“There is a numbness, there is a ‘what am I going to do now?’ kind of feeling,” Owens’ grandmother Bette Roebuck said of her granddaughter. “We know that we will never see her again, but we have memories. … These things we don’t forget. We miss her from Day 1, but knowing that she’s not coming back, that’s hard.”
Owens never reported to work at Waffle House on Oct. 21, and three days later her family filed a missing person’s report. Her twin sister, Alicia, was the last person known to have seen Owens. She said the two parted ways after attending a party on Genesse Avenue. The mother of three never would have abandoned her kids, Alicia said, which is why she always suspected something happened to her.
“She went missing Tuesday and when I woke up Wednesday morning I just felt every nerve in me going off,” Alicia Owens said. “I knew something happened to my sister. I just didn’t know what.”
Owens’ vehicle was found abandoned on Arlene Avenue in Dayton on Nov. 4, but there was no sign of Owens. Investigators used fingerprints to identify Owens’ remains, which they said had decomposed. While Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office detectives initially said Owens’ disappearance was suspicious, they haven’t indicated that her death is being investigated as a homicide. There’s also no suspect information.
Family members said they suspect foul play in Owens’ death, and indicated she was involved in some volatile relationships. They hope someone will come forward with information that could help detectives determine what happened to her.
“They will be found. You know the Bible says, ‘vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord,’ and… that person is going to come to grips with what they have done,” Roebuck said.
But knowing her sister is gone has brought little comfort to her twin, who said she “lost her other heart,” when Amber died. It’s a pain she said even justice cannot mend.
“I can’t move on, I’m just stuck here,” she said through tears. “It won’t help at all because it’s not going to bring her back.”
About the Author