Absent: Amanda Poole

In this episode of Hunting 4 Answers: On October 8, 2015, 16-year-old Amanda Poole left her aunt’s home in Memphis, Tennessee, headed to school—and vanished before reaching the bus stop. She was last seen wearing a white shirt and khaki pants. For nearly a decade, her family has been searching for answers. Anyone with information about this case should contact the Memphis Police Department at 901-636-4479, Crime Stoppers of Memphis & Shelby County at 901-528-CASH (2274), Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) at 1-800-TBI-FIND or www.crimestopmem.org. You can also reach out to the family through the Facebook group: Bring Amanda Poole Home. Her agency case number is: 1510004075ME.  

This is the story of Amanda Poole. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 a case that has haunted Memphis, Tennessee for nearly
a decade. On October eighth, twenty fifteen, a sixteen year

(00:22):
old girl left her home on a typical Thursday morning,
heading to school just like any other day. But she
never made it to her first period class, and she
never made it home. What started as a routine walk
to the bus stop became the beginning of a mystery

(00:42):
that would leave a family searching for answers for nine
years in counting. This is the story of Amanda Pool.
Amanda Pool was born on jim January first, nineteen ninety nine,
entering the world with so much promise of a bright

(01:05):
future ahead. By twenty fifteen, at just sixteen years old,
Amanda was a student at ches Vant High School in Memphis, Tennessee,
working towards her graduation. At the time of her disappearance,
Amanda stood between five six and five seven, weighing between

(01:26):
one hundred and twenty and one hundred and fifty pounds.
She had black hair and brown eyes, with a scar
above her left eye that made her easily recognizable to
those who knew her. Before she went missing, Amanda had
been staying with her aunt in the twenty three hundred
block of Cliffdale Cove. Her mother, Hammy Lachore, remained very

(01:50):
much a part of her daughter's life, and the two
maintained a close relationship despite the living arrangement. October eighth,
twenty fifteen, started like any other Thursday for Amanda. She
woke up that morning, prepared for another day of school,

(02:11):
and left the house. She was last seen wearing a
white shirt and khaki pants. But as Amanda walked towards
the North Memphis bus stop, the one that she used
every day for school, something went wrong. Somewhere between leaving
her aunt's home and reaching that bus stop, Amanda vanished

(02:34):
without a trace. When she failed to show up for
classes at school, teachers likely assumed she was simply absent
for the day, but as the afternoon turned to evening
and Amanda didn't return home, her family knew something had
gone terribly wrong. Amanda's disappearance set off in media alarm

(03:00):
bells for her family. This wasn't a teenager who had
a history of running away or staying out all night
without permission. Her mother, Tammy, would later tell reporters that
she couldn't think of any reason why Amanda would have
chosen to leave. I don't feel like she ran away,

(03:22):
Tammy said, a year after her daughter's disappearance. I feel
like something else must have happened. The Memphis Police Department
launched an investigation into her disappearance. Detectives began the process
of retracing her steps from that Thursday morning, interviewing family members, friends, classmates,

(03:45):
and anyone who might have seen her on October eighth.
As investigators dug into Amanda's case, they found no red
flags in her personal life that would suggest that she
had planned to disappear. She was a typical sixteen year old.
She had no known enemies, no dangerous relationships, and no

(04:09):
history of risky behavior. The mysterious circumstances of her disappearance
made it all the more troubling. It appeared as if
Amanda somehow walked out of her aunt's home that morning
and vanished into thin air, But her mother had a

(04:30):
theory about what might have happened. I think she just
met up with the wrong people, Hammy told reporters. The
idea that Amanda had encountered someone with bad intentions, perhaps
a stranger who saw an opportunity, or someone who seemed
trustworthy but wasn't haunted her family. As weeks turned into months,

(04:55):
the Memphis Police Department continued their investigations, but leads were scarce.
Without witnesses to Amanda's actual disappearance, without her phone or
personal belongings being found, and without any clear evidence of
what had happened to her, the case began to stall.

(05:19):
By January twenty seventeen, more than a year after Amanda's disappearance,
her mother was making public pleas for information. The timing
was particularly painful. January first was Amanda's birthday. She would
have been celebrating turning eighteen, becoming a legal adult, and

(05:41):
looking forward to her future after graduation. Instead, her mother
found herself speaking to news cameras, desperately hoping that someone
somewhere had information that could bring her daughter home. Her
message to anyone who might know something about Amanda's whereabouts

(06:03):
was simple, yet heartbreaking. Please let us know that she's okay.
Tell her to come home. Just come home, Amanda. No
one's upset at you, no one. Everyone loves you. As
the investigation continued, police reached out to the public for

(06:25):
help as well. They asked anyone with information about Amanda's
disappearance to come forward, no matter how small or seemingly
insignificant the detail might be. But the calls and tips
weren't leading to a breakthrough. By the time Fox thirteen

(06:49):
contacted Memphis Police about the status of their search in
twenty seventeen, the department's response was discouraging but hope still
see alive. They said they had no lead so far,
but the search continues. As more time passed, Amanda's case

(07:10):
began to receive the classification that no family wants to
hear cold case. The active investigation scaled back, and the
file joined hundreds of other unsolved cases in the Memphis
Police departments system. But Amanda's family never gave up. Over

(07:30):
the years, they have continued to search for answers, distributing flyers,
maintaining social media pages, and keeping her story alive in
the community. A Facebook group called Bring Amanda Pool Home
grew to more than sixteen hundred followers from people in
Memphis and beyond who are also determined to not let

(07:52):
Amanda be forgotten. As we approached the ninth anniversary of
her disappearance, her case remains unsolved. The sixteen year old
who vanished on her way to school would now be
twenty five years old. Instead, her family has been left

(08:13):
with questions that have haunted them for nearly a decade.
What happened to Amanda on October eighth, twenty fifteen. Did
she encounter someone she knew who had bad intentions? Was
she the victim of a random crime, Perhaps someone spotted

(08:33):
a young girl walking alone and saw an opportunity to
take advantage, or was it something else at play. The
lack of witnesses to her actual disappearance has made the
investigation more difficult. With no one coming forward and without
any clear evidence of what happened to her, investigators have

(08:55):
had little to work with. But somewhere out there, someone
knows something, Someone has information that could help finally give
her family the answers that they've been searching for for them,
Every day that passes is another day without closure, another

(09:18):
day without answers, and another day of not knowing whether
their loved one is alive, dead, safe, or in danger.
The investigation into Amanda Pool's disappearance remains active, and the
Memphis Police Department continues to ask for the public's help.

(09:40):
My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends
of Amanda Pool. Anyone with information about her disappearance to
contact the Memphis Police Department. You can also submit anonymous
tips through Crime Stoppers or through the department's online tip system.
You can find that information in the description box below.

(10:02):
As we close out this episode, don't forget to click
the follow button to stay updated on Amanda's case and
others like it. Be sure to subscribe to Hunting for
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for more true crime content and case updates. If you're
watching us on YouTube, drop your thoughts on this case

(10:24):
in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for joining us on another episode.
Until next time. Hunting for Answers is a production of

(10:52):
the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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