FULL EPISODE: Kareema Morris is Crime Junkie AF with Ashley Flowers | Forensic Files

this episode contains mentions of graphic or sensitive material that may be triggering listener discretion is
[Music] advised crime hi everyone and welcome to the show made by the crime junkie Ashley
flowers for those who are crime junkie AF I am here today with a very special guest who has not only been a champion
for their Community but a staunch advocate for victims of domestic violence and families of the missing and
murdered she is the founder of Barry the violence a nonprofit organization that helps find missing and runaway children
in which she has helped reunite you're not going to believe this number 200 families in the Buffalo area to this
date she's a Survivor a mother of six children and was also honored as one of USA today's women of the year in 2023
that's kind of a big deal representing the state of New York and you can also catch her on her new radio show kicking
crime with Karima please welcome the amazing Karima Morris to Crime junky AF thank you so much I'm Mega excited to be
here I am so excited to have you our producer Diana has been talking about you for months and months and months
this is a long time in the making and you actually are here for a specific case one that Diana has been talking
about for months and months it's one of the most mysterious cases I've come across in a while it's of a young boy
who went missing he's found years later in someone's attic but there have been no arrests and so you are the one who's
really out there pushing for answers for his family and we are going to get into
his case but before we do I think it's really important to understand what brought you here because True Crime
isn't your background much like me so how how did you get to this point like what brought you into this
world well I am for first uh Survivor of domestic violence myself and I know firsthand what takes place in the
community when you need help and then in 2013 we had a runaway quote unquote situation in my own family my niece
lania was a seventh grader and she had um went missing and we went to the police department Buffalo Police
Department and ask for help when did you realize she was missing so it was a Sunday morning and I was at work in
nagra fall factory outlet which is you know like 30 minutes away from the city and her mother had noticed she wasn't
there when her her grandmother came home off the church bus and lenia wasn't there and so she had looked around the
house and things like that so then my sister calls me a Sunday morning everybody's just getting out of church
and I said check her underwear drawer she loves fragrance so her smell goods were untouched and her she's like you I
I keep talking you smell studio right now first of all yes really and so that's the thing with our um our family
and then also her snacks were they were there so we knew something was wrong and
the police department told us that she was a Runa away what makes them feel confident in saying that when they have
no history with her she has no history with running away you and they had her family in front of them well because
they have the discretionary option you know it's to their discretion if they want to look for a child or not so
ultimately they label them as a runaway and they use 40% less of the resources if they do take the opportunity to find
that child if they're labeled as a runaway yes is that so 40% where does that where does that number come from
it's it's just that's what you find out when you do your research yeah and so first of all it's up to that law
enforcement agency's um discretion if they even want to look for the child child yes seventh grade I'm like
thinking about myself in seventh grade like I couldn't have taken care even even if I was a Runway I couldn't take
care of myself and uh and that's what what's crazy right and so she had was said to
be at a party none of us know about this party because we turned to social media
oh okay we started going to the social media platforms to look for information about what we can find out about her
okay um but in the inum as I'm getting off of work and my sister went to the police department and they denied her
help I told her to make make flyers and I was on my way so we started from the north Bailey area which is like coming
from the suburban area Amhurst into the City and passing out flyers of her to get the word out right and so we started
our own investigation because we didn't have help from the police and how did you even know where to start I mean like
that that for you to be able to go into action like that like okay let's make flyers let's do this I I didn't I just
knew that people needed to know who she was so her face had to be where we could
you know duplicate this same message a thousand times over and so the pictures so we just literally printed up a
picture and put our phone numbers on it did you get your first lead from the Flyers did you get your first lead from
social media what happened next so this is really crazy when we're passing out the Flyers and I get closer to where
she's at right they're saying oh that's 2:00 and I'm like this is lania this is my niece lenia she's 13 and then they're
saying that's two :00 so as more the the closer I'm getting not knowing that I'm
getting the people are calling her 2:00 had you ever heard that name before absolutely not so I'm like what's 2:00
yeah and so I aggressively asked cuz now I'm frustrated yeah and they said that's
