She was Shy-Shai to everyone who knew her. Full name, Shikemia Pate. The day was September fourth, 1998. Shy-shai was only eight. She had just started third grade. The little town she lived in was Unadilla, Georgia. And that Friday, a Southern summer wasn't close to ending. It would be 90 degrees and muggy. That morning, Shai Shai's mom, Veronica, walked her to school. Unadilla Elementary was just a couple of blocks away. And when they got there, Veronica says she told her youngest daughter what she always had.

I love her .The plan was for me to bring her with me to the game. So, yeah, she was excited about going.That's Lasswanda Hickey, Shai Shai's sister. She was 17 at the time with three younger siblings, including Shai Shai, the baby. Through the eyes of teenage Lashwanda, Shai was a typical little sister.Pesty, aggravating. And then there's also the side that looks up to you and wants to be like you and want to go where you go and do what you do.Well, Swanda was in junior ROTC then and part of the color guard that brought out the flags at football games. That afternoon, she decided to take a nap to rest up before the game. Before she dozed off, she pulled a big sister move.I may have said to her that I wasn't going to take her. I'm pretty sure I said, You're not going. But it was jokes.Shai Shai went outside to play, and when LaSwanda woke up around 6:00, she went to put gas in the car. As she drove, she saw Shai Shai on a neighbor's front porch.I want to say she tried to flag me down. I'm not 100% sure if she tried to stop me or not, but I know I didn't stop. I kept going. And I got gas. And when I came back around to the house where I saw her on the porch to pick her up, they said she had left walking up the street.Laswanda drove up the street looking for Shoshai, but didn't see her. So she called her mom, Veronica, who wasn't home yet.I had to be at the game by 7:30. And so she said, Well, It's fine. She probably at somebody house, a friend's house, and we'll get her when we come back.In 1998, Unadilla's population barely top 1,600, and Crumpler Avenue, where Shoshai lived, was the neighborhood everyone knew everyone. Veronica and LaSwanda say it wasn't unusual for kids to end up at a neighbor's house playing with friends or even cousins. Did you ever worry about her going outside in that neighborhood?No, I didn't.People knew her. She knew them.She knew them. Everybody knew everybody. Kids be out riding their bicycle, skating and everything.And you thought she was safe?Yes.Veronica recalls getting home around 7:45 five or so. And when Shoshai wasn't there, she says at first she wasn't that worried. She figured her daughter was at her friend's house, so she started making calls. But Shoshai didn't turn up. And then When Leswanda came home after the game and there was still no sign of her little sister, that's when it became clear something was seriously wrong. You call the police? Yes. Which is what any parent would do in that situation. And the police say, We have to wait 24 hours?Yes.I'm guessing you said to them, She's eight years old. Why do we have to wait 24 hours?Yes.What did they say?He didn't ever say anything.How can they not jump to attention when an eight-year-old kid is missing?They did.Veronica says it fell to Shai Shai's family and their neighbors to search in the dark, up and down the for their little girl.We was up all night, and it was people sleeping all on my porch that night. I had a lot of people show up, but police never show up until the next day, and it was probably after lunchtime by the time they came.You may already know what I'm about to tell you because it's mentioned so often in news stories. After 24 hours, the odds of finding an abducted child alive are slim and dropping. As night turned to dawn in Unadilla, those critical hours were slipping away. Summer time and the saving is easy at Eurospar Supermarkets. Like Lion's original, 210 tea bags, only €5.99..Inicella Irishtrue crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen such a thing before? For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling than listening. What goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that? And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium, it gets even better. Excuse me, I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad-free. Oh, wow.So this could be your ace in the hole.And not just ad-free, you also get early access to new intriguing mysteries and exclusive bonus content. So what were you afraid of? Dateline Premium. Subscribe now on Apple podcast, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. You ready for what's coming? So many twists and turns. There are more surprises on the way. Dateline is on fire.I'm Andrea Canning.Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly, a new podcast covering breaking crime news around the country with the best reporters on the case. So in Santa Fe. Nbc news analysts and Dateland producers on the ground. It's fine prosecution. I'll dive into stories that are catching Dateland's attention this week. This is baffling and best. And get to the bottom of what you need to know. The question is, did you really think that you were going to get away with it? Dateland True Crime Weekly. Listen now and catch new episodes Every Thursday. In January 2012, deputies at the Duley County Sheriff's office got a call, one that looked like it could be their lucky break. A tipster pointed them to photos of a young woman that had been posted on Facebook. The tipster believed the woman who lived in Michigan was Shy-Shy Pate. Investigator Randy Lamberth looked at the photos and saw enough of a resemblance to pursue that lead. So you get in the car and off you go to Detroit?That is correct.How long a drive is that?It was about 12, 12 and a half hours.So that says to me that you're taking this pretty seriously. You think there's at least a good chance that maybe you're finally going to find Shai Shai.That is correct.In the 13 plus years he'd been working Shay Shay's case, Lambert had checked out dozens of tips without success. He hadn't told Veronica about this one because he didn't want to raise any false hopes. Plus, the three law enforcement officers wanted to protect the element of surprise, and they did pull off the surprise. Rotondo Freeman was at work when she received a call she didn't expect, asking her to come to a police Department just outside Detroit. Rotondo is Veronica's sister, and thus Shai Shai's aunt. She was the one who posted those photos on Facebook, and she told the road weary cops it wasn't Shai Shai in those photos. It was another member of the family.She's my little cousin. Me and her mother is first cousins.So she does look like Shai.Yes.Deputy Lambrith says they talked with the girl in the Facebook photos and confirmed she wasn't Shai Shai. It turned out to be all a big misunderstanding. But Rotondo says she was glad the investigators came all that way.When I seen them and when they told me why they was there, it gave me the strength to know that they still looking.It made you feel better to know that they were still looking, even though the reason that they were there turned out to be not legitimate.Correct.By 2016, Rotondo had moved from Michigan back to Georgia, and she decided to organize a 5K walk to bring attention to Shay Shay's case and other missing children in the state. The route started in front of Veronica's old house and ended near the intersection where Shai Shai was last seen. Rotondo even had T-shirts made up with Shai Shai's third-grade school photo on the front. Randy Lamberth came to the walk. By then, he'd been working the case for two decades. You talk about Shai Shai as being my little girl, in your words. You're right. Why is that? Why isn't this just another case?I mean, she's a child. Child is going to touch everybody. It's something that I would like to one day to be able to bring her home.This long ago stopped being just another case to you, didn't it, Randy?That is correct. That is correct.You'd like to close this?Yes.For Shasha's family, the searching never really stops.It's like every time you go somewhere, you're constantly looking for her because you don't know the fact that we don't know exactly what she would look like today. We don't know if we don't pass her in the store. Has she passed us? And not knowing who we were and just not knowing is the hardest thing.There's another unknown that still haunts them. Could Shai Shai's abductor be someone they might still see at the grocery store? If Shay knew and trusted that person, you probably also knew and trusted that person.Knew and trusted that person, correct.What's it like to know that you probably know the murderer or the abductor or the person that's had her all these years?You can't even trust people these days because you don't know. You don't know if a person is looking in your face smiling at you, and they know where she at, or they know who took her, or somebody in their family took her. We don't know. It's hard.The endless search for answers would lead the family in all kinds of directions. In 2022, Shia's mom, Veronica, got a Facebook friend request that she ignored at first. Her grandson did accept it, and that led to a phone call between Veronica and a woman in Missouri. And in that first phone call, the woman dropped a bombshell. She said she was shy.Yes, she said she was shy.There was more. The caller told Veronica she'd been abducted, forced to use another name. And had been abused by the people who raised her. Veronica says the woman didn't ask for money, but instead had a message for the family.She said, If we never see each other again, I just want you to know that I ain't dead. And she said, I just want to ease the pain that's in your heart.And you believe that? At least right then you did?I did. I still believe it to the day. I don't have a way of proving it.You believe her because you wanted to believe her because this is the phone call you always wanted to get?I actually believe in her because it was like when I heard the voice on the phone, it's like my heart just got relieved.So who did the call her say had kidnapped her back in 1998? According to Veronica, the woman said she blocked out those traumatic details. Investigators spoke to local authorities