August 12, 2024 • 12 mins
In this Mystery Monday episode, we dive into the mysterious case of 8-year-old Ameera Deadrick, who disappeared from Houston, Texas, in 2016. Ameera’s mother, Tiara McWilliams, has been living in a nightmare, desperately seeking answers about her missing daughter.
Join us as we explore the events leading up to Ameera's disappearance, including her time spent with her father, Anthony Deadrick, and the puzzling claims about a woman named Linda or “Tootie” who supposedly took custody of her. Despite extensive investigations and public appeals, the case remains unsolved.
Listen now to learn more about this heartbreaking case and find out how you can make a difference.
Join us on Discord!
https://discord.com/invite/PcKQrMGP
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Mysteries and Mimosis. My name is Max Sterling and I'm here with my co-host
(00:14):
and also my amazing wife, Aria. Hi everyone. Happy Monday, Aria, and welcome back to another
Mystery Monday episode. I know we took last week off unexpectedly, but life happens. So
we're back and I'm excited. Today we have an important episode for you, but before we
dive in, here's a quick reminder. If you enjoy our show, please take a moment to rate us
(00:34):
five stars and click that subscribe button. And don't forget to follow us on social media
for the latest updates and behind the scenes content. You can find us on Facebook, TikTok,
YouTube and Instagram at Mysteries and Mimosis podcast. If you haven't figured out how to
connect with us on Discord, I've added a link at the top of our website so you can easily
find it. We hope to grow our Discord server with all of our listeners so you can join
(00:58):
in on that conversation. We would love to hear your feedback and your theories about
the cases we cover, which brings me to our next order of business. We started a pet of
the week segment every Monday and so far we have enough pet pictures to get us through
the month of August. So send us your pet pics by emailing us at mysteriesandmimosis.gmail.com.
Our friends over at Michael and Jeremy's Steal Your Podcast submitted this week's pet picture.
(01:22):
And if you hadn't had a chance to listen to their podcast, you're really missing out.
Those guys are hilarious. They've been our biggest supporters actually since we started
this podcast and we love them. So this week's adorable companion was sent in by my boy Michael.
He sent in a great shot of his cat who goes by the name Rosie Jr. Flowers. I like to call
him RJF. Actually, that's what my nickname is for that cat. RJF is a gray and white ball
(01:48):
of fur and claws with a stunning long tail and tall pointy ears. You can see RJF by visiting
us on Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. So apparently Michael from Michael and Jeremy's Steal Your
Podcast is a cat person, not a dog person. He must be. Must be a cat person. I'm a dog
person through and through. I like all animals really, but I am a dog person at heart. I
(02:12):
just find that name Rosie Jr. Flowers hilarious. He said his daughter named that cat, which
makes sense, but I'm kind of thinking he probably guided that decision. I was going to ask how
he came up with that name. It's cute. It is cute. And if anybody's wondering, I wasn't
sure I told Michael, hey, I don't want to assume your cat's gender. Is this a boy or
a girl? And he said, Rosie Jr. Flowers is a man. Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad you clarified
(02:38):
that. I am too. We might not have known from the name alone. Well, with a name like Rosie,
I was assuming that it was a girl. Rosie Flowers even. Yeah. Junior's the only one that insinuates
it's a man. I'd like to see Rosie Sr. Flowers. Yes. Anyway, just a reminder, Mystery Monday
is a short episode where we shine light on lesser known cases that deserve more attention.
(03:02):
And today's case is about eight year old Amira Diedrich from Houston, Texas. Born in October
of 2008, Amira and her mom, Tiara McWilliams left Houston and moved to Wisconsin shortly
after Amira was born. Apparently Tiara left for Wisconsin to escape an abusive relationship
with Amira's dad and his name is Anthony Diedrich. Eventually Tiara relocated to Illinois with
(03:25):
Amira and in 2013, Tiara reluctantly allowed Amira to spend the summer with Anthony and
Anthony's girlfriend. Because remember Anthony's still living in Houston at this time. So it's
a long distance co-parenting situation. When it was time for Amira to return home, Anthony
refused to meet Tiara to return Amira. According to Tiara, she traveled to Houston in 2014
(03:49):
to bring Amira back home, but Anthony refused to let her go. With no court ordered custody
agreement in place, Tiara had no choice but to return home without her daughter. Wow.
