A reward has increased as the concern grows from Dearborn Heights police, assisting agencies, and the family of 16-year-old Tasia Keaton.
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‘She may not think we care, but we do’: Flint family of missing teen pleads for her safe return
A reward has increased as the concern grows from
Dearborn Heights police, assisting agencies, and the family of 16-year-old Tasia Keaton.
The teen has been missing since March 14, 2025, and there is information that suggests that sex trafficking may be occurring.
“We have started thinking maybe the worst,” said Trisha Wade, the teen’s aunt. “I worry that she may not even be in the country or even alive.”
Dearborn Heights police said the teen, who has had a troubled life — with a history of running away, being sexually assaulted, and even trafficked — ran away from the Vista Maria facility for vulnerable youth in Dearborn Heights on March 14, 2025.
According to multiple sources, she took off with a 12-year-old girl with cognitive delays.
Then, a man picked up the two girls in a dark sedan, brought them to a hotel in the area, and gave them alcohol and drugs.
Sources told Local 4 that “John” attempted to sexually assault the 12-year-old, but Tasia reportedly took the abuse instead.
While the 12-year-old is now safe, Dearborn Heights police Chief Ahmed Haidar said they believe Tasia has been sexually assaulted at least twice since she’s been missing.
She was known to be in the
Detroit area on Stout Street and was last seen on surveillance video on March 17, 2025, at a Marathon gas station at the corner of Beech Daly and Joy Road in Dearborn Heights.
But since that sighting, there has been no contact with family or other sightings.
Police said she has also not been active on any social media accounts and fears she could be being held against her will.
“Who knows where she’s living, who knows who she’s living with, who knows who’s got her — who knows what they’re doing,” said Chief Haidar.
Trisha Wade, who lives in
Flint, said the teen is originally from Tennessee and had a father in and out of jail.
Tasia also lost her mother not long after a cancerous brain tumor diagnosis a few years ago.
“Tasia moved in with me in July of 2022 because her mother got worse. She passed away on Thanksgiving in 2022,” Wade said.
Around 14 years old at the time, her aunt said Tasia began getting into fights and kept getting suspended from school.
She later met an older man while playing the video game Fortnite online and ended up in Ohio.
The man, according to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, is 36-year-old Greg Nieman and has since been charged with grooming and sexually assaulting the teen.
Tasia’s family said they are praying the teen sees that she has people concerned and comes home safely.
Her sisters and my mom are worried,” Trisha Wade said. “She may not think we care, but we do.”
