12/17/13- Jacque Reid goes “Inside Her Story” with Tenesha Patrick, the sister of missing 30-year-old Teleka Patrick.
Patrick, a medical resident in psychiatry at the WMU School of Medicine, was last seen on December 5, 2013 in the parking lot of Borgess Medical Center in Downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her 1997 gold Lexus was found in a ditch in Indiana.
The circumstances surrounding Patrick’s disappearance are still unclear and have left her family searching for answers. For instance, on the last night she was seen, Patrick attempted to check in at a Radisson Plaza Hotel but after being denied, she hitched a ride with the hotel’s courtesy van.
Unfortunately, this is only one of the many unknowns involving her disappearance. Find out what else Tenesha and her family are trying to find out below in the family’s first national interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show.
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JACQUE REID: Good morning, Skip and Sybil, and J. Listen social media is on fire right now with the case of Teleka Patrick. But this is the family’s first national interview here on the TJMS. Teleka is the missing 30-year-old woman who was last seen on December the 5th in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she was working as a medical resident. I’m going inside her story with Teleka’s sister Tenesha Patrick who has temporarily relocated to Kalamazoo with her parents and other family and friends in an effort to find her sister. Good morning, Tenesha.
TENESHA PATRICK: Good morning.
JACQUE REID: Let me ask you first, any new developments? I know I spoke with you and your family last night. Anything new this morning?
TENESHA PATRICK: No, there hasn’t been any new updates or any new developments.
JACQUE REID: Okay. Let’s talk about the case. How did you and your family first learn that Teleka was missing.
TENESHA PATRICK: On Friday we got a call from her school saying that she hadn’t reported to work that day and when it 24 hours since the last time they talked to her they were going to file a missing person report. And so, you know, from that moment on it’s just been this crazy nightmare.
JACQUE REID: At what point did you know something was wrong? Right when you got that phone call? I mean based on her personality?
TENESHA PATRICK: Yeah, I mean, Teleka is not the type of person who just kind of up and, you know, disappears for an extended period of time. So from that moment I was worried, but I said, oh, well, maybe, you know, maybe she’ll respond. Maybe, I don’t know, but as this has been going on, you know, all of my maybes have not, you know, led anywhere. Because she hasn’t, she’s nowhere to be found.
SYBIL WILKES: So she is a doctor.
TENESHA PATRICK: Yes.
SYBIL WILKES: And she’s doing her residency. And she asked for a ride, or needed a ride back to her car?
TENESHA PATRICK: So the information that we have is that she was, she asked for a ride back to the hospital from the Radisson in downtown Kalamazoo.
JACQUE REID: Tenesha, let me just back up before you answer that question and just give the listeners a little bit more information. Now police say, Sybil, that she tried to check into a hotel, the Radisson, and she had a place in Kalamazoo, she had lived there since June, but she wasn’t able to check into the hotel, according to police, and she managed to hitch a ride from a hotel van courtesy driver. So, Tenesha, did they take her back to the hospital where her car was parked?
TENESHA PATRICK: Yes. Yes, and you know, unfortunately we don’t have the video of that because the surveillance video from the hospital was down that night. But, you know, and that was our dead stop until the Indiana police and the Michigan police were able to connect that her car was found later that night on I-94 in Indiana.
JACQUE REID: Right, it was found in a ditch. And her cellphone wasn’t in the car. You say she left her cellphone at the hospital.
TENESHA PATRICK: Yes.
JACQUE REID: And a bloodhound that they brought to the scene, you guys, went from the car to the highway and then lost the scent. Tenesha, do you think someone picked her up?
TENESHA PATRICK: I mean I have no idea. That is what I’m thinking because, you know, bloodhounds can track scents for miles.
JACQUE REID: Right.
TENESHA PATRICK: If it couldn’t pick up her scent then, you know, it’s improbable that she walked off. So why would she get into a car? Why would – was she meeting up with someone? Did someone grab her? You know, all of those are questions that we have, that we still haven’t been able to get answers to.
JACQUE REID: She was new to the area, had she made friends?
TENESHA PATRICK: So, she had, you know, her residency friends. The program was pretty intense. So you’re in the hospital and then you go home, you sleep, and then you go back to the hospital. And maybe, you know, you get to a Zumba class, you know, she loved her Zumba class. And maybe you get to church, you know, on the weekends, every once in a while, and then you go back to the hospital. So most of her friends in the area were her residency friends.
SYBIL WILKES: Work related.
TENESHA PATRICK: Some people from the local church and, you know, people, a couple of people that she had met through Zumba.
JACQUE REID: Now I know you all had a prayer vigil there.
TENESHA PATRICK: Yeah.
JACQUE REID: And you’re there with your mother and father, I spoke with you and your mom last night, no doubt dealing with the heartbreaking fear that comes when a loved one goes missing, all of you, how are you all coping with this? Because I know you all have relocated to Kalamazoo in order to search for Teleka.
TENESHA PATRICK: So, I mean, right now we’re relying on the, our faith in God, and the kindness of people here. You know we’ve met some wonderful people who just speak so highly of Teleka, and just speak how wonderful of a blessing she’s been in their life. And they’ve been just so helpful in helping us with our living arrangements, with food. And we’re, you know, we are trying to just stay strong. We have acquired a private investigator, and we have a gofundme.com site. Gofundme.com/findteleka. And that is helping to pay for the private investigator as well as a reward if there is any tip that leads to her being found.
JACQUE REID: Yeah, because a lot of people don’t realize, Skip and Sybil, and J, the cost to the families, you know, they’ve relocated to Michigan, they’re staying in hotels, they’re not working because they’re there, they hired a private investigator, the costs add up.
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For more information or to contribute to the family’s search for Teleka, visit here.
