Demakia Ann Phinizee was 26 when she was last seen on October 12, 2007, in Verona, Mississippi. A U.S. Army veteran and mother of three, she worked as a security guard at the Fillmore Center in Tupelo. That afternoon she dropped off a co-worker around noon but never returned home; her red Pontiac Grand Am was found that evening at the Warfield Apartments in Tupelo.

Witnesses said a man was seen driving the vehicle at high speed and then fleeing on foot. When Demakia failed to pick up her children from her sister’s house after school, her family reported her missing. Investigators noted the master bedroom sheets were missing; her estranged husband, Robert Phinizee, said he had removed them because the children had wet the bed, but the sheets were never recovered and Robert became a person of interest. He moved away with the children the day after the disappearance and later remarried. In 2020 he was charged with attempted murder in an unrelated case, and investigators re-examined his possible involvement in Demakia’s disappearance.

Her family says she would not have abandoned her children and foul play is strongly suspected. Does anyone who knew Demakia or who was in Verona or Tupelo on October 12, 2007, have information that could help clarify what happened?