October 17, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of Hunting 4 Answers: In July 2022, 24-year-old Allahnia Lenoir walked into a Midtown Atlanta apartment — and vanished without a trace. Her mother, Jannette Jackson, has spent years searching for answers, uncovering chilling connections to trafficking, deceit, and betrayal. In this episode, we dive into the events leading up to Allahnia's disappearance, the suspects at the center of the case, and a mother’s fight for truth. Anyone with information about this case should contact the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit: at 404-546-4235 or Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-8477. Case Number: 2022-070310.
This is the story of Allahnia Lenoir.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hunting for Answers is a production of the Black Effect
Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome to Hunting for Answers, a
true crime podcast. I'm your host Hunter, and today we're
highlighting the heartbreaking case of a twenty four year old
woman in Atlanta, Georgia. She vanished on July thirtieth, twenty
(00:24):
twenty two, after visiting a Midtown apartment with a friend.
She lived life to the fullest, came from a close
knit family, and had a personality that drew people in
with her bubbly nature and trusting spirit. But on that
summer night, she entered an apartment building in the sixteen
(00:45):
hundred block of Peachtree Street in Midtown and was never
seen again. What followed was a mother's relentless search for
her daughter, an investigation that revealed disturbing as to the
dark web, and a legal battle that continues to this day.
(01:06):
In this episode, we'll speak with her mother, who shares
the painful details of her daughter's disappearance, the investigation, and
her ongoing fight for justice. This is the story of
Alanie Leonore. Before we dive into the events that led
(01:29):
to the disappearance of Alanie, we first need to understand
who she was. Alannie was twenty four years old, and
her mother, Jeanette Jackson, says she had already lived more
life than many people twice her age.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One thing about my daughter is she was just one
of those I don't want to use the word naive,
but I do want to say she was very trusting.
She was just one of those people that trusted in friendships,
trusted in a new friendship. She she just was always
trying to celebrate, you know, just all the things that
(02:10):
you could celebrate. You know. She's just one of those
people that like to have a good time and really
really enjoy their life to the fullest.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Alani came from a multicultural background and food was a
big part of her family's connection. She was affectionately called
Fruity by loved Ones, a nickname reflecting her bubbly spirit
and a family with an affinity for giving nicknames.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
And she was a foodie. You know, we come from
a multicultural background, so she's Black and Puerto Rican, and
you know, we love food. We love all types of food,
so we cooked a lot. We come from a very
I guess we like to joke around a lot, so
that definitely runs through the entire family, so you know,
(03:02):
she was just like always making jokes and having fun
and just trying to find the light.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
At the time of her disappearance, Alanie was exploring different
paths and figuring out her next steps in life.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
She was a dancer, so she was in nightlife. She
was also a singer, so she was recording music. She
was very artistic. You know. She was at that time
kind of trying to figure out life. And we were
thinking about getting a food truck for her because her
family has owned multiple restaurants, you know, in the past,
(03:39):
and that's just a passion of hers.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
She had a very close relationship with her mother. After
the pandemic, Alani had moved back home. They talked constantly
and she always shared her location with her mom.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Me and my daughter were very close. I knew exactly
where she was going, I knew exactly where what she
was doing when she was out. She always shared her location.
So there was never a time she after COVID she
came back home, so she was living in my home.
So this is one. This is one like you know,
an adult child that doesn't live at home, so you
(04:16):
don't really know their schedule, is what I'm saying, you know.
So we saw each other every day and even when
she was out, we talked all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
When Alaunie disappeared, Jeanette knew something was wrong. But to
better understand the full story, we need to go back
to that weekend in July twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So my daughter left here on a Friday, which is
not unusual. Pretty much on her weekend she kind of
spent with her friends or her boyfriend, and pretty much
we would hang out a little bit. Our our days
was Friday, so we would hang out, do our thing,
and then she would go out. So she left here
with her friend Torri, who was in the beginning of
(05:02):
all of this. So that Saturday, before she got picked
up by Tory, me and her talk, We laughed, we joked,
send each other tiktoks, and we had some plans for
that Monday.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That would be the last time she would hear from
her daughter. Saturday night, Alani's friend Tory picked her up.
They went to a club but left early and later
connected with two men, Stephen Obate and Deontay Reynolds, deciding
to go to their apartment for a kickback in the
(05:36):
sixteen hundred block of Peachtree Street. This was the last
place Alani was seen alive. Things took a disturbing turn
around midnight. That's when Tory left Alani with the two men.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
What actually happened that night, My daughter gets left there
with Steven and Deante. That's weird. Let's start with that.
Toy's excuse for that was that she was ready to
go and that my daughter wasn't, and she left. If
you knew my daughter, you knew Toy. That's already a
(06:15):
funny story in itself, because my daughter was a girls girl,
So she would never personally leave anybody no matter what. Oh,
you don't want to go, well, I guess we're not leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Torri also left her car at the apartment, a detail
Jeanette found very strange.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Now, mind you, Tory left there in her car, left
her car there at these guys' house over the weekend.
So we'll just sit on that for a minute. So
she goes there with my daughter, then decides to leave
my daughter there. Then Deontay walks her to a guy.
(06:51):
Another guy gets her in her car safely, and then
the guy leaves with her and Tory leaves her car
there for the weekend, she caused me. The next day,
she's like, hey, have you talked to Alani and said, no,
why would I have talked to her if she was
(07:11):
with you? You know, oh no, you know, real light.
You know, she decided to go. You know, they were
going to get her an uber, which was also a
weird thing because if she needed an uber, she would
always call me and tell her to send her uber.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Jeanette wasn't too alarmed at this point. She assumed Alanie
was at her boyfriend's house, but she still had this
uneasy feeling.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So again nothing, I said, Okay, well, she's probably at
her boyfriend's house, and I'm not thinking anything of it.
But it was something in Toy's you know, tone, that
was kind of like, I don't know, the first little
strange feeling I got.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Jeanette checked Alanie's location. It showed her still at the
apartment on Peachtree. Her phone was active, so Jeanette left
a message hoping she'd call back.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I have to respect her space. So I said, okay,
I just called my daughter. She didn't pick up. I said, hey,
you know, this girl's giving me kind of worried, you know,
give me a call. When you get a chance when
your phone's back on.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Tory called again. This time she told Jeanette that she
had talked to the two men and that they were
quote being weird, and.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Tory calls me. She's like, hey, you know how to
talk to Alani this, I said, No, I am not,
so I text her, Hey, listen, I'm getting worried about you.
