On Sunday, March 18, 1990, 15-year-old fraternal twins, Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook, left their apartment on Cooney Circle in Augusta, Georgia, and walked to their godfather’s home. The girls borrowed money to ride the bus back and forth to school. He gave them some extra money to buy treats.
Around 4:30 p.m., the twins stopped at a Pump-N-Shop gas station at 12th Street and Milledgeville Roard (now MLK Boulevard) and purchased chips and drinks. The gas station attendant later said the girls appeared fine.
Dannette and Jeannette left shortly afterward, never to be seen again.
Shortly after they vanished, the girls were seen in a white truck with a white male. Other than that, no additional information regarding their fate is known.
In April 2023, the twins’ younger sister, Shanta Sturgis, told NBC’s Dateline that the family learned later from other family members that the twins had stopped by a cousin’s house and their older sister’s home on the way back from their godfather’s. They asked if someone could accompany them back home.
Per Dateline, Shanta said it was an odd request because the twins were familiar with the area and had walked alone before.
“I’m gonna assume something had to [transpire] for them to want somebody to walk home,” Shanta said.
The girls had no previous run-ins with the law or a history of running away.
In 2013, Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree decided to reopen the investigation. He discovered that shortly after the girls went missing, someone removed their names from the national missing person database. Furthermore, the case files were missing and were never found.
Roundtree had no previous knowledge of the case and had little to work with. He located the now-retired investigator who handled the case and interviewed the detective and others close to it. He had the girls reentered into the national database and a DNA sample from the twins’ mother. Roundtree also checked unclaimed remains (Lohr 2013).
What came from Roundtree’s interview with those close to the case is unclear. However, nothing has come from his efforts in finding the girls, and they remain missing today.
True Crime Diva’s Thoughts
There were no witnesses to an actual abduction. The girls disappeared in broad daylight. So, maybe the girls willingly went with someone they knew and trusted. Perhaps the guy in the white truck. Or maybe the guy in the white truck was at the gas station and offered them a lift, and they accepted because he appeared friendly.
Because someone took both girls, I wonder if this was a human trafficking abduction. According to the Department of Justice, Atlanta is the nation’s number one human and sex trafficking hub. I’m not sure that was the case in 1990, but human trafficking was happening even back then.
I don’t believe the girls ran away because they took nothing with them when they left their apartment – no clothes or other personal belongings.
Source
Lohr, David. “‘Terrible Injustice’ Prompts Sheriff To Reopen 1990 Case Of Missing Twins, Dannette and Jeannette Millbrooks.” Huff Post Crime, August 16, 2003.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/dannette-jeannette-millbrooks-missing_n_3762972.html