in Missouri and interviewed the woman themselves.We ended up talking with the young lady as well, but she was not giving us answers that could confirm anything.Things you held back to weed out impostors.That is correct.They also had her submit to a DNA test.And that basically came back negative.You're confident that was her DNA? I mean, she swabbed it in the presence of somebody else?The investigator there from Missouri at her home is the one actually obtained the swabbing.Right. So it's not her.That is correct.Veronica says she doesn't trust the a mob test and would like to see a blood test done. She also says that call her knew things that only Shai Shai would know because they're not public. At one point, she and other family members did a video call with the woman. When you see her on the video call, do you think that's her? You think that's Shai?I felt like it was. Yeah, I felt it, and I could believe it was.Shay Shay's sister, LaSwanda, is not convinced. Not without solid proof.My mom was very excited about it. She wants it to be heard. So I had to explain to my mom that she needs to be careful because you never know what people are up to.Deputy Lambrith told us the woman later recanted some of her claims and stopped answering calls. Natalie Wilson from the Black and Missing Foundation says her organization is familiar with scams targeting families of the missing.We are seeing an increase on uptick in individuals, or I'm assuming organizations that are taking advantage of families, reaching out to them, saying, I know where your loved one is. You need to pay a ransom. They are also acting as though they are investigators, and they're telling these families, I can hook you up with someone that can give you a loan for $10,000, and pay me that $10,000, and I'll help you find your missing loved ones.Natalie drew our attention to Shay Shay's story after she met with Veronica in the summer of 2023.My heart bleeds for Veronica. She wants to just find her daughter, and she's holding on to hope. That was her baby. I mean, shy is the baby in the family. When I talk to Veronica, she blames herself for what happened.I think that Veronica does feel some guilt about this, which I think she absolutely should not feel. I don't think she did anything wrong. But that is normal, isn't it? For families to feel that they They should have been more vigilant, they should have paid more attention when, in fact, they really actually this was done to them, not by them.Absolutely. Families, what do they call it? The Monday morning quarterback, and I should have done this differently to protect my loved one, but she needs to hold her head up high because she continues to pound a pavement to find her daughter and to keep her disappearance in the forefront.More than 25 years have passed since Shai Shai Pate vanished in the dark, and Randy Lamberth caught her case 14 hours late. There's no way to know this for sure, but I feel like if Shay had been from a rich family that maybe was a different color, this might have been all hands on deck a lot sooner.I agree with you. And what we are finding as we work with families is that oftentimes race, your zip code, your economic status, even your education, they are many times barriers to law enforcement resources, media coverage, and community engagement. And that is something that we are trying to change the narrative that these are our missing mothers, our fathers, our children.Today, Veronica has nine grandchildren. They call her Nana.And the hardest part is when they turn eight years old, I'll be praying to ask God to let them get past eight. Once they get past eight, it'll look like a little weight lift off of my heart.Veronica, you think you're going to see Shay again one day?I believe in my heart that I will.Laswanda is now a mom with three children of her own. She tells them about the aunt they have never met, her baby sister. And she told us she has a message for Shai Shai.If she's listening or if she hears this story, I would want her to know and understand that we had no idea where to go, and we still don't. We still love her. We miss her tremendously, and we never gave up hope.Here's where you can help. Shai Shai's full name is Shikemia Shirez-Pate. She would be 34 years old today. You can view age-progress photos of her on our website. On September 4, 1998, she was wearing a neon green Atlanta Braves jersey with red lettering, Levi's jeans, and she had a leg brace. She had several medical conditions, including asthma. Anyone with information about Shikemia's disappearance is asked to call the Duley County Sheriff's office at 29 645-0920, or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 478-987-4545. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelandmissinginamerica. Com. There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateland on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateland and NBC News. Kate Wydek is the producer of this episode. Brian Drew is the audio editor. Keanu Reid is associate producer. Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Sound Mixing by Bob Mallory. Ryson Barnes is head of audio production..

