HOUSTON – Houston police and Texas Equusearch are searching for a missing 2-year-old child who is the daughter of the man accused of choking his common-law wife to death on Tuesday.
Police said the toddler, Nadia Lee, was last seen near the 300 block of South Richey Street in Pasadena on Oct. 16 around 8 p.m. at her father’s apartment.
According to HPD, Nadia is the daughter of 26-year-old Jyron Charles Lee, the man who was arrested and charged with murder after reportedly choking his 22-year-old wife, Nancy Reed, to death during a dispute about the way she disciplined their other child in southeast Houston.
BREAKING: HPD homicide detectives meeting with Texas Equusearch in Pasadena concerning a missing 2 year old. Tim Miller tells me Nadia is the daughter of Jyron Lee, the man charged in the strangulation death of his wife Tuesday night. Nadia hasn’t been seen since 10/16. @KPRC2 pic.twitter.com/TXrUVkHYHL
— Taisha Walker (@KPRC2Taisha) October 20, 2022
Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equusearch, said Lee checked the child out of foster care on Friday, Oct.14, and never returned her. Investigators with Houston Police said Jyron had custody of the child for a short period of time.
Miller said Lee claims the child was with him at the apartment complex on Sunday when he took the trash out, but when he returned, the child was gone. Miller and his team spent hours Thursday searching a bayou and wooded area near Jyron’s apartment for the child.
“It doesn’t look good at this time; I can say that. There have been absolutely no sightings of her,” Miller said. “We’ve got people that are looking at cameras and different things right now. We got a little 2-year-old missing, certainly endangered missing. I can’t say that. I don’t know if it’s going to have a happy outcome, but we’re gonna do everything we can do to have an outcome.”
Miller said authorities have interviewed Lee about his daughter, and he allegedly said he didn’t report the girl missing because he believed she was with her mom.
During a news conference on Thursday, authorities said Lee was no longer cooperating with investigators about the whereabouts of Nadia, and DNA evidence found inside his apartment has them believing the girl may be dead.
“I don’t don’t think this is going to have the outcome we want it to have,” Miller said.
Nora Reed, Nancy Reed’s mother and grandmother to Nadia, said she last saw the child a week ago. Nora said Jyron had brought the child over to visit and had told her Nadia had been staying with his relatives in Louisiana for the past year.
“He brought her to us and said, ‘I just brought her here, maybe you would like to see her.’ And I allowed Nadia to come inside for a few minutes and I put her on my lap and hugged her and kissed her,” Nora said.
Nora said she has been heartbroken this week following the death of her daughter and the disappearance of her granddaughter.
“Why would he do something like this and why would he do it in front of his children? It is heartbreaking. It really is. My heart is just broken,” she added. “And so I just hope we find the baby. I hope we find Nadia.”
Nancy’s sister, Delia Reed, said Jyron and her sister had a tumultuous relationship for years.
“She always ran back to him. They always were back and forth with the kids, here and there with the kids,” the older sister said. “It was just a messy situation between them and we were always trying to support her. Always trying to help her escape. She wanted to leave. She never got away.”
The woman’s family said they believe she was making an effort to leave the night she was choked to death in the hotel.
Anyone with information about Nadia’s whereabouts is asked to call the Homicide Division of the Houston Police Department at (713) 308-3600 or Texas EquuSearch at (281) 309-9500.
Lee is currently in jail, being held on a $250,000 bond.