Please contact me back. She's like, you know, I talked
to those guys and they're being weird, and you know,
you know I you know, I left her there, and
now you know I don't like the way to talk
to me, So I'm on my way there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Surveillance video from the apart apartment shows all four Alani, Tory,
Steven Obaught, and Deontay Reynolds entering together. Deontay had walked
Tory out. Alani never left on camera.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Now, what I do want to say is by viewing
the video, there's video footage all four of them going
into the apartment, which if you've watched my story you
hear me talking about that. And there's also a video
footage of the people leaving in an aut of the apartment,
my daughter never being seen on that camera. Again, one
of the most One of the things that runs through
(09:42):
my mind that I've actually never publicly talked about so
exclusive for you, is me watching the video and obviously
as a mother at this time, I'm looking for every clue.
Right looking at the video of her and Deontae leaving
(10:02):
that apartment. When they're walking out of that apartment, they
are stoked. Two people who apparently have gone to this apartment,
had a good time. You know, whatever that good time was,
if you know what I'm saying, right, whatever adult people
do when they're hanging out. When they're walking in this
(10:26):
long hallway, you look at them, they're just like weird.
You know, They're not saying anything, They're not really communicating.
They're just kind of walking kind of just very robotically
(10:47):
bye bye. Now why does that matter? Because before when
I watched the video first, I did not know what
happened to my daughter, you know, I had not come
to the to the to the realization that she's no
(11:11):
longer with us. I did not know what they did
to their body, and we probably never will know exactly
what they did to her body, but we know that
it wasn't anything that was good.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
After that night, Jeanette began a desperate search. August first,
she filed a missing person's report. She contacted police, friends, family,
anyone who might have seen Alani. On September twenty first,
twenty twenty two, Atlanta police held a press conference announcing
(11:51):
what loved ones feared most. They now believed Alanie Leonore
had been murdered and that her body had been disposed of.
Two men, Deontay Reynolds and Stephen Obate, were charged with
felony murder and concealing the death of another. A third man,
(12:13):
Nicholas Hendrickson, was later arrested and charged with concealing the
death of another, tampering with evidence, making false statements, and
hindering the apprehension or punishment of a criminal. But for Jeanette,
this was never only a murder case. It was something
(12:34):
far bigger.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
My daughter was trafficked. Whether my daughter was whether my
daughter was alive when she was trafficked or not, I
don't know, but that she was traffic says that you're
taken beside your will from one place to another, specifically
(12:58):
out of this state to that state, without her consent,
and she absolutely could not give consent.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
According to Alannie's mom, the men moved her body from
Atlanta to Douglasville and then to Alabama, making several stomps
along the way.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
There's no doubt about it. They moved my daughter's body.
So they absolutely moved her from this state to that
state through a beck That is not hearsay. That is
exactly what they did. Now, was she in what condition
(13:39):
her body was at that point, that's up to them
to tell the truth. I don't think that these men
are capable of telling the truth. And the reason is
is because the truth is way worse than what everybody
thinks it is.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Alani had a purse with her personal items, including more
than twelve hundred dollars in cash, that night she disappeared.
None of it has ever been found.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They not only took her but her things. She had
her belongings, She had her purse, she had over twelve
hundred dollars in cash then never gave back. She had
her cell phone, she had her IDs, she had her
personal belongings which they never gave back.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Investigators have never recovered any of Alani's belongings, and to
this day, her body has not been located. Frustrated with
the pace of the police investigation, Jeannette hired a private
investigator to continue the search on her own.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So the reason why we decided to do that is
more so I could not not look for my daughter,
her actual body. And the police unfortunately, with all the
things that have happened in the world, the way that
they have to work is very different than when you
(15:10):
hire somebody privately, right, So they have all this red
tape they have to and if they're not careful then
then they can be sued, right or they can be
perceived as either being too aggressive or not aggressive. So
I get some of the politics that they do. And
also she's a lot of wrong girl. Right. So even
(15:33):
though that's not something that I talk about every day,
I don't like to harp on it every day, but
we do see people who look like us missing every day,
and there's not as much motion. So my family's objective
was to get that motion. Whether you want us to
have motion or not, She's going to have motion because
(15:54):
all these babies who keep disappearing in Georgia, if you
take some time anytime during your research and look, they
all look like my daughter. They all literally looked like
they could be sisters or cousins or you know what
I'm saying familiar. Whoever's doing this to these women here,
(16:15):
they have a type.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
In her relentless search for Alanie, Jeanette went to places
she never imagined she'd have to go in.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
The spirit of looking for my daughter. I went everywhere,
and I talked to everybody, and I went to crack
houses and whorehouses and pimp places and places that I
should that have never been because you know, I could
have also came up missing. But in doing that, I
(16:49):
found a lot of good people too, who led me
to continue to push and tell me that I wasn't crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
What she uncovered during her own investigation was deeply disturbing.
Two of the men connected to her daughter's case, she says,
had been involved in far more than one crime.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
These guys happened up to all kinds of things, and
they had been selling all kinds of bad drugs, and
they had been hurting you know, other people, you no.
I ran into ex girlfriends who said, you know, this
person did this to me and that person did that
to me, which led me to believe, like, hey, you know,
(17:34):
there's more going on there.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
In twenty twenty four, Stephen Obate was also indicted on
federal charges related to drug trafficking and darknet operations separate
from Alanie's case. He was arrested that June after nearly
two years on the run, captured during a jet ski
(17:57):
chase on Lake Alatuna. With these charges, he remains in custody.
