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Have You Seen Lateche Norris? Please Help Us Find Her.
If You Followed the Gabby Petito Case, This Story Might Sound Like Domestic Violence Deja Vu. Let’s Pray It Has a Different Ending.
A young woman goes missing from San Diego on November 5th, 2021. That’s right down the road from where I live.
The day before, she calls her mother, Cheryl Walker, after a “heated fight” with her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend, Joseph “Joey” David Smith (although he also has Facebook pages under Joey Shhmit and Joey Allison). She has to use a stranger’s phone to make the call.
Before they hang up, Lateche promises to call her mom back with an update. She doesn’t. I am not aware of any “proof of life” (social media activity, use of credit or bank cards) since Lateche vanished.
Her mother lives hundreds of miles away, back in Indiana. Twenty-year-old Lateche had moved back in with her mother after two months living with Smith in Santa Cruz over the summer. A bone of contention at that time was Joey’s drug habit. His promise to start rehab was what lured Lateche to southern California just a day or so before she disappeared; she wanted to support him in his recovery. He either used this as a ruse or changed his mind because, after she arrived, his commitment to…