So she sends Amira for the summer in 2013 and tries to go get her in 2014 and he won't
let her have her. Well, yeah, she sent her for the summer in
(04:10):
13 and then was calling trying to say, hey, when can we meet? I want to bring her back
and roll her in school. All the things that co-parents do and he wouldn't let her come.
So she goes out there in 2014 to try to bring her home and Anthony wouldn't let her take
her. Yeah. And unfortunately in situations like that
where you don't have a court order, there's not much the police can do, right? Because
(04:32):
it's his daughter and there's nothing stipulating who has custody or is there joint custody
or what the situation is. So that's devastating. Yeah, it is devastating. And you're right.
Without a court order custody agreement signed by a judge, law enforcement's hands are really
tied and it's actually more common than people realize the amount of call volume that police
(04:58):
get to do some sort of civil standby for a custody dispute or a custody exchange where
the mom says or the dad says, hey, the other parent won't give me my child back, but they
don't have a custody agreement. And so for those reasons, police can't enforce that.
They can't make that decision. So over the next couple of years, Tiara visited
Amira several times and remained in touch with her with phone calls and text messages
(05:23):
and continued to try to convince Anthony to give Amira back, but Anthony still refused.
So he was allowing her to take her for visitations in the Houston area then?
So she was in constant telephone and text message conversation and she'd go down there
to visit Amira, but for whatever reason, Anthony wasn't letting her take her back home to Illinois.
(05:44):
So I don't know if those visits were happening at Anthony's house or if he was allowing her
to take Amira because if he did allow her to take Amira to dinner or something, there's
nothing stopping Tiara from picking up and going back to Illinois and then Anthony's
in that situation. I'm curious too, during all of this, if
either parent filed in court. Did you see that in your research?
(06:06):
No, there's nothing to indicate that either one of them ever had any kind of a custody
agreement. And that's pretty common among parents. People co-parent without going to
court and having those stipulations put in place for decision-making. A lot of times
they don't do anything about child support and they just kind of do this on their own.
(06:30):
Well, when you do that and there's nothing written and signed by a judge, law enforcement,
like we said, have no power to enforce anything. No, I get that. I was just saying in this
situation, if that were the case, I'm just surprised that somewhere along the line after
he has taken her and won't let her return that someone didn't file in court to make
(06:50):
some type of permanent... Tiara could have done that. Anthony could
have done that. There was nothing stopping either one of them from filing something in
court. And if Tiara had any suspicion that Amira was in trouble, she could have done
an emergency protection hearing where they asked to dig at a lawyer and they petition
(07:12):
the court to say, hey, I think my child's in danger. But probably she didn't have enough
information at that time to really think Amira was in danger because he still allowed her
to talk to her on the phone and text message and come visit her in Texas.
Yeah. So I'm just surprised that neither one of them have ever gone to file permanent paperwork
(07:33):
with the courts, especially after Anthony cut off all communication between Tiara and
Amira. Yeah. You would think that it'd be pretty
easy to just petition the court to say, hey, this is my child. She left in 2013. I'm not
allowed to take her back. She has a legal right to have at least parenting time, visitation,
whatever. But in the spring of 2016, Tiara learned Anthony was arrested on unrelated
(07:58):
charges and he was serving time in jail. But Tiara still had no contact with Amira. Tiara
learned Amira was never enrolled in school in Houston. She had never been to the doctor.
And on July 1st of 2016, Tiara's concern for Amira grew, so she filed her missing person
report. Yeah. At this point, it's been three years and she's never gone to school or a
doctor or anything. Right. Yeah. I would be very concerned.
