Mystery over realtor’s disappearance grows after cops classify it as an abduction weeks after he was last seen
Alabama police determined this week that Ronald Dumas, Jr., a Huntsville realtor who’s been missing since December, was abducted, angering family members who said they’d long suspected foul play was involved.
“This has rocked us, and we really wish we were taken seriously the first time,” Talia Berryhill, the mother of Dumas’s daughters, said during a news conference this week. “We want him home. If you know something, say something. We need him back.”
Police announced on Friday that “critical new evidence” led them to consider Dumas’s disappearance an abduction, nearly two months after Dumas was last seen in a liquor store on December 15 in the company of two women, appearing unharmed as he left the building.
“Through the investigation, HPD [Hunstville Police Department] received information that led to the identification of the women and traced them to their apartment,” police wrote in a statement. “Further investigation confirmed their connection to Dumas and revealed additional evidence of his abduction.”
Officials now have warrants for five individuals they say are linked to the case.
Quintarius Shikelion White, 32, and Toure Laron McLaurin, 33, both from Memphis, as well as Sabrina Rochelle Chambers, 27, of Huntsville, are wanted for first-degree kidnapping.
Meanwhile, Kierra Symone Clark, 27, and Carissa Cash, 33, both from Memphis, are wanted, respectively, for conspiracy to commit kidnapping and first-degree receiving stolen property.
Dumas’s family said the individuals were known to them because of the work of a private investigator they hired to look into the disappearance.
“HPD has repeatedly accused and threatened our family despite our insistence that this case was not one of voluntary disappearance,” Shakeria Samples, the mother of Dumas’s son, told local reporters this week. “Everything we told them from the beginning has now been proven to be correct.”
Hunstville police are working with the U.S. Marshals, the FBI, and Memphis police to investigate the case.
On Thursday, a multi-agency team, including 20 investigators, search dogs, and drone operators, searched a 450-acre area south of Memphis, extending into northern Mississippi, as a location for Dumas, police said.
Dumas’s phone was last in use on December 21, heading south from Memphis, according to police.
His car was found in Camden, Tennessee, on December 16, the day after his alleged abduction, 170 miles from Hunstville.
The family has offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who can help find the missing realtor.
