A Milwaukee teenager who vanished in 2022 after leaving home with a backpack has been located years later, and according to investigators, she was held captive hundreds of miles away for nearly four years.
Joniah Walker, who was 15 at the time of her disappearance, was found in May 2026, according to a spokesperson for the Milwaukee Police Department. Her mother, Tanesha Howard, confirmed the development to USA TODAY on June 30, 2026, but declined further comment.
Walker’s mysterious disappearance began on June 23, 2022, when she was last seen leaving her mother’s home on the north side of Milwaukee.
A neighbor’s doorbell camera captured her at around 2:30 p.m., walking away with a large backpack, as we previously reported here.
The footage was recorded roughly 90 minutes before her father arrived to take her to obtain a work permit, but he couldn't find her.
Phone records later showed that Walker tried to call her therapist at 3:27 p.m. that same day, however, she later sent a text message that evening stating she had run away from home.
According to her mother, Walker had a documented history of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, at the time. However, her parents said they became alarmed when her phone stopped working.
“Her dad called me and was like, ‘Her phone’s going to voicemail.’ I knew immediately it was just off…” a family member recalled.
In the days that followed, her parents reported her missing and began searching for answers, as the case drew increasing public attention. Her disappearance became widely discussed amid concerns over missing and murdered Black women and girls in Wisconsin.
Family members also criticized the early stages of the investigation, saying they believed police did not act quickly enough.
“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. Another added, “No one interviewed me, no one sat me down. It was us versus the police stations with a glass between us.”
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| Joniah Walker’s final Sighting before disappearance |
Since the beginning of the missing person investigation, Walker’s mother consistently maintained that her daughter had been lured away online.
“Someone told her to do this,” Howard said in a 2024 interview with News Nation. “I know in my heart that’s what happened to her, she was taken by someone that I don’t know,” she added.
According to law enforcement, that's exactly what happened after she met a stranger online. The teenager reportedly traveled from Milwaukee to Chicago by Uber on the same day she disappeared, after communicating online for several years with a man she didn't know.
Investigators said the man arranged the ride, and after the two met outside a movie theater in Chicago on June 23, 2022, Walker was kidnapped.
She was reportedly taken to Blacksburg, Virginia, approximately 730 miles from Milwaukee, where she was held inside a small home and held against her will. She remained there until she was located in 2026, by which time she was 19 years old.
The suspect who kept Walker captive for the entire period following their meeting in Chicago has been identified as 37-year-old Owen Anderson.
After they met, Anderson disposed of Walker’s personal phone as well as a burner phone he had provided her, by throwing both into a sidewalk trash can, shortly after the abduction. Authorities also say that Walker was subjected to sexual and physical abuse during her captivity.
Milwaukee County authorities have since filed kidnapping and child abduction charges against Anderson. As of the latest reports, he remains in custody in Virginia and has not yet appeared in a Wisconsin court.
Milwaukee police declined to provide additional details about the investigation, and they have not publicly detailed how she was ultimately located.
However, in earlier statements, officials said they had no indication the case involved a broader trafficking network. “I can assure you we have no reason to believe that she was involved in human trafficking,” Officer Jamie Sromalla said in 2025.
In a follow-up email to NBC Chicago, a Milwaukee police official reiterated that position, stating it would be misleading to describe the case as human trafficking. However, charging documents allege that Walker was kidnapped, held against her will, and abused over a period of several years.
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