The courts have denied bond, citing him as a flight
risk and danger to the community.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So I wasn't crazy, and everything that I told them
to look for they slowly but surely found. So they
were on a dark web. Their businesses were on a
dark web. And you can't find my daughter or her
(18:33):
body parts.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Jeannette believes what happened to her daughter is part of
a much larger crisis in Atlanta human trafficking and potentially worse,
Oregon harvesting. She points to what she sees as a
pattern young women disappearing with remains were recovered.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
She was not only trafficked, but her body parts were
never found. Why do we think that is? And they
were on the black market. Why do you think people's
body parts keep missing? She's not the first one look
it up, y'all, just won't y'all do not want to
(19:23):
say that because you have all of these things coming
into this city. You don't want to say that these
girls are being drugged. They think they're smoking weed, or
they think they're doing this and you're giving them federal
or you're giving.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Them sleepy these seeds so you could sleeping pills, so
they don't know what happens to them.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Then you either get them addicted to this stuff till
they're working for you, or you're doing things to them,
and then you traffic them. And when they don't do
what you say, or you think you cannot control what
they do, then you hack them up. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Atlanta's role in trafficking is often tied to its airport
and interstate highways. Jeannette believes that the authorities and media
often avoid using the term trafficking when discussing cases like
her daughters.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
One of the ways we can prevent them is by
talking that they're happening. When have you seen any kind
of episodes on anybody's TV talking about trafficking. You don't,
As a matter of fact, if you go back and
look at everything that I've ever done with the police
on TV, they specifically try to not use that word,
(20:47):
when in fact that is exactly what they did.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
In July twenty twenty five, Nicholas Hendrickson was released on
twenty thousand dollars bond to attend his father's funeral, move
that enraged Jeanette and raised serious questions about justice in
this case. Though he is not accused of murder, Hendrickson
(21:11):
is charged with concealing the death, tampering with evidence, false statements,
and hindering apprehension or punishment of a criminal. Now, Jeanette
points to systemic failures in Fulton County.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Not in a good space to to dissect that real,
real good. I know it was shocking to everyone, and
it was shocking to me too, but not if that
(21:50):
makes sense. Nothing about the way my daughter's case has
been handled has ever spoke to me like that's it,
that's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Just recently, the case took another dramatic turn. Nicholas Hendrickson,
who had been released on bond while awaiting trial, skipped
a mandatory court appearance. A bench warrant has since been
issued for his arrest. He'd been granted bond in June
(22:21):
twenty twenty five under strict conditions twenty four to seven
monitoring zero contact with Elani's family and mandatory court appearances,
but according to the District Attorney's office, he failed to
appear at a September compliance hearing. Now a search is underway.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, first of all, she's in Fulton County, So you know,
people purposely and intentionally commit crimes in Fulton County because
they know if you wait long enough, you'll get away
with some stuff. We've seen it over and over and over. Right,
they're slow full in their core system. So if you
have people who are going to testify, what are they
(23:08):
going to remember after year three, four, five, six, seven.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Right, Jeanette recalls showing up to more court hearings than
anyone else, more than prosecutors, more than defense attorneys, even
more than the defendants themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I've been to court more times than the DA, more
times than the actual I'm sorry, more times than than
the attorneys who took on these cases. I've been there
more than the people who committed these crimes. I've been
(23:47):
there more times because half of the time there's court,
I show up, my family shows up, the people show up.
You know, the DA doesn't show up. I show up,
the DA shows up, one of the judges. I mean
not the judges, but not the attorneys on the other side,
doesn't show up, or they forgot to have the defendant
(24:11):
show up, or you know, they forgot to tell us that.
You know, they can't have court because there's something more
important happening in that court.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
She points out how high profile trials in Fulton County
often overshadowed her daughter's case, trials like the YSL Rico
case or the twenty twenty election prosecutions.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You know, first it was the YSL trial, right, then
it was Trump, then it was back to YSL, right
then it was Fanny herself, right, and a bunch of
other stuff. I'm just naming the stuff because some of
these attorneys, unfortunately, have also been in my artists case.
(25:02):
So everything tends to be more important if it's a
high profile, right, or if they deem it this is
more important than that. I don't know what could be
more important than somebody who was murdered, blatantly made to disappear,
and these people keep playing in y'all face.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But one thing she never saw coming was the release
of Nicholas Hendrickson. It happened during a hearing she wasn't
even notified about.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
They very much told me that that would not happen.
They very much told me, hey, if you do not
agree with this, it won't happen. And they did it anyway.
So to say that that wasn't the first slap in
the face, but that's the first one where I feel
(25:54):
like everybody else felt it too. Everybody else is like,
in a way, oh, we see this lady every time
talk about please no bye, no bon no ban, and
it seems like she keeps doing it. She keeps doing it,
She keeps doing that, she keep doing it. And the
one time they didn't have me come, the one time
I was not at court, the one time I couldnot
(26:14):
present myself to the judge because I wasn't told that
they were going to go before the judge. That's the
one time they let them go.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The last court date Jeannette attended was May fifth, twenty
twenty four, single demayo, a session where prosecutors said they
would set a trial date before the summer.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
That was the last time we were in actual court
and they said, hey, before the end of this summer,
we have to set a trial date. And then he
got up there and said, well, you know, I'm gonna
be doing this and that and this. I don't know,
and it's been the I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
As of this recording, no trial date has been scheduled
in this case. When asked what my happen next, Jeanette's
answer is simple, set a date.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, But what needs to happen is basically they need
to set a court date and let it just play
out and at the very least, you know, show that
show the criminals in this county that everyone who works
in the county is doing everything working. The real problem
(27:30):
is in this county is that everybody works very separately
and very differently, with very very different specific agendas. That's
the main problem with Fulton County.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One of the most painful truths for Jeannette is that
she still cannot properly grieve her daughter.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I cannot grieve because I have not buried point daughter.
I do not have a definitive answer as to what
happened to my daughter.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Over the years, she's spoken to the three men charged
an Alanie's case and their families, but the encounters have
only deepened her anguish.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The ugliness that have spewed from these people. From the
commentary of I'm sure you've heard some of the audio,
she got what she deserved, to one of the parents saying,
my son will never be with the likes of your
daughter when your son is actually a whole monster from
(28:43):
this man's girlfriend, baby mam or whatever you want to
call spewing all kinds of ugliness about my daughter when
she in fact did not know my daughter and should
empathize with my daughter because she in fact also has
a daughter. The ugliness that came from these people, even
(29:08):
after the fact is it's unheard of, Like, not only
are you guilty, but you literally continue to press, try
to humiliate her family, try to deter me from looking
(29:34):
from her for her.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
She has even received threats as she pushes for justice. Yet,
despite the threats, the slow legal system, and the heartbreak,
giving up is simply not an option in confronting this tragedy.
Jeannette has a message for young women, especially in Georgia
(29:56):
and Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
For you out here in Georgia and just in the
world you know, please just be careful. Be careful in
the people who you trust, Be careful in the company
you keep, be careful in the places you go. You
know people. It takes time to get to know yourself.
(30:24):
And get to know. Think of how long it takes
you as a woman to get to know who you are,
and how easily we assume that other people that we
give other people that meaning our girlfriends or our boyfriends,
or people who we deal with, or people who we
(30:45):
work with, or people who we go to school with.
We have to have one of the things that I
think is important. You know, you know, every you know,
ten years or so, as the decades past, right, there's
things that become important to us and then kind of
slip our minds and then they come back and you know,
kind of like another generation picks it up. And one
(31:07):
of those things that I would like to say is
girl code. Just people are just so jealous and just
so worried about the wrong things about present the way
we would present to the world. And it's really really
important to get yourself a good community of girlfriends that
(31:30):
look out for you even when you you know, there's
always somebody in the group thats like we know, they
got better judgment than us, Like black Girl's making them
good decisions, you know what I'm saying, And just working
on that because social media has us all trying to
(31:52):
be the same person, all want to be the same
popular and unique and really not being if you're like
everybody else, we're you know, we're not going to be that.
