30-year-old Ebonee Shanetta Spears is a single mother who lived with her daughter in the 1300 block of Brooklyn Lane in Wilmington, North Carolina. Ebonee, who was diagnosed with lupus in 2015, was recently prescribed a medication her family said made her confused and paranoid, The Charley Project reports.
On the evening of January 14, 2016, Ebonee’s parents, Alfonso and Harriet, met her in the parking lot of the local police station. Ebonee was acting paranoid and disoriented. Her parents wanted her to be committed to a psychiatric hospital, and an ambulance was called. The paramedics, however, did not take Ebonee to the hospital, and she left with her parents.
The next day, on January 15, 2016, Ebonee had breakfast with her parents at their home. They felt Ebonee was herself that day and let her go home. They even planned to have dinner together that evening, but around 7:00 pm, Ebonee called her parents and told them she had eaten already and decided to stay home, according to the Charley Project. That is the last phone call made on Ebonee’s cell phone.
Between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm the same evening, Ebonee flagged down a Boys & Girls Club van on Nixon Street. The driver said Ebonee seemed paranoid and said someone was following her, The Charley Project reports. The driver took her to the Boys & Girls Club where she talked with a social worker. Ebonee left the club and walked a few blocks to the police station on Bess Street.
Around 8:00 pm, she walked into the station and asked to use a payphone. An officer directed her to a phone on the wall, but she seemed unable to use it. In a five-minute video released by Wilmington PD, Ebonee can be seen talking with officers, but there is no audio.
Alphonso, Ebonee’s father, has viewed the footage from the police station, reports WECT 6.
“From what I’ve seen on that film over and over again she was asking for help, and they turned their back on my daughter,” he told WECT 6. “I couldn’t hear the audio, but I could see my daughter, I know my daughter. I know she was asking for help. I know she was.”
A neighbor said Ebonee asked him for a cigarette around 10:45 pm. When he refused to give it to her, she said she would walk to a nearby store.
Around 11:00 pm, Ebonee’s boyfriend arrived at her apartment and let himself in. Her car was outside, and her purse was in the apartment. Ebonee and her cell phone were gone, and each time he called her phone, it went straight to voicemail. After two hours, her boyfriend called her parents. Alphonso and Harriet reported her missing the next day. Ebonee Shanetta Spears has never been found.
There is currently a $5,000 reward in her case.
“I just don’t want Ebonee to be a cold case sitting in a box. I want it to continue to be worked on,” said her mother, Harriet Rivers, reports WECT 6.
Ebonee Shanetta Spears was 5’7”-5’8” and weighed 140-150 pounds when she vanished. Please contact the Wilmington PD with any information at 910-343-3686.
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