Where is Janteyl Johnson?

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Where is Janteyl?

By: Claudia Rivero

On Feb. 3, 2010 life forever changed for Prennis and Kyma Johnson of Newark, Delaware. Their 15-year-old daughter Janteyl, who was five months pregnant, vanished. Never did they imagine their youngest daughter would be gone this long. Janteyl's story caught my attention for many reasons. Not only because she was pregnant when she mysteriously disappeared, but also because of the lack of media interest in the case. Why didn't Janteyl make the top of every newscast or the front page of the paper? ​​What makes Janteyl different from other high-profile cases of missing pregnant women? People don't just disappear. 

​February 3, 2010

It was a cold February morning. As usual Kyma drove Janteyl and her brother Prennis Jr. to school. A few hours later, Janteyl called her mom to let her know she wasn’t feeling good and was going home early. By all accounts it appears that Janteyl did make it to the family's apartment on Winterhaven Drive. That afternoon Prennis Jr. was supposed to pick her up to meet their family at church, but when he arrived Janteyl was nowhere to be found. “I didn’t think much of it at first, I just figured she was with her friends,” Prennis told me in an interview for the upcoming short documentary Where is Janteyl.

​A few hours passed and still no one could get ahold of Janteyl, that's when Kyma contacted the New Castle County Police. Days gave way to weeks, months and now six years later Janteyl is still missing. The New Castle County police remain tight-lipped about the case, and so far there have been no arrests, no updates, nothing. 

​The Last Phone Call

According to the Johnson’s, the last phone call made to Janteyl’s phone the day she disappeared came from the older man she identified as her boyfriend and the father of her baby. The Johnson family believes that he knows what happened to Janteyl. Sources tell me he has not been cooperative with investigators. I covered Janteyl’s disappearance for NBC10 in Philadelphia in 2010 and for whatever reason the story did not generate much media interest at the local or national level, even though other similar cases have received wall to wall coverage. When I interviewed NCCPD in 2010, they told me that things “didn’t look good” and still Janteyl went unnoticed. The Johnson family believes part of the reason is because their daughter was immediately labeled a runaway.

​I spoke about Janteyl’s case with Robert Lowery Jr, Vice President of the Missing Children Division at the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. Lowery explains that even though the majority of missing children are runaways, the center no longer labels them as such because the public tends to look the other way. “We consider our children endangered runaways, but we’re careful with that classification because the public can’t be desensitized," Lowery said. "If they see it’s a runaway they assume it was a behavioral issue or they left on their own, but in many cases that’s not at all what’s going on."

​Like the Johnsons, Lowery also believes the father of Janteyl’s baby knows more: “Police of course have looked into a number of leads regarding that individual, and I’m certain if they can locate him that would be very important for him to give us information about where Janteyl may be.” ​

​There's also the possibility that Janteyl left with OR was lured by someone else.

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​Never Give Up Hope

According to statistics from the NCMEC, approximately 800,000 kids are reported missing in the United States every year, that’s roughly 2,000 children a day. According to Lowery, 78 percent are runaways. The good news is that most kids are found and reunited with their families, but some never come home. In Janteyl’s case Lowery believes she's in danger:

​“We would think that after this much time she would have been in some kind of contact with mom if she were able to, but we can’t assume the worst has happened until we know, and I caution that because we see so many cases like Cleveland with the three women, in California with Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Sean Hornbeck.”

​The Johnsons agree, they believe that Janteyl is out there somewhere, and they urge anyone with information about their daughter and grandchild to please come forward. 

For more information and stories about Janteyl Johnson please visit  www.whereisjanteyl.com .  
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