But I think that girl code has lost this essence
(32:12):
of in the ways that we look out for each
other and that in the spirit of I'm over here
minding my own business. That's a trick. It is good
for you to do the things that matter to you
right and for you not to be poking, being nosy.
(32:36):
But that does not mean that if you see somebody
in distress, if you see somebody who's in pain, if
you see somebody maybe making a poor decision, maybe drinking
too much, and you know they like to drive, or
maybe they're trying a drug, or maybe they have the
wrong kind of person in their life, and you see
it that you should not speak on it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
For parents enduring so tragedy, Jeannette offers some gained wisdom
and a book she's currently writing about her journey, hoping
her story can prevent even one other heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
One of the most important things I think that is
important for a parent to do is creating a real
creating an atmosphere where people understand who your child was.
(33:33):
Once you get people to relate that this is a
human being. This is somebody's sister, somebody's daughter, or somebody's
mother or somebody. People have been so desensitized right because
things keep happening that they just make us be like, oh,
just just another person who got it, just another person
in a car accident. We're getting desensitized by how much
(33:55):
we see that the connectivity kind of comes down.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
She also emphasizes the value of local leadership and community,
not just high level officials.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Community is super, super important, So reaching out to the
community leaders is super important on a local level. Them
council people, that's where it's at because hired that they
don't even be really caring. But the people who you
can go directly to and they know, they usually know
(34:31):
you or they know about you. Those community leaders people
don't understand when you're voting, this is what you need
to look at. Who's going to be your activists, who
going to point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Throughout this ordeal, Jeannette reached out to political leaders in
every direction, from local officials in Atlanta to state and
federal representatives.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I reached out to the governor, and I reached out
to the mayor of Atlanta, and I reached out to
the senators here, and I reached out to the President
of the United States, and I say, everybody responded back
except for the mayor of Atlanta in which this happened.
(35:19):
So his office just never got back. He never got
back I know personal people who went to him and
told them about my daughter's case. It just never felt
the need to try to guide that along in any
way possible. But I do want to say, John Ossoff,
he sent me a beautiful letter. I want to say
(35:41):
Trump and his wife sent me a beautiful letter. And
the you know, our governor camp, you know, they responded,
you know, with a phone call and email saying, hey, listen,
this is not necessarily our jurisdiction. But whatever we could
do to help you heal or whatever like that, they
(36:01):
did do that.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
The case, as it says today waiting for the trial date,
is they're still authorities investigating. Are they still trying to
recover her?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
They are not trying to recover her. I am trying
to recover her now.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Jeanette's mission is clearer than ever to keep a Lonnie's
story alive and to achieve justice.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
This exactly what you're doing is actually one of the
biggest ways people can help putting out her story, you know,
fresh stories, reminding people that this is still happening, that
her body has not been given back to us.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
She wants people to grasp not only what occurred to
her daughter, but what could be happening to many other
young women.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Fulham County and the state of Geologia hates to say
that there's trafficking here. Take it to the next level
of something that I never say on TV, but I'm
going to say it today. She was not only trafficked,
but her body parts were never found. Why do we
think that is? And they were on the black market.
(37:18):
Why do you think people's body parts keep missing? She's
not the first one look it up, y'all, just won't
y'all do not want to say that because you have
all of these things coming into this city. You don't
want to say that these girls are being drugged. They
think they're smoking weed or they think they're doing this
(37:40):
and you're giving them feneral, you're giving them sleepy these
seeds so you could sleeping pills, so they don't know
what happens to them. Then you either get them addicted
to this stuff till they're working for you or you're
doing things to them, and then you traffic them. One
(38:06):
of the things that I would love for people to
understand is that she was in fact trafficked, and I
don't care if they don't. Never put it on a
piece of paper. My daughter was traffic because her body
was taken put in a car, driven to Douglasville. From Douglasville,
(38:28):
it went to Alabama. The man made multiple stops. Nicholas
made multiple stops with my daughter, including getting snacks and
going to a hotel with her body. Let's say she
never gave permission for that.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Despite the staggering grief, frustration, and disillusionment with law enforcement,
Jeannette holds onto her faith.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I'm a believer, and I think that's important because she
was believe. We had very defined beliefs in God. So
I know where she is today, and I too believe
(39:16):
that if my daughter is a hundred percent gone with Jesus,
that that's where exactly where she is, and that has
she been at home, the same thing would have happened.
She would just want to sleep. I do believe that
(39:37):
her day was her day. What I don't believe in
is how ugly. The people who had something to do
with her making her missing have extended the pain that
my family, the community, her friends, and everybody who has
(40:04):
this story has touched the damage that has been caused.
These people have extended those circumstances.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Three years have passed since Alani's disappearance, three men have
been charged, Still no trial date has been said, no
body has been found, and justice remains elusive. Jeannette continues
the fight, not just for her daughter, but for every
(40:34):
young woman who may have slipped through the cracks.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
A point to all these interviews is that people it's
happening so much that it's just like another thing, another thing,
another thing, but it's not. I've had a privilege to
talk to a lot of other parents who have gone
through are very similar things as me. Who have your
(40:58):
children missing, who found out something he enius happened, who
still don't know and they just didn't have you know?
They often asked, how how did you know? Get the
story to this point? But the point is that I
have to remain very poised in a time where that's
not what I feel. I feel very challenged and not
(41:22):
normal and not healthy at not my best. But if
I don't present well, they'll stop talking about my daughter
if I'm just this angry person and believe me, I
am enraged. I am enraged, I am disgusted, I am hurt.
(41:44):
There are no words to express the damage that these
people have caused.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Alani Lenor was twenty four years old when she vanished.
She was a daughter, a sister, and with dreams. She
was a creative, right and hopeful. In her twenty four years,
she had lived so much life and she deserved so
much better than what unfolded that night in July twenty
(42:16):
twenty two. My thoughts and prayers are with Alani's family,
especially her mother, Jeannette, who still stands strong in seeking answers,
justice and accountability. Anyone with information that could help lead
to the recovery of Alani Leonore should please contact the
(42:37):
Atlanta Police Department or crime Stoppers. Their contact information can
be found in the description below. As we close out
this episode, remember that sharing Alani's story helps bring awareness
to her case as her mother continues to achieve justice,
and it may help prevent similar tragedies from taking place.
(43:02):
Don't forget to click the follow button to stay updated
on Alnnie's case. And others like it. Be sure to
subscribe to Hunting for Answers on YouTube to catch the
video version to this episode, and follow us on Instagram
and TikTok for more true crime content and case updates.