the time she comes out 2: a.m. so they they they knew her they knew they knew her 13
yep and so um after 3 days so I I did receive a phone call from a government official and they told me that I had to
stop I was going into other people's private residence without permission I mean like like I'd be doing
the same like God forbid anyone in my life go missing Like rules do not apply yeah I was on a ranch in my mind okay
and I was just going wherever I needed to to figure out what was going on and so so wait are they only contacting you
because like you're going into places not because they're ready to start looking exactly and so the conversation
ended a little like this I'm going to give you 24 hours because I'm doing what you guys we asked you to do yeah and
then with uh we received a phone call in the 23rd hour from a Community member that there was a crime scene in
the very place that we had asked the police to go and look oh no my niece was located deceased she was
murdered she was stabbed they tried to dismember her um they used the won soup container to pour gasoline on her body
and so she um and this is all in the discovery of the court case right and so it was her and they had took me to um
they told me to meet them downtown at headquarters so they can basically retain me but told me they wanted to ask
me some questions so I had to go sit in a room while they finished because I was
you know it it was very overwhelming and her mom wouldn't get out the car cuz we're two different personalities yeah
and so ultimately when you have a child that's missing you don't know why they're missing each case is different
right and here you have my sister her mother who wouldn't get out the car and this is something that you have to take
into consideration when you're finding people everybody's not going to respond or react the same each case is different
in this case when you hear that they're calling your child 2:00 and they're telling you that she comes
out you have trafficking so she didn't run something kept bringing her outside on a regular
basis was she there the whole time you were looking for her yes she was wow she was in the backyard of the house where
they had killed her at they had dumped her body in the back so they went out their back door and took her body to the
backyard behind their house whose house is this the guy Daron Morris who is no relation to me we don't we don't know
this guy um he was 21 years old and he was um Mary and allegedly other people were involved in the homicide of money
so the 21y old man that lived there and his wife right they were at this sad party and he left with her and took him
to his to my to laia my niece and took her to his house where he lived with his wife and children and
that's where she was killed at did he have a connection to her before this no connection she's he's 21 years old we
don't know that guy wow yeah that's unbelievable mhm and is he he was arrested yes he was arrested and
charged um with 39 years to life and the defense attorney was the one really um triggering my sister with talking about
making it look like my niece was prostituted I I was to say I don't even know how and this was you said 2013 13
and when did it go to trial oh it was immediately she um so we were done by like 2014 with everything so I I feel
like we've come a long way in like the vernacular the way that we talk about trafficking but I mean even then to say
that she's 13 right I mean she's also much young he you said he's 21 right 21 she was it's also statutory rape exactly
so after this happened to your family you you like so many of the people I've talked
to find yourself in a situation you never thought you would be in never what did life look like after that for you
some people go through a grieving process I can't say that I did I was flaming on the inside like something has
to be done this can never happen again kids can't just leave and nobody knows where they're at and then they're just
brushed off like it's a runaway and I felt like literally everything that we dealt with in that
time we had to help people because this is what goes on and nobody has a clue of
what to do so we started navigating that space to help people find their missing
kids how do you even think about starting it I always say I there are certain people I meet in the world who
see a problem and they say oh that sucks right and then there's certain people I
meet in the world who see a problem and they say well if I don't do something about it then who is going to and you
are so clearly one of those people MH where did you even I mean what was what was your background before this I
started as a debt collector right and then I was a retail manager so I was at Solstice sunglasses selling sunglasses
and so you know you got customer service there and then you learn how to use t uh
skills from um collection that help you to build information about people yeah and so which I love because I mean none
nothing that I'm doing is my like train formal background but but I think that's
what's so great is I think that so many people want to do something bigger something more impactful but they're
like well I don't I don't know how or I wasn't trained or that's not my background and I'm like that doesn't
nobody wakes up one day and it's like I'm the expert you make yourself the expert right well I have to be a th%
honest when people felt like I found my niece and like I found who killed her yeah they started calling me for help