(08:20):
Yeah. And I'm not trying to push any blame on Tiara by any means, but don't you think
there would be some sort of curiosity to like, hey, how's her grades doing? Like, how's her
health? But none of those things ever happened. Yeah. You know, it very well could be the
situation that Tiara is reaching out to Anthony saying, hey, how's she doing in school? Oh,
she's fine. Everything's fine. You know, and if you're not on the same page when your
(08:42):
co-parenting, you miss a lot of information. You know, you have to be able to be willing
to give and take in those co-parenting situations, regardless of how much you like or dislike
the other parent. Anthony said Tutti worked in the healthcare industry and may have lived
in the Bordeaux apartments in Waco, Texas. But when police checked on that address provided
(09:03):
by Anthony, nobody ever lived at that house by the name Linda or Tutti. Anthony was eventually
released from custody, but he has not provided law enforcement with any more information
about Amira's whereabouts. And Amira has never been seen or heard from again. The Center
for Missing and Exploited Children has released an age progression photo of Amira, which you
can find on our Facebook and Instagram pages. So it kind of gives you an idea of, you know,
(09:26):
it's been since 2016 since she's been gone and the age progression photos that Nekmek
does really give you an idea of what that child or that missing person could look like
today because obviously she looks much different now than she did when she went missing. So
one of our sources for this episode is Fox26News. When they asked Yara what she believed may
(09:46):
have happened to Amira, she said, God has given me peace. I had to get sober to get
it, but he's given me peace and I know my daughter is with him. Amira was almost eight
years old at the time of her disappearance and in October of 2024, she will be 16 years
old. She's an African American female with black hair and brown eyes. And when she was
reported missing, she was four foot three inches tall and only weighed 50 pounds. If
(10:10):
you have any information about the disappearance or location of Amira Diedrich, you're encouraged
to contact Sergeant Tony Carter at 512-936-1673 or you can make a report by calling the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. That's 1-800-843-5678.
(10:31):
That's a really sad case. Yeah, it is really sad. You know, Amira, you have a child, you
try to do the right thing to build and foster that relationship with that child's dad and
then you just lose her. Yeah. I'd be curious to see because initially she went to live
with her dad and his girlfriend, just to see what girlfriend says about that living situation,
(10:53):
how long she actually lived with them. Was she still living there when Amira went missing?
Yeah, I don't know either. There's not any information that I was able to find about
whether or not police questioned the girlfriend. But you know, just the simple fact that he
goes to jail and comes up with this crazy story that he just gave Amira to some person
(11:19):
at a convenience store named Tutti. Yeah, that he doesn't even know their last name
or any information about them. Right. So I'm just guessing that he probably wasn't with
his girlfriend at that time anymore. Otherwise he would have given her to the girlfriend.
You know, or had the girlfriend watch after Amira and said, Hey, Tiara, can you come down
(11:39):
here and pick up Amira? I'm in jail. Which is why I think that this whole story about
Linda or Tutti is fabricated and most likely why Tiara has resigned to the fact that Amira
is probably no longer with us. Thank you for listening to another episode of Mysteries
and Mimosa's. And if you have any information about this case, please do the right thing
and make a report. In the meantime, let's raise our mimosa glasses to Amira. Cheers.
(12:05):
ML RAX Cheers.
Welcome to Mysteries and Mimosis. My name is Max Sterling and I'm here with my co-host
(00:14):
and also my amazing wife, Aria. Hi everyone. Happy Monday, Aria, and welcome back to another
Mystery Monday episode. I know we took last week off unexpectedly, but life happens. So
we're back and I'm excited. Today we have an important episode for you, but before we
dive in, here's a quick reminder. If you enjoy our show, please take a moment to rate us
(00:34):
five stars and click that subscribe button. And don't forget to follow us on social media
for the latest updates and behind the scenes content. You can find us on Facebook, TikTok,
YouTube and Instagram at Mysteries and Mimosis podcast. If you haven't figured out how to
connect with us on Discord, I've added a link at the top of our website so you can easily
find it. We hope to grow our Discord server with all of our listeners so you can join
(00:58):
in on that conversation. We would love to hear your feedback and your theories about
the cases we cover, which brings me to our next order of business. We started a pet of
the week segment every Monday and so far we have enough pet pictures to get us through
the month of August. So send us your pet pics by emailing us at mysteriesandmimosis.gmail.com.
Our friends over at Michael and Jeremy's Steal Your Podcast submitted this week's pet picture.
(01:22):
And if you hadn't had a chance to listen to their podcast, you're really missing out.
Those guys are hilarious. They've been our biggest supporters actually since we started
this podcast and we love them. So this week's adorable companion was sent in by my boy Michael.