If you're watching us on YouTube, drop your thoughts on
(43:23):
this case and the comments below. Thank you so much
for joining us on another episode until next time. Hunting
(43:45):
for Answers is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Hi
Hunting for Answers is a production of the Black Effect
Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome to Hunting for Answers, a
true crime podcast. I'm your host Hunter, and today we're
highlighting the heartbreaking case of a twenty four year old
woman in Atlanta, Georgia. She vanished on July thirtieth, twenty
(00:24):
twenty two, after visiting a Midtown apartment with a friend.
She lived life to the fullest, came from a close
knit family, and had a personality that drew people in
with her bubbly nature and trusting spirit. But on that
summer night, she entered an apartment building in the sixteen
(00:45):
hundred block of Peachtree Street in Midtown and was never
seen again. What followed was a mother's relentless search for
her daughter, an investigation that revealed disturbing as to the
dark web, and a legal battle that continues to this day.
(01:06):
In this episode, we'll speak with her mother, who shares
the painful details of her daughter's disappearance, the investigation, and
her ongoing fight for justice. This is the story of
Alanie Leonore. Before we dive into the events that led
(01:29):
to the disappearance of Alanie, we first need to understand
who she was. Alannie was twenty four years old, and
her mother, Jeanette Jackson, says she had already lived more
life than many people twice her age.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One thing about my daughter is she was just one
of those I don't want to use the word naive,
but I do want to say she was very trusting.
She was just one of those people that trusted in friendships,
trusted in a new friendship. She she just was always
trying to celebrate, you know, just all the things that
(02:10):
you could celebrate. You know. She's just one of those
people that like to have a good time and really
really enjoy their life to the fullest.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Alani came from a multicultural background and food was a
big part of her family's connection. She was affectionately called
Fruity by loved Ones, a nickname reflecting her bubbly spirit
and a family with an affinity for giving nicknames.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
And she was a foodie. You know, we come from
a multicultural background, so she's Black and Puerto Rican, and
you know, we love food. We love all types of food,
so we cooked a lot. We come from a very
I guess we like to joke around a lot, so
that definitely runs through the entire family, so you know,
(03:02):
she was just like always making jokes and having fun
and just trying to find the light.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
At the time of her disappearance, Alanie was exploring different
paths and figuring out her next steps in life.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
She was a dancer, so she was in nightlife. She
was also a singer, so she was recording music. She
was very artistic. You know. She was at that time
kind of trying to figure out life. And we were
thinking about getting a food truck for her because her
family has owned multiple restaurants, you know, in the past,
(03:39):
and that's just a passion of hers.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
She had a very close relationship with her mother. After
the pandemic, Alani had moved back home. They talked constantly
and she always shared her location with her mom.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Me and my daughter were very close. I knew exactly
where she was going, I knew exactly where what she
was doing when she was out. She always shared her location.
So there was never a time she after COVID she
came back home, so she was living in my home.
So this is one. This is one like you know,
an adult child that doesn't live at home, so you
(04:16):
don't really know their schedule, is what I'm saying, you know.
So we saw each other every day and even when
she was out, we talked all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
When Alaunie disappeared, Jeanette knew something was wrong. But to
better understand the full story, we need to go back
to that weekend in July twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So my daughter left here on a Friday, which is
not unusual. Pretty much on her weekend she kind of
spent with her friends or her boyfriend, and pretty much
we would hang out a little bit. Our our days
was Friday, so we would hang out, do our thing,
and then she would go out. So she left here
with her friend Torri, who was in the beginning of
(05:02):
all of this. So that Saturday, before she got picked
up by Tory, me and her talk, We laughed, we joked,
send each other tiktoks, and we had some plans for
that Monday.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That would be the last time she would hear from
her daughter. Saturday night, Alani's friend Tory picked her up.
They went to a club but left early and later
connected with two men, Stephen Obate and Deontay Reynolds, deciding
to go to their apartment for a kickback in the
(05:36):
sixteen hundred block of Peachtree Street. This was the last
place Alani was seen alive. Things took a disturbing turn
around midnight. That's when Tory left Alani with the two men.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
What actually happened that night, My daughter gets left there
with Steven and Deante. That's weird. Let's start with that.
Toy's excuse for that was that she was ready to
go and that my daughter wasn't, and she left. If
you knew my daughter, you knew Toy. That's already a
(06:15):
funny story in itself, because my daughter was a girls girl,
So she would never personally leave anybody no matter what. Oh,
you don't want to go, well, I guess we're not leaving.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Torri also left her car at the apartment, a detail
Jeanette found very strange.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Now, mind you, Tory left there in her car, left
her car there at these guys' house over the weekend.
So we'll just sit on that for a minute. So
she goes there with my daughter, then decides to leave
my daughter there. Then Deontay walks her to a guy.
(06:51):
Another guy gets her in her car safely, and then
the guy leaves with her and Tory leaves her car
there for the weekend, she caused me. The next day,
she's like, hey, have you talked to Alani and said, no,
why would I have talked to her if she was
(07:11):
with you? You know, oh no, you know, real light.
You know, she decided to go. You know, they were
going to get her an uber, which was also a
weird thing because if she needed an uber, she would
always call me and tell her to send her uber.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Jeanette wasn't too alarmed at this point. She assumed Alanie
was at her boyfriend's house, but she still had this
uneasy feeling.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So again nothing, I said, Okay, well, she's probably at
her boyfriend's house, and I'm not thinking anything of it.
But it was something in Toy's you know, tone, that
was kind of like, I don't know, the first little
strange feeling I got.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Jeanette checked Alanie's location. It showed her still at the
apartment on Peachtree. Her phone was active, so Jeanette left
a message hoping she'd call back.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I have to respect her space. So I said, okay,
I just called my daughter. She didn't pick up. I said, hey,
you know, this girl's giving me kind of worried, you know,
give me a call. When you get a chance when
your phone's back on.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Tory called again. This time she told Jeanette that she
had talked to the two men and that they were
quote being weird, and.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Tory calls me. She's like, hey, you know how to
talk to Alani this, I said, No, I am not,
so I text her, Hey, listen, I'm getting worried about you.
Please contact me back. She's like, you know, I talked
to those guys and they're being weird, and you know,
you know I you know, I left her there, and
now you know I don't like the way to talk
to me, So I'm on my way there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Surveillance video from the apart apartment shows all four Alani, Tory,
Steven Obaught, and Deontay Reynolds entering together. Deontay had walked
Tory out. Alani never left on camera.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Now, what I do want to say is by viewing
the video, there's video footage all four of them going
into the apartment, which if you've watched my story you
hear me talking about that. And there's also a video
footage of the people leaving in an aut of the apartment,
my daughter never being seen on that camera. Again, one
of the most One of the things that runs through
(09:42):
my mind that I've actually never publicly talked about so
exclusive for you, is me watching the video and obviously
as a mother at this time, I'm looking for every clue.
