How a Colorado teen's unsolved disappearance baffles police a decade later

Lashaya Stine was just 16 years old when she left her Aurora, Colorado home in the dead of night and seemingly disappeared into thin air.

On July 14, 2016, Stine was at home spending a quiet night watching movies with her family. An honor-roll student at George Washington High School, she dreamed of a career in nursing and had an internship opportunity ahead of her. But sometime around 2:00 a.m. that July 15, Stine snuck out of her home and never returned.

The second episode of "Somebody Knows Something," "Lost in the Night" premiered on Freeform, and is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

"Somebody Knows Something" host Kara Robinson Chamberlain, a true crime influencer, kidnapping survivor and former law enforcement officer, went to Aurora to investigate the case for the docuseries. She met with Stine's family and police, who shared exclusive details into their investigation into her disappearance.

Sabrina Jones, Stine’s mother, told Chamberlain that she found her daughter's room empty that morning, so she searched the house and tried to contact her.

"I'm calling her phone, and it's going straight to voicemail," she said. "I walked out to the yard, and I just started screaming her name."

That’s when Jones called the police in a panic.

"I kept calling and they kept saying 'Oh, they're really busy, we'll send an officer over as soon as one is available,'" she said.

She told Chamberlain that she had to convince them that Lashaya was not a runaway and something was very wrong.

“I thought I was going to die from grief -- somebody tell me something," she said.

Once police showed up at her door and found out more about Stine, things began to move forward, Aurora Police Sgt. Faith Goodrich recalled.

“Once mom said, hey you know, this is very out of character for her, and she didn't take her cell phone charger, she didn't pack a bag, that was when it was like, OK, all hands on deck. We need to be out there finding out what happened.” she told Chamberlain.

Early morning meeting

As the police began their investigation, they learned from Stine’s close friends and family that she had an ex-boyfriend that she planned to meet up with the morning she went missing.

Stine's mother did not approve of the relationship, she recalled.

“One minute he would want to be her boyfriend, and next minute he would tell her she was ugly. And that he didn't want to date her.” Jones told Chamberlain.

Authorities were able to track down the ex-boyfriend, who helped police put together a timeline. He confirmed that he met Stine at the nearby middle school in the early morning of July 15. He also told police that Stine said she had something important to tell him, but didn’t reveal anything when they met.

Aurora Police Commander Chris Poppe said the teens met for about 10 minutes, and then they went their separate ways.

“He had to wait a half hour before Lashaya finally arrived. And he was already kind of irritated," he said.

Cell phone records show that the boyfriend did reach back out to Stine after their meet up, but there was no response.

New surveillance footage and information

Using Stine's phone, investigators were able to track her location as she made her way to the school and spotted her on a surveillance camera. According to Aurora police, the timing on the video matched the boyfriend's story.

“The video showed, you know, Lashaya and this other person meeting. I don't think we can state for certain based on the quality of the video that it was him, but it matches the story that he's telling,” Sgt. Faith Goodrich told Chamberlain.

The police were also able to uncover more video surveillance around the time of Stine's disappearance that showed two people walking near the school where Lashaya and the ex-boyfriend met. Officials believe those people may have information that could help the case.

Stine’s family have received many tips over the years that the police have checked out, and her mother has fielded dozens of calls from people who believe they saw Stine or think she may have been trafficked.

“Close to that area that she was seen on the surveillance video, it's a really bad strip,” Jones said. “A lot of prostitution over there. There are people out there that take young girls and traffic them. We were getting a lot of tips from people saying, trafficking, she's being prostituted. So many people telling us that.”

Tips have poured in from as far away as Kansas, with internet sleuths and true crime influencers tracking every theory.

The police are not ruling anything or anyone out, including the ex-boyfriend who was the last person known to have seen Stine before she vanished.

In November 2020, the FBI went to a house in Aurora where the then-teen boy used to live with his family and searched the premises for three days. Police said that around that time Stine disappeared, there were reports of blocks of concrete being removed from the home by the ex-boyfriend’s father.

Despite the use of search dogs and removing slabs of concrete, police came up empty.

Poppe, the Aurora Police commander, told Chamberlain that the search was "a dead end."

"Even though we didn't find anything during the search of the basement, it didn't rule out anyone," they said.

For Sabrina Jones and her family, it's been a long and painful 10 years without Stine. Their hope is that by speaking out, somebody somewhere will come forward with some information that gets them some answers.

Anyone with information about Stine's disappearance is urged to contact the Aurora Police Department at 303-627-3100.  For additional reporting and discussion about the cases, join us live on the "Somebody Knows Something" YouTube Channel.