.

The plan was for me to bring her with me to the game. So, yeah, she was excited about going.

That's Lasswanda Hickey, Shai Shai's sister. She was 17 at the time with three younger siblings, including Shai Shai, the baby. Through the eyes of teenage Lashwanda, Shai was a typical little sister.

Pesty, aggravating. And then there's also the side that looks up to you and wants to be like you and want to go where you go and do what you do.

Well, Swanda was in junior ROTC then and part of the color guard that brought out the flags at football games. That afternoon, she decided to take a nap to rest up before the game. Before she dozed off, she pulled a big sister move.

I may have said to her that I wasn't going to take her. I'm pretty sure I said, You're not going. But it was jokes.

Shai Shai went outside to play, and when LaSwanda woke up around 6:00, she went to put gas in the car. As she drove, she saw Shai Shai on a neighbor's front porch.

I want to say she tried to flag me down. I'm not 100% sure if she tried to stop me or not, but I know I didn't stop. I kept going. And I got gas. And when I came back around to the house where I saw her on the porch to pick her up, they said she had left walking up the street.

Laswanda drove up the street looking for Shoshai, but didn't see her. So she called her mom, Veronica, who wasn't home yet.

I had to be at the game by 7:30. And so she said, Well, It's fine. She probably at somebody house, a friend's house, and we'll get her when we come back.

In 1998, Unadilla's population barely top 1,600, and Crumpler Avenue, where Shoshai lived, was the neighborhood everyone knew everyone. Veronica and LaSwanda say it wasn't unusual for kids to end up at a neighbor's house playing with friends or even cousins. Did you ever worry about her going outside in that neighborhood?

No, I didn't.

People knew her. She knew them.

She knew them. Everybody knew everybody. Kids be out riding their bicycle, skating and everything.

And you thought she was safe?

Yes.

Veronica recalls getting home around 7:45 five or so. And when Shoshai wasn't there, she says at first she wasn't that worried. She figured her daughter was at her friend's house, so she started making calls. But Shoshai didn't turn up. And then When Leswanda came home after the game and there was still no sign of her little sister, that's when it became clear something was seriously wrong. You call the police? Yes. Which is what any parent would do in that situation. And the police say, We have to wait 24 hours?

Yes.

I'm guessing you said to them, She's eight years old. Why do we have to wait 24 hours?

Yes.

What did they say?

He didn't ever say anything.

How can they not jump to attention when an eight-year-old kid is missing?

They did.

Veronica says it fell to Shai Shai's family and their neighbors to search in the dark, up and down the for their little girl.

We was up all night, and it was people sleeping all on my porch that night. I had a lot of people show up, but police never show up until the next day, and it was probably after lunchtime by the time they came.

You may already know what I'm about to tell you because it's mentioned so often in news stories. After 24 hours, the odds of finding an abducted child alive are slim and dropping. As night turned to dawn in Unadilla, those critical hours were slipping away. Summer time and the saving is easy at Eurospar Supermarkets. Like Lion's original, 210 tea bags, only €5.99..