Right looking at the video of her and Deontae leaving
(10:02):
that apartment. When they're walking out of that apartment, they
are stoked. Two people who apparently have gone to this apartment,
had a good time. You know, whatever that good time was,
if you know what I'm saying, right, whatever adult people
do when they're hanging out. When they're walking in this
(10:26):
long hallway, you look at them, they're just like weird.
You know, They're not saying anything, They're not really communicating.
They're just kind of walking kind of just very robotically
(10:47):
bye bye. Now why does that matter? Because before when
I watched the video first, I did not know what
happened to my daughter, you know, I had not come
to the to the to the realization that she's no
(11:11):
longer with us. I did not know what they did
to their body, and we probably never will know exactly
what they did to her body, but we know that
it wasn't anything that was good.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
After that night, Jeanette began a desperate search. August first,
she filed a missing person's report. She contacted police, friends, family,
anyone who might have seen Alani. On September twenty first,
twenty twenty two, Atlanta police held a press conference announcing
(11:51):
what loved ones feared most. They now believed Alanie Leonore
had been murdered and that her body had been disposed of.
Two men, Deontay Reynolds and Stephen Obate, were charged with
felony murder and concealing the death of another. A third man,
(12:13):
Nicholas Hendrickson, was later arrested and charged with concealing the
death of another, tampering with evidence, making false statements, and
hindering the apprehension or punishment of a criminal. But for Jeanette,
this was never only a murder case. It was something
(12:34):
far bigger.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
My daughter was trafficked. Whether my daughter was whether my
daughter was alive when she was trafficked or not, I
don't know, but that she was traffic says that you're
taken beside your will from one place to another, specifically
(12:58):
out of this state to that state, without her consent,
and she absolutely could not give consent.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
According to Alannie's mom, the men moved her body from
Atlanta to Douglasville and then to Alabama, making several stomps
along the way.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
There's no doubt about it. They moved my daughter's body.
So they absolutely moved her from this state to that
state through a beck That is not hearsay. That is
exactly what they did. Now, was she in what condition
(13:39):
her body was at that point, that's up to them
to tell the truth. I don't think that these men
are capable of telling the truth. And the reason is
is because the truth is way worse than what everybody
thinks it is.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Alani had a purse with her personal items, including more
than twelve hundred dollars in cash, that night she disappeared.
None of it has ever been found.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They not only took her but her things. She had
her belongings, She had her purse, she had over twelve
hundred dollars in cash then never gave back. She had
her cell phone, she had her IDs, she had her
personal belongings which they never gave back.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Investigators have never recovered any of Alani's belongings, and to
this day, her body has not been located. Frustrated with
the pace of the police investigation, Jeannette hired a private
investigator to continue the search on her own.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So the reason why we decided to do that is
more so I could not not look for my daughter,
her actual body. And the police unfortunately, with all the
things that have happened in the world, the way that
they have to work is very different than when you
(15:10):
hire somebody privately, right, So they have all this red
tape they have to and if they're not careful then
then they can be sued, right or they can be
perceived as either being too aggressive or not aggressive. So
I get some of the politics that they do. And
also she's a lot of wrong girl. Right. So even
(15:33):
though that's not something that I talk about every day,
I don't like to harp on it every day, but
we do see people who look like us missing every day,
and there's not as much motion. So my family's objective
was to get that motion. Whether you want us to
have motion or not, She's going to have motion because
(15:54):
all these babies who keep disappearing in Georgia, if you
take some time anytime during your research and look, they
all look like my daughter. They all literally looked like
they could be sisters or cousins or you know what
I'm saying familiar. Whoever's doing this to these women here,
(16:15):
they have a type.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
In her relentless search for Alanie, Jeanette went to places
she never imagined she'd have to go in.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
The spirit of looking for my daughter. I went everywhere,
and I talked to everybody, and I went to crack
houses and whorehouses and pimp places and places that I
should that have never been because you know, I could
have also came up missing. But in doing that, I
(16:49):
found a lot of good people too, who led me
to continue to push and tell me that I wasn't crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
What she uncovered during her own investigation was deeply disturbing.
Two of the men connected to her daughter's case, she says,
had been involved in far more than one crime.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
These guys happened up to all kinds of things, and
they had been selling all kinds of bad drugs, and
they had been hurting you know, other people, you no.
I ran into ex girlfriends who said, you know, this
person did this to me and that person did that
to me, which led me to believe, like, hey, you know,
(17:34):
there's more going on there.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
In twenty twenty four, Stephen Obate was also indicted on
federal charges related to drug trafficking and darknet operations separate
from Alanie's case. He was arrested that June after nearly
two years on the run, captured during a jet ski
(17:57):
chase on Lake Alatuna. With these charges, he remains in custody.