like people within the community absolutely yeah like one of my first calls were um my daughter was murdered
and we don't know who shot and killed her and I'm like okay and you're like what do you
want me like right what do you want me to do they were they were so desperate for help like and and you were you you
were a beacon for them in that moment when especially I'm sure they had the same experience you did when you guys
went to police and they said too bad so sad it was like I I was still so fueled by this can't happen and this has got to
change for our community and I just was helping people and I just looked up and was like oh my God what's going on and
so we literally started out by giving my niece a walk for her birthday she was killed um Labor Day weekend and we gave
her a walk the first Sunday in June for her birthday right and then we were giving out scholarships to people to
children in the eth grade who needed the change and they made that change oh and
so we had all this going on at the same time and before I knew it we were a full-blown out organization so it really
was so organic you didn't sit down one day and be like ah I'm going to solve this problem you just started solving it
and you're like oh I'm the only one solving this problem yes it's US yes so what does the organization do now like
how has it grown since you got that first call right to what it is now and and what it is your mission is so we
started out as lja Rose foundation and we wanted to be a basketball team oh yes of course and we wanted to help the
youth that way cuz that was the cute version of it right and then it didn't work that way cuz I had no time or
interest because everything else right and people were bringing me real life situations and so um eventually we
evolved to bury the violence because even though we still do it in her Legacy but because it wasn't just about little
girls that were running away it became something way bigger with domestic violence and I was already experienc and
at the time she was killed it became runaway and murder and it's like we started out with the intent to help the
youth and the girls right specifically and it turned into people calling me with questions that I didn't know how I
was supposed to answer it and then ended up resolving the matters and being there
as a liaison between law enforcement who we understood their response if it was a response at times
and so literally people will call me to be Liaisons for them and to help them solve things and then we started
advocating for them to get financed for their homicide funerals and it just kept going and
going and I'm like the need was so huge it wasn't just one thing which is what you find out when you get really deep
into True Crime it's not one problem you can't point to one murder and say this is isolated it's a it's everything that
led up to it and the system around us that contributes to it and you can't fix you can't stop or prevent or solve the
thing without solving all of the problems around it right the INX and that's what we ended up with right so we
ended up with everything that was attached to her case missing and trafficked yeah W as a runaway and then
you have the N is she was murdered you mentioned something kind of in passing that when all of this was happening and
unfolding with your niece that you were experiencing domestic violence yes you you were this isn't something that you
had come out of you were in the middle of that when this happened I was dealing with um my quote unquote fiance at the
time violating two of my children in the household and I reported him within two
hours of trying to figure out in my mind what to do but not to alarm my sons for
them to react and then I have a bigger mess right we also lived in the demestic Violence
Shelter prior to that when they were younger and so I realized that we silen our kids when they come and tell us that
this guy in our house did something to them and they look at our kids like they're
lying and so I took them right to the professionals and they sorted through it while I was strategizing how to get him
back into the space where they could pick him up because we were in the suburbs and he had to cross back into
the line in which he had my vehicle and so I just spring into action because which is clearly like your Mo
yeah it's unbelievable and and so we we're working to House women and get them in the safe
spaces so their kids can have healthy interactions and um and provide services for them um like family therapy and
things like that because ultimately they've experienced domestic violence and then you don't want them to
come back and be what they seeing they need to learn how to deprogram unprogram their
mind especially like in a time when they're so vulnerable vulnerable and influenced I mean there's it's such
formative times for them yes but this is not the only thing you're doing so much to to go back to kind of
where this all started a lot of what you're doing revolves around kids who go missing absolutely can you talk about
that work a little bit yes so in our city we have learned that it takes our community to find the missing children
because if we already know that law enforcement has an option is not an option for us so we need to be that
option and so we had started out by canvasing communities with Flyers we put their information of their most updated
pictures which is absolutely unrealistic because you have kids with filters on social media oh yeah I didn't
think about that you don't have like who do what do they really look like anymore