He sent in a great shot of his cat who goes by the name Rosie Jr. Flowers. I like to call
him RJF. Actually, that's what my nickname is for that cat. RJF is a gray and white ball
(01:48):
of fur and claws with a stunning long tail and tall pointy ears. You can see RJF by visiting
us on Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. So apparently Michael from Michael and Jeremy's Steal Your
Podcast is a cat person, not a dog person. He must be. Must be a cat person. I'm a dog
person through and through. I like all animals really, but I am a dog person at heart. I
(02:12):
just find that name Rosie Jr. Flowers hilarious. He said his daughter named that cat, which
makes sense, but I'm kind of thinking he probably guided that decision. I was going to ask how
he came up with that name. It's cute. It is cute. And if anybody's wondering, I wasn't
sure I told Michael, hey, I don't want to assume your cat's gender. Is this a boy or
a girl? And he said, Rosie Jr. Flowers is a man. Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad you clarified
(02:38):
that. I am too. We might not have known from the name alone. Well, with a name like Rosie,
I was assuming that it was a girl. Rosie Flowers even. Yeah. Junior's the only one that insinuates
it's a man. I'd like to see Rosie Sr. Flowers. Yes. Anyway, just a reminder, Mystery Monday
is a short episode where we shine light on lesser known cases that deserve more attention.
(03:02):
And today's case is about eight year old Amira Diedrich from Houston, Texas. Born in October
of 2008, Amira and her mom, Tiara McWilliams left Houston and moved to Wisconsin shortly
after Amira was born. Apparently Tiara left for Wisconsin to escape an abusive relationship
with Amira's dad and his name is Anthony Diedrich. Eventually Tiara relocated to Illinois with
(03:25):
Amira and in 2013, Tiara reluctantly allowed Amira to spend the summer with Anthony and
Anthony's girlfriend. Because remember Anthony's still living in Houston at this time. So it's
a long distance co-parenting situation. When it was time for Amira to return home, Anthony
refused to meet Tiara to return Amira. According to Tiara, she traveled to Houston in 2014
(03:49):
to bring Amira back home, but Anthony refused to let her go. With no court ordered custody
agreement in place, Tiara had no choice but to return home without her daughter. Wow.
So she sends Amira for the summer in 2013 and tries to go get her in 2014 and he won't
let her have her. Well, yeah, she sent her for the summer in
(04:10):
13 and then was calling trying to say, hey, when can we meet? I want to bring her back
and roll her in school. All the things that co-parents do and he wouldn't let her come.
So she goes out there in 2014 to try to bring her home and Anthony wouldn't let her take
her. Yeah. And unfortunately in situations like that
where you don't have a court order, there's not much the police can do, right? Because
(04:32):
it's his daughter and there's nothing stipulating who has custody or is there joint custody
or what the situation is. So that's devastating. Yeah, it is devastating. And you're right.
Without a court order custody agreement signed by a judge, law enforcement's hands are really
tied and it's actually more common than people realize the amount of call volume that police
(04:58):
get to do some sort of civil standby for a custody dispute or a custody exchange where
the mom says or the dad says, hey, the other parent won't give me my child back, but they
don't have a custody agreement. And so for those reasons, police can't enforce that.
They can't make that decision. So over the next couple of years, Tiara visited
Amira several times and remained in touch with her with phone calls and text messages
(05:23):
and continued to try to convince Anthony to give Amira back, but Anthony still refused.
So he was allowing her to take her for visitations in the Houston area then?
So she was in constant telephone and text message conversation and she'd go down there
to visit Amira, but for whatever reason, Anthony wasn't letting her take her back home to Illinois.
(05:44):
So I don't know if those visits were happening at Anthony's house or if he was allowing her
to take Amira because if he did allow her to take Amira to dinner or something, there's
nothing stopping Tiara from picking up and going back to Illinois and then Anthony's
in that situation. I'm curious too, during all of this, if
either parent filed in court. Did you see that in your research?
(06:06):
No, there's nothing to indicate that either one of them ever had any kind of a custody
agreement. And that's pretty common among parents. People co-parent without going to
court and having those stipulations put in place for decision-making. A lot of times
they don't do anything about child support and they just kind of do this on their own.
(06:30):
Well, when you do that and there's nothing written and signed by a judge, law enforcement,
like we said, have no power to enforce anything. No, I get that. I was just saying in this
situation, if that were the case, I'm just surprised that somewhere along the line after
he has taken her and won't let her return that someone didn't file in court to make
(06:50):
some type of permanent... Tiara could have done that. Anthony could
have done that. There was nothing stopping either one of them from filing something in
court. And if Tiara had any suspicion that Amira was in trouble, she could have done
an emergency protection hearing where they asked to dig at a lawyer and they petition
(07:12):
the court to say, hey, I think my child's in danger. But probably she didn't have enough
information at that time to really think Amira was in danger because he still allowed her
to talk to her on the phone and text message and come visit her in Texas.