The courts have denied bond, citing him as a flight
risk and danger to the community.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So I wasn't crazy, and everything that I told them
to look for they slowly but surely found. So they
were on a dark web. Their businesses were on a
dark web. And you can't find my daughter or her
(18:33):
body parts.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Jeannette believes what happened to her daughter is part of
a much larger crisis in Atlanta human trafficking and potentially worse,
Oregon harvesting. She points to what she sees as a
pattern young women disappearing with remains were recovered.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
She was not only trafficked, but her body parts were
never found. Why do we think that is? And they
were on the black market. Why do you think people's
body parts keep missing? She's not the first one look
it up, y'all, just won't y'all do not want to
(19:23):
say that because you have all of these things coming
into this city. You don't want to say that these
girls are being drugged. They think they're smoking weed, or
they think they're doing this and you're giving them federal
or you're giving.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Them sleepy these seeds so you could sleeping pills, so
they don't know what happens to them.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Then you either get them addicted to this stuff till
they're working for you, or you're doing things to them,
and then you traffic them. And when they don't do
what you say, or you think you cannot control what
they do, then you hack them up. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Atlanta's role in trafficking is often tied to its airport
and interstate highways. Jeannette believes that the authorities and media
often avoid using the term trafficking when discussing cases like
her daughters.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
One of the ways we can prevent them is by
talking that they're happening. When have you seen any kind
of episodes on anybody's TV talking about trafficking. You don't,
As a matter of fact, if you go back and
look at everything that I've ever done with the police
on TV, they specifically try to not use that word,
(20:47):
when in fact that is exactly what they did.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
In July twenty twenty five, Nicholas Hendrickson was released on
twenty thousand dollars bond to attend his father's funeral, move
that enraged Jeanette and raised serious questions about justice in
this case. Though he is not accused of murder, Hendrickson
(21:11):
is charged with concealing the death, tampering with evidence, false statements,
and hindering apprehension or punishment of a criminal. Now, Jeanette
points to systemic failures in Fulton County.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Not in a good space to to dissect that real,
real good. I know it was shocking to everyone, and
it was shocking to me too, but not if that
(21:50):
makes sense. Nothing about the way my daughter's case has
been handled has ever spoke to me like that's it,
that's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Just recently, the case took another dramatic turn. Nicholas Hendrickson,
who had been released on bond while awaiting trial, skipped
a mandatory court appearance. A bench warrant has since been
issued for his arrest. He'd been granted bond in June
(22:21):
twenty twenty five under strict conditions twenty four to seven
monitoring zero contact with Elani's family and mandatory court appearances,
but according to the District Attorney's office, he failed to
appear at a September compliance hearing. Now a search is underway.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, first of all, she's in Fulton County, So you know,
people purposely and intentionally commit crimes in Fulton County because
they know if you wait long enough, you'll get away
with some stuff. We've seen it over and over and over. Right,
they're slow full in their core system. So if you
have people who are going to testify, what are they
(23:08):
going to remember after year three, four, five, six, seven.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Right, Jeanette recalls showing up to more court hearings than
anyone else, more than prosecutors, more than defense attorneys, even
more than the defendants themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I've been to court more times than the DA, more
times than the actual I'm sorry, more times than than
the attorneys who took on these cases. I've been there
more than the people who committed these crimes. I've been
(23:47):
there more times because half of the time there's court,
I show up, my family shows up, the people show up.
You know, the DA doesn't show up. I show up,
the DA shows up, one of the judges. I mean
not the judges, but not the attorneys on the other side,
doesn't show up, or they forgot to have the defendant
(24:11):
show up, or you know, they forgot to tell us that.
You know, they can't have court because there's something more
important happening in that court.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
She points out how high profile trials in Fulton County
often overshadowed her daughter's case, trials like the YSL Rico
case or the twenty twenty election prosecutions.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You know, first it was the YSL trial, right, then
it was Trump, then it was back to YSL, right
then it was Fanny herself, right, and a bunch of
other stuff. I'm just naming the stuff because some of
these attorneys, unfortunately, have also been in my artists case.
(25:02):
So everything tends to be more important if it's a
high profile, right, or if they deem it this is
more important than that. I don't know what could be
more important than somebody who was murdered, blatantly made to disappear,
and these people keep playing in y'all face.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But one thing she never saw coming was the release
of Nicholas Hendrickson. It happened during a hearing she wasn't
even notified about.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
They very much told me that that would not happen.
They very much told me, hey, if you do not
agree with this, it won't happen. And they did it anyway.
So to say that that wasn't the first slap in
the face, but that's the first one where I feel
(25:54):
like everybody else felt it too. Everybody else is like,
in a way, oh, we see this lady every time
talk about please no bye, no bon no ban, and
it seems like she keeps doing it. She keeps doing it,
She keeps doing that, she keep doing it. And the
one time they didn't have me come, the one time
I was not at court, the one time I couldnot
(26:14):
present myself to the judge because I wasn't told that
they were going to go before the judge. That's the
one time they let them go.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The last court date Jeannette attended was May fifth, twenty
twenty four, single demayo, a session where prosecutors said they
would set a trial date before the summer.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
That was the last time we were in actual court
and they said, hey, before the end of this summer,
we have to set a trial date. And then he
got up there and said, well, you know, I'm gonna
be doing this and that and this. I don't know,
and it's been the I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
As of this recording, no trial date has been scheduled
in this case. When asked what my happen next, Jeanette's
answer is simple, set a date.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, But what needs to happen is basically they need
to set a court date and let it just play
out and at the very least, you know, show that
show the criminals in this county that everyone who works
in the county is doing everything working. The real problem
(27:30):
is in this county is that everybody works very separately
and very differently, with very very different specific agendas. That's
the main problem with Fulton County.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One of the most painful truths for Jeannette is that
she still cannot properly grieve her daughter.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I cannot grieve because I have not buried point daughter.
I do not have a definitive answer as to what
happened to my daughter.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Over the years, she's spoken to the three men charged
an Alanie's case and their families, but the encounters have
only deepened her anguish.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The ugliness that have spewed from these people. From the
commentary of I'm sure you've heard some of the audio,
she got what she deserved, to one of the parents saying,
my son will never be with the likes of your
daughter when your son is actually a whole monster from
(28:43):
this man's girlfriend, baby mam or whatever you want to
call spewing all kinds of ugliness about my daughter when
she in fact did not know my daughter and should
empathize with my daughter because she in fact also has
a daughter. The ugliness that came from these people, even
(29:08):
after the fact is it's unheard of, Like, not only
are you guilty, but you literally continue to press, try
to humiliate her family, try to deter me from looking
(29:34):
from her for her.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
She has even received threats as she pushes for justice. Yet,
despite the threats, the slow legal system, and the heartbreak,
giving up is simply not an option in confronting this tragedy.
Jeannette has a message for young women, especially in Georgia
(29:56):
and Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
For you out here in Georgia and just in the
world you know, please just be careful. Be careful in
the people who you trust, Be careful in the company
you keep, be careful in the places you go. You
know people. It takes time to get to know yourself.
(30:24):
And get to know. Think of how long it takes
you as a woman to get to know who you are,
and how easily we assume that other people that we
give other people that meaning our girlfriends or our boyfriends,
or people who we deal with, or people who we
(30:45):
work with, or people who we go to school with.
We have to have one of the things that I
think is important. You know, you know, every you know,
ten years or so, as the decades past, right, there's
things that become important to us and then kind of
slip our minds and then they come back and you know,
kind of like another generation picks it up. And one
(31:07):
of those things that I would like to say is
girl code. Just people are just so jealous and just
so worried about the wrong things about present the way
we would present to the world. And it's really really
important to get yourself a good community of girlfriends that
(31:30):
look out for you even when you you know, there's
always somebody in the group thats like we know, they
got better judgment than us, Like black Girl's making them
good decisions, you know what I'm saying, And just working
on that because social media has us all trying to
(31:52):
be the same person, all want to be the same
popular and unique and really not being if you're like
everybody else, we're you know, we're not going to be that.
But I think that girl code has lost this essence
(32:12):
of in the ways that we look out for each
other and that in the spirit of I'm over here
minding my own business. That's a trick. It is good
for you to do the things that matter to you
right and for you not to be poking, being nosy.
