DNA testing shows Dallas girl is not Teekah Lewis
DNA testing has proven that a Dallas girl is not Teekah Lewis, who disappeared from a Tacoma bowling alley seven years ago when she was two-years-old.
The FBI said today that the Dallas girl's DNA did not match that of Teekah's family.
The news was devastating to the missing girl's family.
"It's another blow to the whole family," said Teekah's mother, Theresa English. "We're back to square one. I'll never give up on my baby girl. I don't care it takes me 10, 20 years. I'm not giving up."
Teekah disappeared from a bowling alley during a family outing in 1999 and an intensive search yielded no sign of the girl. Family members were given polygraphs and eliminated as potential suspects, police said.
Since then, dozens of detectives have worked the case, thousands of dollars in reward money has been raised and Teekah has been featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted" at least four times. Her picture and the story of her disappearance are featured on the Internet site for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In April, Lewis was contacted by her family's private investigator who believed he might have found Teekah living with a woman in Dallas.
FBI investigators examined and interviewed the child and concluded that while she was a near look-alike, she was not Teekah, an FBI spokeswoman said.
The DNA testing was done to remove any doubt about the girl's identity.