Inicella Irishtrue crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen such a thing before? For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling than listening. What goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that? And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium, it gets even better. Excuse me, I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad-free. Oh, wow.So this could be your ace in the hole.And not just ad-free, you also get early access to new intriguing mysteries and exclusive bonus content. So what were you afraid of? Dateline Premium. Subscribe now on Apple podcast, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. You ready for what's coming? So many twists and turns. There are more surprises on the way. Dateline is on fire.I'm Andrea Canning.Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly, a new podcast covering breaking crime news around the country with the best reporters on the case. So in Santa Fe. Nbc news analysts and Dateland producers on the ground. It's fine prosecution. I'll dive into stories that are catching Dateland's attention this week. This is baffling and best. And get to the bottom of what you need to know. The question is, did you really think that you were going to get away with it? Dateland True Crime Weekly. Listen now and catch new episodes Every Thursday. In January 2012, deputies at the Duley County Sheriff's office got a call, one that looked like it could be their lucky break. A tipster pointed them to photos of a young woman that had been posted on Facebook. The tipster believed the woman who lived in Michigan was Shy-Shy Pate. Investigator Randy Lamberth looked at the photos and saw enough of a resemblance to pursue that lead. So you get in the car and off you go to Detroit?That is correct.How long a drive is that?It was about 12, 12 and a half hours.So that says to me that you're taking this pretty seriously. You think there's at least a good chance that maybe you're finally going to find Shai Shai.That is correct.In the 13 plus years he'd been working Shay Shay's case, Lambert had checked out dozens of tips without success. He hadn't told Veronica about this one because he didn't want to raise any false hopes. Plus, the three law enforcement officers wanted to protect the element of surprise, and they did pull off the surprise. Rotondo Freeman was at work when she received a call she didn't expect, asking her to come to a police Department just outside Detroit. Rotondo is Veronica's sister, and thus Shai Shai's aunt. She was the one who posted those photos on Facebook, and she told the road weary cops it wasn't Shai Shai in those photos. It was another member of the family.She's my little cousin. Me and her mother is first cousins.So she does look like Shai.Yes.Deputy Lambrith says they talked with the girl in the Facebook photos and confirmed she wasn't Shai Shai. It turned out to be all a big misunderstanding. But Rotondo says she was glad the investigators came all that way.When I seen them and when they told me why they was there, it gave me the strength to know that they still looking.It made you feel better to know that they were still looking, even though the reason that they were there turned out to be not legitimate.Correct.By 2016, Rotondo had moved from Michigan back to Georgia, and she decided to organize a 5K walk to bring attention to Shay Shay's case and other missing children in the state. The route started in front of Veronica's old house and ended near the intersection where Shai Shai was last seen. Rotondo even had T-shirts made up with Shai Shai's third-grade school photo on the front. Randy Lamberth came to the walk. By then, he'd been working the case for two decades. You talk about Shai Shai as being my little girl, in your words. You're right. Why is that? Why isn't this just another case?I mean, she's a child. Child is going to touch everybody. It's something that I would like to one day to be able to bring her home.This long ago stopped being just another case to you, didn't it, Randy?That is correct. That is correct.You'd like to close this?Yes.For Shasha's family, the searching never really stops.It's like every time you go somewhere, you're constantly looking for her because you don't know the fact that we don't know exactly what she would look like today. We don't know if we don't pass her in the store. Has she passed us? And not knowing who we were and just not knowing is the hardest thing.There's another unknown that still haunts them. Could Shai Shai's abductor be someone they might still see at the grocery store? If Shay knew and trusted that person, you probably also knew and trusted that person.Knew and trusted that person, correct.What's it like to know that you probably know the murderer or the abductor or the person that's had her all these years?You can't even trust people these days because you don't know. You don't know if a person is looking in your face smiling at you, and they know where she at, or they know who took her, or somebody in their family took her. We don't know. It's hard.The endless search for answers would lead the family in all kinds of directions. In 2022, Shia's mom, Veronica, got a Facebook friend request that she ignored at first. Her grandson did accept it, and that led to a phone call between Veronica and a woman in Missouri. And in that first phone call, the woman dropped a bombshell. She said she was shy.Yes, she said she was shy.There was more. The caller told Veronica she'd been abducted, forced to use another name. And had been abused by the people who raised her. Veronica says the woman didn't ask for money, but instead had a message for the family.She said, If we never see each other again, I just want you to know