After searching for Jaylen Griffin in upstate New York for nearly four years, his family had 90 minutes to process and prepare for a press conference that would reveal their eternal grief to the world.
Ten days before Jaylen's 16th birthday, his body was found in an attic 5 miles from his home in Buffalo. His dental records were used for identification.
Police said he had been deceased for a “significant amount of time” and that it could take several months for the coroner to complete his autopsy. A spokeswoman for the Erie County District Attorney's Office said her office is assisting in the murder investigation. Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia described the heartbreaking news at the April 15 press conference as a “next level of closure” for Jaylen's family.
Since last seeing him on August 4, 2020, the 12-year-old's family has suffered overwhelming grief. Three months after Jaylen's disappearance, his 18-year-old brother was murdered near their family home on Warren Street. That same year, Jaylen's oldest brother survived being shot on his 21st birthday. And Jaylen's mother, Joann Ponzo, died in September of what was described as a “broken heart.”
Kareema Morris, founder of the organization Bury the Violence, attended the press conference on behalf of the Griffin family – a role she often takes on to save vulnerable loved ones from further distress and feeling compelled to answer intrusive questions.
Kareema Morris is the founder of Bury the Violence, an organization that helps find missing people. (Courtesy of Kareema Morris)
A year after Jaylen's family reported him missing to Buffalo police, they asked Morris for help. They said police labeled Jaylen a runaway – a label often used for missing children of color that reduces the urgency of her case, minimizes law enforcement resources and reduces any chance of media attention.
It was a term Morris was all too familiar with. Learning that another missing black child had been labeled a “runaway” inspired Morris to create Bury the Violence after the September 2013 murder of her niece Lanasha Rollerson. The 13-year-old girl was missing and Buffalo police also described her as a runaway. Her body was found three days later.
Capital B has reached out to the Buffalo Police Department for comment on their missing persons policy and use of the term “runaway.” At the time of publication we have not received a response.
Read more: Lawmakers are tackling the epidemic of missing and murdered Black people
What was the impact of Jaylen's case?
It was difficult to understand that Jaylen was found less than 5 miles from her home and in a house with a history of dead bodies. In this part of South Buffalo, Morris said, there is a community where they talk to each other and “are neighbors first.” She firmly believes that someone knows something because Jaylen “didn’t just show up there.”
“How was he in this room and no one saw, heard or smelled anything?” Morris asked. “Was he led there, was he lured there, was he taken there with the feeling that this was someone with whom he could perhaps travel comfortably?”
Kareema Morris (front) stands with volunteers searching for Jaylen Griffin, 12, who went missing in Buffalo, New York, in August 2020. (Courtesy of Kareema Morris)
For all the effort Morris and her team — mostly family members, including Lanasha's mother, Morris' six children, ages 15 to 28, and volunteers — put into Jaylen's search, she can't help but wonder, “What is it?” happened? What have we missed? What clues were there?”
Morris and other Buffalo residents were left with more questions than answers.
What role does the lawyer play in a missing person case?
By the time Jaylen's family reached out to Morris in 2021, she had already earned a reputation in the community for reuniting nearly 200 families around the world with their loved ones who were missing in the Buffalo area. People often hear about her through word of mouth and can fill out a form on her website.
Similar to organizations like the Black and Missing Foundation and Our Black Girls, Morris' mission is not only to find the missing, but also to provide media coverage to those who are often forgotten – people of color.
Their primary focus is people who have been reported missing in the Buffalo area.
“I have been contacted by people looking for family members who may have traveled here and gone off the grid,” she said.
Then there are cases where Morris doesn't know whether the person being sought is escaping an abuser or trafficker, or is in a mental health crisis, or whether the person asking for help is truly an aggressor.
“I found them anyway,” she said.
How do cases of missing teenagers differ from those of adults?
“As long as they don't express that it's a perpetrator looking for them,” Morris said, she gives the missing adult the option to call home themselves, or she could send a message that they are alive .
If the missing person doesn't want to return home, Morris provides them with resources like cell phone service and tries to figure out why they left the house in the first place.
“And most of the time it’s just kids being kids. They don't want to hear what someone has to say when they have a falling out with someone. And it's like they still love you and I tell them you're okay – and that means I have your address and you know I found you,” she said.
“Sometimes kids just won’t get up and walk away. Sometimes it was things that led to it,” Morris said. There have been cases of neighbors holding children hostage and family members engaging in sex trafficking of their own children.
“We have to remember that all it takes is one incident to take action and you are truly off the grid,” she said.
Are there common places where missing teens are found?
“Well, a lot of times you find that there are kids in a certain age group who are, I want to say specifically, well-groomed,” Morris said. “They have friends who help them navigate the streets, regardless of what they experience at home. The freedom and stuff like that is cheesy for kids when they can't assert themselves at home the way they think life should be.
“Then there are groups of kids who end up running away, staying in houses or hanging out with bribes. Their parents are beside themselves, they're spending time with these kids and their parents don't know who they are. They have no parenting information for these children and they are in homes where only God knows what is going on.
“We call these 'hotspots' for the children who were in some common areas. They manipulate children their age into coming out, and some of them become victims of human trafficking,” Morris said.
Working in the Buffalo school system was beneficial for Morris. Some of the students she found have subsequently researched her and become her “child advocates” to help her find other missing children, preteens and teenagers.
“You can’t get anything done if you don’t have a relationship with these kids. You know when you're smoking or if you're serious. Youth play a key role in the work,” she said.
What is skip tracing and how can the public help?
Morris, 45, uses skip tracking tools she learned as a debt collector to help find missing people.
“We can share information about people, see who their next of kin are, who they've ever been in contact with, you can even use systems” such as social services to connect with other people who are close to yours Live address, she explained. “These are people who will show up in skip tracing.”
Morris began her own investigation into Jaylen's disappearance by using skip tracing to track him and his connections' online activity. She said she followed up on the police investigation and launched an online visibility campaign by reposting a flyer of Jaylen that her organization created on apps like Ring and a premium version of Citizen. They distributed missing person fliers in shopping center parking lots and other locations, collected available surveillance footage, and requested cadaver dogs and aerial photography for search parties.
Morris' organization actively raises funds to provide these direct services, including on-demand educational videos. She shied away from revealing the details of this project, but said in part that it aims to train all ages, especially those in jobs that involve customer service, such as school administrators, hotel clerks, social workers and pediatricians, on what to do when they encounter a kidnapped or missing person. Once more people are trained, Morris' schedule would allow her to balance networking with other advocates and fundraising for the organization.
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