Tuesday will mark the start of the 30th year that Cleashindra Denise "Clea" Hall has been missing.
Hall was an 18-year-old senior at Watson Chapel High School when she was reported missing after not returning home from her after-school job on May 9, 1994. Hall was set to graduate with honors.
Hall's family marked the anniversary Sunday afternoon with a balloon release outside their church, St. Peter's Rock Missionary Baptist on Catalpa Street in Pine Bluff.
Clea's mother, Laurell Williams Hall, said Clea disappeared without a trace.
"It's been really difficult," Laurell Hall said, "We're a strong, Christian family, but even with that we can only take so much. We have our good days and our bad days. Today is not a real good day for me because it has been 30 years, and 30 years is a long time. My oldest grandchild, which she hasn't seen, is 22, and so, time is passing by and we haven't a clue as to where she is. We know there is somebody out there with the information we need."
While addressing a small crowd on the parking lot of the church, Laurell Hall pleaded for anyone with information to come forward, asking: "Is it you? Is it you?"
"She couldn't have vanished into thin air," Laurell Hall said. "God is able, but I don't think that's what happened to her."
Clea Hall worked in the office of Dr. Larry Amos on Faucett Street. Amos ran his business, Arkansas Federal Child Care Nutritional Services Inc., from the residence, according to a 2012 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and Clea worked part-time as a clerk. Laurell Hall said Sunday she dropped Clea off and watched her walk in.
"That was the last time I saw her," Laurell Hall said. "Later that night, she called and said, 'Anybody call me?' which was not unusual. Her brother and I picked up the phone. He answered and said no. She said, 'OK. Bye.'" That was the last time we heard her voice."
Laurell Hall said her husband checked everyone's room, as he regularly did, and then woke her up asking: "Is Clea still at work?"
"I hopped up out of my sleep and went to look at her bed, because I was half-asleep," Laurell Hall said. "I said, 'I don't know.' I went to the phone, looked at the number to her job and asked her boss, was she still at work? He said, no, I think she left at 8:30. I said, 'Who did she leave with because I was supposed to pick her up?' He's like, 'I don't know.'" Laurell Hall added Amos confirmed Clea left at 8:30 by checking her time card.
"That's pretty much the last conversation we had with him and still no information about where she is."
Police conducted a 6-hour search of Amos' home on March 29, 2012, the day before what would have been Clea's 36th birthday, according to the Democrat-Gazette. Then-police Lt. Bob Rawlinson told the newspaper, when asked if Amos was considered a suspect or person of interest: "We don't exclude anybody at this point."
According to Little Rock TV station KLRT, Amos told police in a taped interview that Clea came to work at 5:30 p.m. and left at 8:30 p.m. the day of her disappearance, as documented on her time sheet. Amos reportedly told detectives he didn't know Hall had left until he heard the garage door close.
Reached at his residence Sunday, Amos was asked about his thoughts into what happened to Clea Hall in 1994. Amos deferred to a statement he gave police.
"Strangely, those that have been calling have not wanted to read the report," Amos said. "Not only was a report filed, a complaint was filed against one of the detectives. There are very detailed questions that should have been answered about the family and other things. It's amazing that people who really want to find out wouldn't begin to read the report.
"You can start by getting questions to the end of the report."
According to KLRT in 2012, Amos' wife, Patricia, told police in a written report: "It was odd that she left without telling either of us."
Detective Steven Rucker, who attended the balloon release Sunday, said he is leading an ongoing investigation into Clea Hall's disappearance. Rucker did not name any suspects.
"If anyone knows something, come see me," Rucker said, declining to go into further details into the probe. "We are working with other investigators."
Shawnda Stubbs, a case manager for the Alma-based Morgan Nick Foundation, has been in Pine Bluff since Friday, when her organization helped Jefferson County sheriff's deputies conduct a search for another missing woman, Maranda Merrell Neal, in the Watson Chapel area. That search resulted in the discovery of human remains, which have been sent to the state Crime Lab in Little Rock to determine if they are Neal's. She has been missing since last May 22. She was 38 at the time.
Morgan Nick was 6 when she disappeared from a ballpark in Alma on June 9, 1995, and has not yet been found.
"As far as these individual cases, they have a common thread in them both, but they're distinctly different in this situation," Stubbs said of Clea Hall's and Morgan's disappearances. "The common thread is that we support them. We don't give up hope. We literally search day and night to get the answers we need, get the resolutions we need for these families, and the one thing we believe in, like I said, is that we don't give up hope in these situations."
Laurell Hall asked anyone who has information that may help solve Clea's disappearance to call Pine Bluff police at (870) 730-2081. Callers may remain anonymous.
Cleashindra "Clea" Hall, 18, has been missing since Monday, May 9 1994. (Handout photo from family)
Laurell Williams Hall, left, receives a hug from Shawnda Stubbs of the Morgan Nick Foundation following a balloon release Sunday at St. Peter's Rock Missionary Baptist Church in Pine Bluff in honor of Hall's daughter Cleashindra, who has been missing since May 9, 1994. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)