A woman in Texas has claimed in a new TikTok video that she believes to be Diamond Bradley, who vanished from Chicago‘s South Side more than 20 years ago.
Diamond was just three years old when she went missing, along with her 10-year-old sister Tionda, from their mother’s apartment back in 2001, in what may be the largest missing person’s investigation in Chicago history.
In the video that surfaced earlier this week from a dark parking lot in Houston, someone is heard saying ‘here with Diamond Bradley,’ while holding up a phone displaying a missing persons poster with Diamond’s photo, then panning to a woman standing next to her, comparing the two, asking to see her scar – which Diamond had on the left side of her scalp when she disappeared.
The girls’ aunt Sheliah Bradley-Smith, who has not given up her search for her nieces, said she hopes this could be a breakthrough in the case, but added that the family has gone through this before.
More than a dozen people have claimed to be the sisters over the years. But there’s one thing different about this time, she said. Unlike others, this woman has submitted a DNA test to the FBI and underwent fingerprinting with the agency.
Bradley-Smith told DailyMail.com that the results were expected to be expedited, but could still be a couple of weeks.
A woman in Texas has claimed in a new TikTok video that she believes to be Diamond Bradley, who vanished from Chicago’s South Side with her older sister more than 20 years ago
In the video that surfaced earlier this week from a dark parking lot in Houston, someone is heard saying ‘here with Diamond Bradley’
The new development unfolded this week when Bradley-Smith was contacted by the woman claiming to be Diamond, who would now be 25 years old.
She urged her to go to the police, and prove her identity.
‘She said she has information about Diamond Bradley, and I say what about…?,’ Bradley-Smith told NBC 5. ‘Well, she says, I am Diamond Bradley.’
Bradley-Smith told her she needed to go to the police, which she said the woman was very willing to do in order to prove her identity.
‘I’m never known or experienced somebody so eager to tear down the doors of the FBI to prove who they are. So that gives me a different dynamic of hope,’ Smith said. ‘All I can do is hope it is her.’
Diamond was just three years old when she went missing from her mother’s apartment back in 2001, in what may be the largest missing person’s investigation in Chicago history
The TikTok video shows someone holding a phone with missing poster of Diamond then panning over to the woman standing nearby
On July 6, 2001, Diamond and Tionda were reported missing from their mother’s apartment at 35th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue after she found a note written by Tionda was found, stating that they were going to the store and to the school playground.
But they never returned. Family member have said that the grammar and spelling of the note seemed too perfect and advanced for someone Tionda’s age.
After the video surfaced, many social media users and Chicagoans still reeling from the cases decades later, asked about Tionda’s whereabouts.
But their aunt told CBS that the young woman seemed to recall being in a car with older sister, but that was it.
‘She said: ‘Well, I kind of remember her, but I remember we were in car. Then one day I woke up once they got us to the place where we were or wherever we were living. I never seen her again,” Bradley-Smith said.
At the time of her disappearance, Diamond had a medium complexion and wore her hair in braided ponytails. She was last seen wearing purple ponytail holders in her hair.
Diamond has a scar on the left side of her scalp, has deep-set eyes, and is described as timid but loves to talk. The woman claiming to be Diamond also has a scar in the same area.
Not only is the family anxiously awaiting the DNA results, so is Chicago.
‘The world – especially Chicago – has embraced these girls, and they have not forgotten them,’ Bradley-Smith said, ‘and I thank them. I thank everybody.’
In 2021, to mark the 20th anniversary of the sisters’ disappearance, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released new age-progression photos of what they might look like. On the FBI’s website, there is a reward of up to $10,000 for information relating to the girls’ whereabouts.
If anyone has information about the disappearance of the Bradley sisters, contact the Chicago Police Department at (312) 747-5789, the FBI Illinois at (312) 421-6700 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1 (800) THE-LOST.
