and how their investigators have continued to this day. We'll also look at other cases in the area, possible suspects,
00:36:28
and how the national media should have and still could aid in this case. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Shikimiya Pate,
00:36:37
you may report it, even anonymously, to the GBI or the Dooley County Sheriff's Office.
00:36:43
Call 1-800-597-TIPS or call 229-645-0930. There is now a $20,000 reward in her case.
00:36:54
If you have a case suggestion for The Fall Line, please visit our website and use the submission form.
00:37:00
You can find us at thefalllinepodcast.com, at Fall Line Podcast on Instagram and Twitter, and The Fall Line Podcast on Facebook.
00:37:08
Special thanks go out to Angie Dodd for her generous support. Our research assistants are Haley Gray, Kim Fritz, and Brooke Floyd.
00:37:18
Content advisors are Brandi Williams and Liv Fallon. Original music by RJR, Allison McCallum assisted with administrative duties.
00:37:27
And a special thanks to our new producer, Maura Curry, who also engineered and mastered these episodes.
00:37:33
Find our merch in the Exactly Right Pod Swag store. A portion of our proceeds are donated to support the work of the DNA Doe Project.
00:37:41
Next week, the investigation. We hope you'll join us then. Thank you.