A Texas Child Is Missing After Her Father Allegedly ‘Gave’ Her To Someone At A Convenience Store

Nobody has seen Ameera Deadrick since 2016, and her mother, Tiara McWilliams, believes she is dead.

According to Fox 26 in Houston, Texas, Tiara McWilliams fled Texas with Ameera when she was a newborn in 2008, and the two headed north to Wisconsin. The split was hostile; McWilliams told reporters that Ameera’s father, Anthony Deadrick, was abusive to her and promised he’d make her pay for taking Ameera from him.

In time, McWilliams began allowing Deadrick to speak with their daughter, and she allowed Ameera to spend the summer of 2013 with Deadrick and his girlfriend, LaShandra Spikes, in Houston.

At the end of the summer, Deadrick refused to let Ameera leave with McWilliams, so McWilliams called the police. Because there was no formal custody agreement in place, the authorities declined to intervene and McWilliams returned to Wisconsin without her daughter.

With the tables turned, it was McWilliams who had periodic conversations with her daughter as Deadrick and Spikes cared for her. Eventually, Deadrick’s phone number was disconnected and he stopped answering all of McWilliams’ attempts at communication when Ameera was six years old.

In 2017, McWilliams learned that Deadrick was in a Houston jail and that nobody had seen her daughter since the fall of 2016, around her eighth birthday and before Deadrick was arrested.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Deadrick told authorities he left Ameera with a woman named 'Tootie', whom he met at a convenience store near Waco.

He reportedly told authorities that he was going to go get Ameera once he was out of jail. That woman, whose first name may have been Linda, could not be located nor could she even be confirmed to exist — when authorities went to her alleged address, they learned that nobody by that name lived there.

There were also no records that Ameera had ever been enrolled in school despite the fact that she likely would have started kindergarten in the fall of 2013.

McWilliams has relocated to Texas where she continues to search for clues in her daughter’s disappearance. Deadrick is now out of jail but has provided no further information about what may have happened to Ameera, and the girl remains missing.

Cadaver dogs were used to search the home where Deadrick lived prior to his incarceration, but the search turned up nothing.

If Ameera is still alive, she is 14 years old and will celebrate her 15th birthday on Oct. 1, 2023. Anyone with information about her disappearance should call the Houston Police Department at 713-884-3131 or the Waco Police Department at 254-750-7500.