Teen girl kidnapped in Chicago is found alive in Virginia after being held captive for 4 years

A teenager who vanished from outside a Chicago movie theater four years ago has been found alive, held captive the entire time in a small frame home in Blacksburg, Virginia, 730 miles from where she disappeared.

Joniah Walker was 15 when she took an Uber from Milwaukee to Chicago on June 23, 2022, to meet a man who had arranged the ride and who had been communicating with her online for years. Investigators say Owen Anderson, now 37, took her that day and held her ever since, sexually and physically abusing her throughout. Records show he disposed of her cell phone, along with a burner phone he had sent her, in a sidewalk trash can.

That silenced phone was the first sign to her family that something was wrong. Her parents recall the call that day, her father saying the phone was going straight to voicemail, and knowing immediately it had been switched off.

Walker, now 19, became a well-publicized missing person as her family criticized Milwaukee police for moving too slowly. Relatives said they, not investigators, collected the doorbell camera footage from the block where she was last seen, and complained that no one had sat down to interview them.

Milwaukee County authorities filed kidnapping and child abduction charges against Anderson days ago. He remains in custody in Virginia and has yet to appear in Wisconsin court. Milwaukee police declined to discuss the case and maintain there is no indication she was trafficked, though the charges describe a kidnapping, child abduction and sexual abuse spanning years.