that I ain't dead. And she said, I just want to ease the pain that's in your heart.And you believe that? At least right then you did?I did. I still believe it to the day. I don't have a way of proving it.You believe her because you wanted to believe her because this is the phone call you always wanted to get?I actually believe in her because it was like when I heard the voice on the phone, it's like my heart just got relieved.So who did the call her say had kidnapped her back in 1998? According to Veronica, the woman said she blocked out those traumatic details. Investigators spoke to local authorities in Missouri and interviewed the woman themselves.We ended up talking with the young lady as well, but she was not giving us answers that could confirm anything.Things you held back to weed out impostors.That is correct.They also had her submit to a DNA test.And that basically came back negative.You're confident that was her DNA? I mean, she swabbed it in the presence of somebody else?The investigator there from Missouri at her home is the one actually obtained the swabbing.Right. So it's not her.That is correct.Veronica says she doesn't trust the a mob test and would like to see a blood test done. She also says that call her knew things that only Shai Shai would know because they're not public. At one point, she and other family members did a video call with the woman. When you see her on the video call, do you think that's her? You think that's Shai?I felt like it was. Yeah, I felt it, and I could believe it was.Shay Shay's sister, LaSwanda, is not convinced. Not without solid proof.My mom was very excited about it. She wants it to be heard. So I had to explain to my mom that she needs to be careful because you never know what people are up to.Deputy Lambrith told us the woman later recanted some of her claims and stopped answering calls. Natalie Wilson from the Black and Missing Foundation says her organization is familiar with scams targeting families of the missing.We are seeing an increase on uptick in individuals, or I'm assuming organizations that are taking advantage of families, reaching out to them, saying, I know where your loved one is. You need to pay a ransom. They are also acting as though they are investigators, and they're telling these families, I can hook you up with someone that can give you a loan for $10,000, and pay me that $10,000, and I'll help you find your missing loved ones.Natalie drew our attention to Shay Shay's story after she met with Veronica in the summer of 2023.My heart bleeds for Veronica. She wants to just find her daughter, and she's holding on to hope. That was her baby. I mean, shy is the baby in the family. When I talk to Veronica, she blames herself for what happened.I think that Veronica does feel some guilt about this, which I think she absolutely should not feel. I don't think she did anything wrong. But that is normal, isn't it? For families to feel that they They should have been more vigilant, they should have paid more attention when, in fact, they really actually this was done to them, not by them.Absolutely. Families, what do they call it? The Monday morning quarterback, and I should have done this differently to protect my loved one, but she needs to hold her head up high because she continues to pound a pavement to find her daughter and to keep her disappearance in the forefront.More than 25 years have passed since Shai Shai Pate vanished in the dark, and Randy Lamberth caught her case 14 hours late. There's no way to know this for sure, but I feel like if Shay had been from a rich family that maybe was a different color, this might have been all hands on deck a lot sooner.I agree with you. And what we are finding as we work with families is that oftentimes race, your zip code, your economic status, even your education, they are many times barriers to law enforcement resources, media coverage, and community engagement. And that is something that we are trying to change the narrative that these are our missing mothers, our fathers, our children.Today, Veronica has nine grandchildren. They call her Nana.And the hardest part is when they turn eight years old, I'll be praying to ask God to let them get past eight. Once they get past eight, it'll look like a little weight lift off of my heart.Veronica, you think you're going to see Shay again one day?I believe in my heart that I will.Laswanda is now a mom with three children of her own. She tells them about the aunt they have never met, her baby sister. And she told us she has a message for Shai Shai.If she's listening or if she hears this story, I would want her to know and understand that we had no idea where to go, and we still don't. We still love her. We miss her tremendously, and we never gave up hope.Here's where you can help. Shai Shai's full name is Shikemia Shirez-Pate. She would be 34 years old today. You can view age-progress photos of her on our website. On September 4, 1998, she was wearing a neon green Atlanta Braves jersey with red lettering, Levi's jeans, and she had a leg brace. She had several medical conditions, including asthma. Anyone with information about Shikemia's disappearance is asked to call the Duley County Sheriff's office at 29 645-0920, or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 478-987-4545. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelandmissinginamerica. Com. There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateland on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateland and NBC News. Kate Wydek is the producer of this episode. Brian Drew is the audio editor. Keanu Reid is associate producer. Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Sound Mixing by Bob Mallory. Ryson Barnes is head of audio production..

true crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen such a thing before? For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling than listening. What goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that? And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium, it gets even better. Excuse me, I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad-free. Oh, wow.

So this could be your ace in the hole.

And not just ad-free, you also get early access to new intriguing mysteries and exclusive bonus content. So what were you afraid of? Dateline Premium. Subscribe now on Apple podcast, Spotify, or datelinepremium. Com. You ready for what's coming? So many twists and turns. There are more surprises on the way. Dateline is on fire.

I'm Andrea Canning.

Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly, a new podcast covering breaking crime news around the country with the best reporters on the case. So in Santa Fe. Nbc news analysts and Dateland producers on the ground. It's fine prosecution. I'll dive into stories that are catching Dateland's attention this week. This is baffling and best. And get to the bottom of what you need to know. The question is, did you really think that you were going to get away with it? Dateland True Crime Weekly. Listen now and catch new episodes Every Thursday. In January 2012, deputies at the Duley County Sheriff's office got a call, one that looked like it could be their lucky break. A tipster pointed them to photos of a young woman that had been posted on Facebook. The tipster believed the woman who lived in Michigan was Shy-Shy Pate. Investigator Randy Lamberth looked at the photos and saw enough of a resemblance to pursue that lead. So you get in the car and off you go to Detroit?

That is correct.

How long a drive is that?

It was about 12, 12 and a half hours.

So that says to me that you're taking this pretty seriously. You think there's at least a good chance that maybe you're finally going to find Shai Shai.

That is correct.

In the 13 plus years he'd been working Shay Shay's case, Lambert had checked out dozens of tips without success. He hadn't told Veronica about this one because he didn't want to raise any false hopes. Plus, the three law enforcement officers wanted to protect the element of surprise, and they did pull off the surprise. Rotondo Freeman was at work when she received a call she didn't expect, asking her to come to a police Department just outside Detroit. Rotondo is Veronica's sister, and thus Shai Shai's aunt. She was the one who posted those photos on Facebook, and she told the road weary cops it wasn't Shai Shai in those photos. It was another member of the family.

She's my little cousin. Me and her mother is first cousins.

So she does look like Shai.

Yes.

Deputy Lambrith says they talked with the girl in the Facebook photos and confirmed she wasn't Shai Shai. It turned out to be all a big misunderstanding. But Rotondo says she was glad the investigators came all that way.

When I seen them and when they told me why they was there, it gave me the strength to know that they still looking.

It made you feel better to know that they were still looking, even though the reason that they were there turned out to be not legitimate.

Correct.

By 2016, Rotondo had moved from Michigan back to Georgia, and she decided to organize a 5K walk to bring attention to Shay Shay's case and other missing children in the state. The route started in front of Veronica's old house and ended near the intersection where Shai Shai was last seen. Rotondo even had T-shirts made up with Shai Shai's third-grade school photo on the front. Randy Lamberth came to the walk. By then, he'd been working the case for two decades. You talk about Shai Shai as being my little girl, in your words. You're right. Why is that? Why isn't this just another case?

I mean, she's a child. Child is going to touch everybody. It's something that I would like to one day to be able to bring her home.

This long ago stopped being just another case to you, didn't it, Randy?

That is correct. That is correct.

You'd like to close this?

Yes.

For Shasha's family, the searching never really stops.

It's like every time you go somewhere, you're constantly looking for her because you don't know the fact that we don't know exactly what she would look like today. We don't know if we don't pass her in the store. Has she passed us? And not knowing who we were and just not knowing is the hardest thing.

There's another unknown that still haunts them. Could Shai Shai's abductor be someone they might still see at the grocery store? If Shay knew and trusted that person, you probably also knew and trusted that person.

Knew and trusted that person, correct.

What's it like to know that you probably know the murderer or the abductor or the person that's had her all these years?

You can't even trust people these days because you don't know. You don't know if a person is looking in your face smiling at you, and they know where she at, or they know who took her, or somebody in their family took her. We don't know. It's hard.

The endless search for answers would lead the family in all kinds of directions. In 2022, Shia's mom, Veronica, got a Facebook friend request that she ignored at first. Her grandson did accept it, and that led to a phone call between Veronica and a woman in Missouri. And in that first phone call, the woman dropped a bombshell. She said she was shy.

Yes, she said she was shy.

There was more. The caller told Veronica she'd been abducted, forced to use another name. And had been abused by the people who raised her. Veronica says the woman didn't ask for money, but instead had a message for the family.

She said, If we never see each other again, I just want you to know that I ain't dead. And she said, I just want to ease the pain that's in your heart.

And you believe that? At least right then you did?

I did. I still believe it to the day. I don't have a way of proving it.

You believe her because you wanted to believe her because this is the phone call you always wanted to get?

I actually believe in her because it was like when I heard the voice on the phone, it's like my heart just got relieved.

