SPRING, Texas – Nearly 13 years since a Spring teenager disappeared without a trace, her mother is letting go of one piece of her she has held onto all these years.
Alexandria “Ali” Lowitzer vanished on April 26, 2010 after riding the bus home from school while walking a short distance to her job on Cypresswood Drive in Spring.
Ever since, her mother Jo Ann Lowitzer, has paid $60 a month to keep Ali’s cell phone number active.
“It was that one little piece of her that I still had,” Jo Ann Lowitzer said while fighting back tears. “If she were able to reach a phone, she would have already called by now.”
After all the years and adding up the cost of nearly $9,000 on Monday, she decided to finally call the cell phone company and disconnect Ali’s phone.
“I told her the truth, I was like, ‘My daughter’s been missing for 12 years and it’s just time’,” Jo Ann Lowitzer said. “When something tragic like this happens in your life it changes you.”
Jo Ann’s gut instinct about what happened to Ali hasn’t changed, even though the years have.
“The only thing that I am 100 percent sure of is someone took her,” Jo Ann Lowitzer said.
She still gets tips on the website she set up, but said they have trickled over the years. She said she hasn’t heard from investigators for at least five years.
Ali disappeared with her cell phone but activity on it stopped soon after she got off the bus in 2010, Jo Ann said. She eventually purchased a new phone and activated it with Ali’s number, which helped a private investigator get access to Ali’s email and Facebook account.
Neither account turned up any solid leads.
“The not knowing is the hardest, the hardest thing ever,” Jo Ann Lowitzer said. “The ultimate hope is, I hope she’s alive.”
Jo Ann Lowitzer now helps other families looking for loved ones, volunteering for organizations like Texas Center for the Missing and Texas EquuSearch, which she said helps her cope with her own tragedy.
Texas Center for the Missing’s Houston Missing Persons Day, being co-organized by Jo Ann Lowitzer, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 4, one day after Ali Lowitzer would turn 29.