A shocking update has ended the mystery of a missing child and kidnapping case, as a teenager who disappeared from Chicago was found years later, having been held captive all this time, according to NBC 5 Investigates.
The kidnapping happened outside of a Chicago movie theatre on June 23, 2022, according to law enforcement. The teenage victim had taken an Uber from Milwaukee to Chicago to meet a man who had arranged the ride for her, a man she’d been communicating with online for several years.
Investigators said he finally convinced the minor girl to meet up, and since that day in Chicago, he has been holding her captive in Virginia.
“Her dad called me and was like, ‘Her phone’s going to voicemail.’ I knew immediately it was just off…”
The parents of 15-year-old Joniah Walker said they knew a switched off cell phone was the key clue that their daughter was in danger that day in 2022.
The teenager became a well-publicized missing person, her family and friends begging for help and criticizing Milwaukee police for moving too slowly. They went on local TV, pointing to a doorbell cam video of the last time the teenager was seen as evidence of a sloppy investigation.
“Why didn’t the police go knock on people’s doors? Like everybody on that block has a Ring camera. We got the videos, not the police,” one relative said.
“No one interviewed me, no one sat me down. It was us versus the police stations with a glass between us,” stated another.
Four years later, Walker, now 19 years old, has been found 730 miles away in a small frame home in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Police said she’d been sexually and physically abused while being held as a captive by 37-year-old Owen Anderson. She was held ever since that day outside the Chicago movie theatre where he had arranged to meet her following a lengthy online recruitment. Records state Anderson disposed of her cell phone – and a burner phone he’d sent her to use – in a sidewalk trash can.
A few days ago, Milwaukee County authorities filed kidnapping and child abduction charges against Anderson, who has yet to appear in Wisconsin court and is still in custody in Virginia.
Milwaukee police declined NBC 5 Investigates’ request to discuss the alleged kidnapping, or answer questions about their investigation. An officer on the case had previously said they had no indication the teenager had been targeted by an organized abduction ring.
“I can assure you we have no reason to believe that she was involved in human trafficking,” Milwaukee police officer Jamie Sromalla told NBC affiliate WTMJ in 2025.
In an email to NBC Chicago on Wednesday, a Milwaukee police official reiterated that position, saying that it would be misleading to report the teenage girl had been a victim of human trafficking. However, the charges clearly lay out that authorities say she was the victim of a kidnapping, child abduction and sexual abuse while being held against her will for years.
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