So who did the call her say had kidnapped her back in 1998? According to Veronica, the woman said she blocked out those traumatic details. Investigators spoke to local authorities in Missouri and interviewed the woman themselves.

We ended up talking with the young lady as well, but she was not giving us answers that could confirm anything.

Things you held back to weed out impostors.

That is correct.

They also had her submit to a DNA test.

And that basically came back negative.

You're confident that was her DNA? I mean, she swabbed it in the presence of somebody else?

The investigator there from Missouri at her home is the one actually obtained the swabbing.

Right. So it's not her.

That is correct.

Veronica says she doesn't trust the a mob test and would like to see a blood test done. She also says that call her knew things that only Shai Shai would know because they're not public. At one point, she and other family members did a video call with the woman. When you see her on the video call, do you think that's her? You think that's Shai?

I felt like it was. Yeah, I felt it, and I could believe it was.

Shay Shay's sister, LaSwanda, is not convinced. Not without solid proof.

My mom was very excited about it. She wants it to be heard. So I had to explain to my mom that she needs to be careful because you never know what people are up to.

Deputy Lambrith told us the woman later recanted some of her claims and stopped answering calls. Natalie Wilson from the Black and Missing Foundation says her organization is familiar with scams targeting families of the missing.

We are seeing an increase on uptick in individuals, or I'm assuming organizations that are taking advantage of families, reaching out to them, saying, I know where your loved one is. You need to pay a ransom. They are also acting as though they are investigators, and they're telling these families, I can hook you up with someone that can give you a loan for $10,000, and pay me that $10,000, and I'll help you find your missing loved ones.

Natalie drew our attention to Shay Shay's story after she met with Veronica in the summer of 2023.

My heart bleeds for Veronica. She wants to just find her daughter, and she's holding on to hope. That was her baby. I mean, shy is the baby in the family. When I talk to Veronica, she blames herself for what happened.

I think that Veronica does feel some guilt about this, which I think she absolutely should not feel. I don't think she did anything wrong. But that is normal, isn't it? For families to feel that they They should have been more vigilant, they should have paid more attention when, in fact, they really actually this was done to them, not by them.

Absolutely. Families, what do they call it? The Monday morning quarterback, and I should have done this differently to protect my loved one, but she needs to hold her head up high because she continues to pound a pavement to find her daughter and to keep her disappearance in the forefront.

More than 25 years have passed since Shai Shai Pate vanished in the dark, and Randy Lamberth caught her case 14 hours late. There's no way to know this for sure, but I feel like if Shay had been from a rich family that maybe was a different color, this might have been all hands on deck a lot sooner.

I agree with you. And what we are finding as we work with families is that oftentimes race, your zip code, your economic status, even your education, they are many times barriers to law enforcement resources, media coverage, and community engagement. And that is something that we are trying to change the narrative that these are our missing mothers, our fathers, our children.

Today, Veronica has nine grandchildren. They call her Nana.

And the hardest part is when they turn eight years old, I'll be praying to ask God to let them get past eight. Once they get past eight, it'll look like a little weight lift off of my heart.

Veronica, you think you're going to see Shay again one day?

I believe in my heart that I will.

Laswanda is now a mom with three children of her own. She tells them about the aunt they have never met, her baby sister. And she told us she has a message for Shai Shai.

If she's listening or if she hears this story, I would want her to know and understand that we had no idea where to go, and we still don't. We still love her. We miss her tremendously, and we never gave up hope.

Here's where you can help. Shai Shai's full name is Shikemia Shirez-Pate. She would be 34 years old today. You can view age-progress photos of her on our website. On September 4, 1998, she was wearing a neon green Atlanta Braves jersey with red lettering, Levi's jeans, and she had a leg brace. She had several medical conditions, including asthma. Anyone with information about Shikemia's disappearance is asked to call the Duley County Sheriff's office at 29 645-0920, or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 478-987-4545. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelandmissinginamerica. Com. There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateland on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateland and NBC News. Kate Wydek is the producer of this episode. Brian Drew is the audio editor. Keanu Reid is associate producer. Bradley Davis is senior producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Sound Mixing by Bob Mallory. Ryson Barnes is head of audio production..