Yeah. So I'm just surprised that neither one of them have ever gone to file permanent paperwork
(07:33):
with the courts, especially after Anthony cut off all communication between Tiara and
Amira. Yeah. You would think that it'd be pretty
easy to just petition the court to say, hey, this is my child. She left in 2013. I'm not
allowed to take her back. She has a legal right to have at least parenting time, visitation,
whatever. But in the spring of 2016, Tiara learned Anthony was arrested on unrelated
(07:58):
charges and he was serving time in jail. But Tiara still had no contact with Amira. Tiara
learned Amira was never enrolled in school in Houston. She had never been to the doctor.
And on July 1st of 2016, Tiara's concern for Amira grew, so she filed her missing person
report. Yeah. At this point, it's been three years and she's never gone to school or a
doctor or anything. Right. Yeah. I would be very concerned.
(08:20):
Yeah. And I'm not trying to push any blame on Tiara by any means, but don't you think
there would be some sort of curiosity to like, hey, how's her grades doing? Like, how's her
health? But none of those things ever happened. Yeah. You know, it very well could be the
situation that Tiara is reaching out to Anthony saying, hey, how's she doing in school? Oh,
she's fine. Everything's fine. You know, and if you're not on the same page when your
(08:42):
co-parenting, you miss a lot of information. You know, you have to be able to be willing
to give and take in those co-parenting situations, regardless of how much you like or dislike
the other parent. Anthony said Tutti worked in the healthcare industry and may have lived
in the Bordeaux apartments in Waco, Texas. But when police checked on that address provided
(09:03):
by Anthony, nobody ever lived at that house by the name Linda or Tutti. Anthony was eventually
released from custody, but he has not provided law enforcement with any more information
about Amira's whereabouts. And Amira has never been seen or heard from again. The Center
for Missing and Exploited Children has released an age progression photo of Amira, which you
can find on our Facebook and Instagram pages. So it kind of gives you an idea of, you know,
(09:26):
it's been since 2016 since she's been gone and the age progression photos that Nekmek
does really give you an idea of what that child or that missing person could look like
today because obviously she looks much different now than she did when she went missing. So
one of our sources for this episode is Fox26News. When they asked Yara what she believed may
(09:46):
have happened to Amira, she said, God has given me peace. I had to get sober to get
it, but he's given me peace and I know my daughter is with him. Amira was almost eight
years old at the time of her disappearance and in October of 2024, she will be 16 years
old. She's an African American female with black hair and brown eyes. And when she was
reported missing, she was four foot three inches tall and only weighed 50 pounds. If
(10:10):
you have any information about the disappearance or location of Amira Diedrich, you're encouraged
to contact Sergeant Tony Carter at 512-936-1673 or you can make a report by calling the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. That's 1-800-843-5678.
(10:31):
That's a really sad case. Yeah, it is really sad. You know, Amira, you have a child, you
try to do the right thing to build and foster that relationship with that child's dad and
then you just lose her. Yeah. I'd be curious to see because initially she went to live
with her dad and his girlfriend, just to see what girlfriend says about that living situation,
(10:53):
how long she actually lived with them. Was she still living there when Amira went missing?
Yeah, I don't know either. There's not any information that I was able to find about
whether or not police questioned the girlfriend. But you know, just the simple fact that he
goes to jail and comes up with this crazy story that he just gave Amira to some person
(11:19):
at a convenience store named Tutti. Yeah, that he doesn't even know their last name
or any information about them. Right. So I'm just guessing that he probably wasn't with
his girlfriend at that time anymore. Otherwise he would have given her to the girlfriend.
You know, or had the girlfriend watch after Amira and said, Hey, Tiara, can you come down
(11:39):
here and pick up Amira? I'm in jail. Which is why I think that this whole story about
Linda or Tutti is fabricated and most likely why Tiara has resigned to the fact that Amira
is probably no longer with us. Thank you for listening to another episode of Mysteries
and Mimosa's. And if you have any information about this case, please do the right thing
and make a report. In the meantime, let's raise our mimosa glasses to Amira. Cheers.
(12:05):
ML RAX Cheers.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.