DALLAS — D’Lisa Kelley was a young mother, 24 years old, who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered nearly 10 years ago. Her family complained police response was too slow and she didn’t’ get the help she needed.
“I really feel like if they were genuinely trying to help us, we possibly could have found my daughter alive. Injured but alive,” said LaSondra Kelley.
On March 7, 2014, D’Lisa walked out of her grandmother’s home in Oak Cliff.
She was going to a wake for her best friend, who had died in a car crash the week before.
”She left out seeking a ride, and she made it to the corner store because we have captured of video from that,” said LaSondra.
D’Lisa made it to a convenience store on Overton Road after leaving her grandmother's home.
“She made it that far and I saw where she was speaking to a young man in a blue car,” said LaSondra.
D’Lisa was seen walking into the store with a man. And there’s a picture Dallas police released that shows D’Lisa getting into a blue vehicle and right next to that vehicle is a Dallas police squad car.”
“So, there are police in the area, but she wasn’t in trouble yet,” said LaSondra.
About half an hour after D’Lisa is seen at that convenience store, the family says her sister got an accidental call from D’Lisa where she was screaming for her life.
”In the background you can hear a guy telling her you’re being hardheaded, and you need to stop you’re being hardheaded and he’s yelling and she’s yelling stop, stop, stop,” said LaSondra.
Her sister says that the call was awful, and it was gut-wrenching to listen to.
“I didn’t hear the phone call, but it’s like I can hear her screaming,” said LaSondra.
The family tried calling D’Lisa back over and over, but she never answered. But they get two text messages. One of the text messages said, “I’ll call you back later.” Another text message said, ”He thinks that I was with someone else.”
”We didn’t get anything else after that,” said LaSondra.
Two hours after her sister received that call, her grandmother called 911.
”We can’t get her on the phone, and she is not responding to any messages, So I don’t know what to do,” D'Lisa's grandmother can be heard saying on the 911 call.
On that phone call, you can hear just how desperate the grandmother was as she tried to get Dallas police to come to her home.
”All she could hear was D’Lisa screaming 'stop, stop' and somebody was hitting her and telling her. It was a male voice saying, 'shut up, shut up.' Can someone please come out here?” D'Lisa's grandmother can be heard saying.
Dallas police never sent an officer that night, instead, the sergeant that was in charge of 911 tried to ping her phone to locate her.
The 911 call taker is so concerned, that she tells the sergeant that something more needs to be done and we have audio of their conversation:
”That’s hurtful when you realize that your child is gone, and you have to hear that. That’s hurts. You make her look so bad,” said LaSondra.
No one is ever sent to the home until Monday afternoon. That is the first time a patrol officer arrives at D’Lisa’s grandmother’s home.
Seven days after D’Lisa disappeared, her family organized a search party. As they’re getting ready to go out and search, her mother got a call.
”She said, 'mom are you sitting down' and I said, 'Jasmine just tell me.' 'They found her.' 'OK, where is she?' and she said, 'mom, she’s gone,' and it took all the air out of my body and my legs go weak and I just fell to the ground and yelled, 'no, no,'” said LaSondra.
D’Lisa’s body was found in an abandoned home less than two miles from her grandmother’s house.
“About a week later she was found recovered in a vacant building. She died from blunt force trauma and asphyxiation,” said Detective Beverly Ma of the Dallas Police Special Investigative Unit.
D’Lisa died three days before her body was found, according to the autopsy. It means that there were four days after D’Lisa disappeared that she was most likely alive.
”They took their time, and we could’ve found her. We could have but it’s like no one cared,” said LaSondra.
Her mother was desperate to confirm that it’s her daughter that had been found so she went to the Medical Examiner’s office, and she tried to see D’Lisa’s body, but they wouldn’t let her see her.
“I’m losing my mind. I got to see her,” said LaSondra.
She eventually just tells the person there what D’Lisa was wearing and described her tattoo.
”I said she has prayer hands on her back, and she just reached out and grabbed me. She just grabbed me, and she said it’s D’Lisa, we have her,” said LaSondra.
It might be a 10-year-old case, but for the family, it feels like it was yesterday.
There were multiple people that have been interviewed in this case, including the man in the blue car, but so far, there has been no arrest.
”I believe if they had had enough for an arrest, they would have made an arrest back then,” said Ma.
Dallas police now say they have forensic evidence in this case.
”I will be going through each piece of evidence looking for new leads and if there is new technology and utilize it was well,” said Ma.
Time was of the essence here, but DPD’s new detective says they are doing everything now to solve this case.
If there is a silver lining to this case it was the creation of the Clear Alert. D’Lisa’s family and other families pushed for the alert. It’s the adult version of the Amber Alert that is issued when an adult is believed to be in danger.
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