Where’s Keeslyn Roberts? Dad seeks answers one year after Georgia woman’s disappearance
Keeslyn Roberts was getting her life back on track. So when she didn’t report to her probation officer, alarm bells went off for her father.
It’s been a little over a year since her car was found parked at a north Georgia truck stop, and Keeslyn Roberts’ family says details of her disappearance are still shrouded in mystery.
Her father, Eric Roberts, questions whether state and local authorities have done enough to find the 20-year-old.
“I feel like they violated my daughter’s civil rights ... by not following through,” Eric Roberts told McClatchy News. “It’s not right. A missing person is a missing person.”
Keeslyn Roberts was last seen Jan. 28, 2020, at the Flying J Truck stop in Resaca, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Her father says she disappeared 10 days earlier.
Gordon County police received reports of a suspicious woman inside the small-town truck stop, WSB-TV reported. Officers said the woman had left by they time they arrived, but they found a purse containing Roberts’ personal items in “a restricted area of the business.”
“I found her wallet in there, her car keys, cash, debit card, driver’s license,” Eric Roberts said. “We found everything she possessed,” though the family still hasn’t tracked down her cellphone.
Keeslyn Roberts’ truck was also found at the truck stop. Eric Roberts said he spoke to his daughter’s boyfriend, who said he hadn’t seen her in a few days but remembered that her car was at the Flying J.
“Well, that didn’t make too much sense to me at the time,” Eric Roberts recalled.
Eric Roberts said his daughter had gotten “mixed up with the wrong crowd” and was on probation for a marijuana charge when she went missing in Gordon County more than a year ago, but she was “a good kid, with a big heart.”
She had been reporting regularly to her probation officer, her father said.
“She would do anything for anyone,” he said. “I miss her so much and it’s killing me not knowing if she is safe, dead or hiding.”
‘Dropping the ball’
Keeslyn Roberts was reported missing to the Murray County Sheriff’s Office before the case was kicked over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in November. Since then, Eric Roberts says, he’s hit a brick wall with no leads or updates from investigators.
“It seems like the GBI is dropping the ball big time since they took [the case] over,” he said. “If you’re not going to take it over and work the case, then don’t take the damn thing.”
He has since launched a GoFundMe campaign and is offering a $20,000 reward for information on his daughter’s disappearance.
Joe Montgomery, special agent in charge at the GBI Region One Field Office in Calhoun, told McClatchy News the agency has investigated “every lead and every reference” but nothing has come up, though the investigation is ongoing.
Authorities have also addressed rumors that the case is somehow linked to that of 21-year-old Caleb Smith, who went missing from the Flying J on Jan. 16, 2020. Smith’s body was found weeks later in a Gordon County marsh.
“There’s no evidence that these people are/were acquainted, or that these cases are connected,” Gordon County Sheriff Mitch Ralston said in a news release. “The investigations into these matters are ongoing, and any new pertinent information will be released to the public in a timely fashion.”
Keeslyn Roberts is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 125 pounds with blue eyes and blonde hair. She also has a tattoo of a sea turtle on her lower right arm, authorities said.
Anyone with information on Roberts’ disappearance is asked to contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 706-624-1424.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Where’s Keeslyn Roberts? Dad seeks answers one year after Georgia woman’s disappearance."