(32:36):
But that does not mean that if you see somebody
in distress, if you see somebody who's in pain, if
you see somebody maybe making a poor decision, maybe drinking
too much, and you know they like to drive, or
maybe they're trying a drug, or maybe they have the
wrong kind of person in their life, and you see
it that you should not speak on it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
For parents enduring so tragedy, Jeannette offers some gained wisdom
and a book she's currently writing about her journey, hoping
her story can prevent even one other heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
One of the most important things I think that is
important for a parent to do is creating a real
creating an atmosphere where people understand who your child was.
(33:33):
Once you get people to relate that this is a
human being. This is somebody's sister, somebody's daughter, or somebody's
mother or somebody. People have been so desensitized right because
things keep happening that they just make us be like, oh,
just just another person who got it, just another person
in a car accident. We're getting desensitized by how much
(33:55):
we see that the connectivity kind of comes down.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
She also emphasizes the value of local leadership and community,
not just high level officials.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Community is super, super important, So reaching out to the
community leaders is super important on a local level. Them
council people, that's where it's at because hired that they
don't even be really caring. But the people who you
can go directly to and they know, they usually know
(34:31):
you or they know about you. Those community leaders people
don't understand when you're voting, this is what you need
to look at. Who's going to be your activists, who
going to point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Throughout this ordeal, Jeannette reached out to political leaders in
every direction, from local officials in Atlanta to state and
federal representatives.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I reached out to the governor, and I reached out
to the mayor of Atlanta, and I reached out to
the senators here, and I reached out to the President
of the United States, and I say, everybody responded back
except for the mayor of Atlanta in which this happened.
(35:19):
So his office just never got back. He never got
back I know personal people who went to him and
told them about my daughter's case. It just never felt
the need to try to guide that along in any
way possible. But I do want to say, John Ossoff,
he sent me a beautiful letter. I want to say
(35:41):
Trump and his wife sent me a beautiful letter. And
the you know, our governor camp, you know, they responded,
you know, with a phone call and email saying, hey, listen,
this is not necessarily our jurisdiction. But whatever we could
do to help you heal or whatever like that, they
(36:01):
did do that.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
The case, as it says today waiting for the trial date,
is they're still authorities investigating. Are they still trying to
recover her?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
They are not trying to recover her. I am trying
to recover her now.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Jeanette's mission is clearer than ever to keep a Lonnie's
story alive and to achieve justice.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
This exactly what you're doing is actually one of the
biggest ways people can help putting out her story, you know,
fresh stories, reminding people that this is still happening, that
her body has not been given back to us.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
She wants people to grasp not only what occurred to
her daughter, but what could be happening to many other
young women.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Fulham County and the state of Geologia hates to say
that there's trafficking here. Take it to the next level
of something that I never say on TV, but I'm
going to say it today. She was not only trafficked,
but her body parts were never found. Why do we
think that is? And they were on the black market.
(37:18):
Why do you think people's body parts keep missing? She's
not the first one look it up, y'all, just won't
y'all do not want to say that because you have
all of these things coming into this city. You don't
want to say that these girls are being drugged. They
think they're smoking weed or they think they're doing this
(37:40):
and you're giving them feneral, you're giving them sleepy these
seeds so you could sleeping pills, so they don't know
what happens to them. Then you either get them addicted
to this stuff till they're working for you or you're
doing things to them, and then you traffic them. One
(38:06):
of the things that I would love for people to
understand is that she was in fact trafficked, and I
don't care if they don't. Never put it on a
piece of paper. My daughter was traffic because her body
was taken put in a car, driven to Douglasville. From Douglasville,
(38:28):
it went to Alabama. The man made multiple stops. Nicholas
made multiple stops with my daughter, including getting snacks and
going to a hotel with her body. Let's say she
never gave permission for that.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Despite the staggering grief, frustration, and disillusionment with law enforcement,
Jeannette holds onto her faith.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I'm a believer, and I think that's important because she
was believe. We had very defined beliefs in God. So
I know where she is today, and I too believe
(39:16):
that if my daughter is a hundred percent gone with Jesus,
that that's where exactly where she is, and that has
she been at home, the same thing would have happened.
She would just want to sleep. I do believe that
(39:37):
her day was her day. What I don't believe in
is how ugly. The people who had something to do
with her making her missing have extended the pain that
my family, the community, her friends, and everybody who has
(40:04):
this story has touched the damage that has been caused.
These people have extended those circumstances.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Three years have passed since Alani's disappearance, three men have
been charged, Still no trial date has been said, no
body has been found, and justice remains elusive. Jeannette continues
the fight, not just for her daughter, but for every
(40:34):
young woman who may have slipped through the cracks.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
A point to all these interviews is that people it's
happening so much that it's just like another thing, another thing,
another thing, but it's not. I've had a privilege to
talk to a lot of other parents who have gone
through are very similar things as me. Who have your
(40:58):
children missing, who found out something he enius happened, who
still don't know and they just didn't have you know?
They often asked, how how did you know? Get the
story to this point? But the point is that I
have to remain very poised in a time where that's
not what I feel. I feel very challenged and not
(41:22):
normal and not healthy at not my best. But if
I don't present well, they'll stop talking about my daughter
if I'm just this angry person and believe me, I
am enraged. I am enraged, I am disgusted, I am hurt.
(41:44):
There are no words to express the damage that these
people have caused.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Alani Lenor was twenty four years old when she vanished.
She was a daughter, a sister, and with dreams. She
was a creative, right and hopeful. In her twenty four years,
she had lived so much life and she deserved so
much better than what unfolded that night in July twenty
(42:16):
twenty two. My thoughts and prayers are with Alani's family,
especially her mother, Jeannette, who still stands strong in seeking answers,
justice and accountability. Anyone with information that could help lead
to the recovery of Alani Leonore should please contact the
(42:37):
Atlanta Police Department or crime Stoppers. Their contact information can
be found in the description below. As we close out
this episode, remember that sharing Alani's story helps bring awareness
to her case as her mother continues to achieve justice,
and it may help prevent similar tragedies from taking place.
(43:02):
Don't forget to click the follow button to stay updated
on Alnnie's case. And others like it. Be sure to
subscribe to Hunting for Answers on YouTube to catch the
video version to this episode, and follow us on Instagram
and TikTok for more true crime content and case updates.
If you're watching us on YouTube, drop your thoughts on
(43:23):
this case and the comments below. Thank you so much
for joining us on another episode until next time. Hunting
(43:45):
for Answers is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Hi
Host
Hunter Gilmore
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