what do they look like and so then you have angles right and it's just all different kind of I'm like about to go
home and make my daughter take a mug shot no seriously yeah so we we canvas cuz what we have to do first is really
get the information we grab the information if intel was easier to get through law enforcement we could take
those IP addresses on those websites and stuff like the Instagram and those chat
rooms that we could flip that information skip Trace who they're talking to and probably you say skip
Trace tell people what you mean by Skip Trace skip Trace is a tool to flip information to find out who's on the
other side of it okay and so you have access to people's family members jobs last known residents you find all of
this stuff through skip tracing um when I was in collect Lexus Nexus was my best friend uh we use
Ben verified so we take the Ben verified number we type in the seven digits and it flips back who owns it who owns that
phone number and then it gives me a person that I can go and look for gotcha and so it could be something as little
as a phone number that can break a case unbelievable have you guys put together a guide or is it something that they
call you and you give them steps or do you have this like one pager that you're like someone's missing like here you go
so my primary objective is to get the information to the masses and so we've put out there sometimes what to do and
how to do it but I don't think people are really watching that I think easier to call me well well and I think
people are like oh well I'm not I don't need it like they it they I can't tell you it it always is it's it happens to
other people right and that's the and you can't that we believe I know and cuz you can't imagine that you're going to
you're going to need that information one day can't you can't picture yourself in a world where your world's been
turned upside down right and I think that's the that is part of the problem you know we've got some very Vigilant
people but then we also have a lot of people who are just like I just can't picture that as my reality and I'll you
know if and when I need it I'll come back to it and then when you're the unfortunate part is when you're in the
situation and you need it you can't think you can and again especially depending on your personality depending
on how you function in times of trauma and stress like there are plenty of people who just shut down and you don't
you can't think you don't remember where you heard something you don't even feel
like you have the time to go back and try and figure that out and you don't cuz sometimes this becomes overwhelm and
just thinking about the situation within itself and that's why we are strategic and divvying out the information to you
and pulling it out cuz it's like an interview you have to pull the information out so you can figure out
what's going on so you got a very interesting call one day you've gotten a lot of calls but the
case that you're here to talk about today is a specific one the search for a missing 13-year-old boy in Buffalo
continues the search growing more desperate each day he was last seen walking as dog before he was going to a
grocery store in the Broadway Filmore neighborhood and never returned home the question where is jayen Griffin can you
can you talk to us about about getting that call and how how this all started for you we had um Jaylen Griffin 12
years old go was missing in 2020 August 4th 2020 and he was said to be walking to the corner store and his mom is is
talking about him having a dog and he's walking to the store she a he ask her do
you want something from the store she says no he walks to the store like a block away and never returns 12 years
old my niece was 13 and so now was pulling on the strings y so we get this case and we're trying to figure out how
this young boy goes from walking to the store to disappearing and you know in America nobody just disappears mhm and
so he's in this community that like every other house is torn down so it's impoverished so we
have this child that lives near the Central Terminal Station which is shut down you got this huge train station
that's not affable I was just going to say August 2020 it's still I mean Co like we were the pandemic was still
fairly new yeah we were still living in an alternate world right and so it it was scary were police helping out in
this case no yeah no um so we did end up requesting more from the police more involvement because ultimately at that
point when we got this call to come in so first there was the other organization that put up this huge
billboard that he was missing that's great but that's you know that's in one area everybody in the city not access to
this and so my coworker seen that and was like uh why is nobody talking about this I'm like I've shared it on my page
and she's like what what are you doing about it and I'm like um somebody what are you doing about it
I said I got the memo right and so then the family reaches out and then I'm like we have to yeah be more involved
and so the end of 21 coming in the 22 the 2021 2022 he was gone that there's no sign the whole time
no no sign were there tips like what were people saying within the community all that time they were saying too much
but it was not productive because they didn't give us any pictures oh he's at my house oh I just seen him oh that's my
bro there were no pictures there was no evidence nobody ever said hey um we have Jaylen
Griffin over here you could come you know hanging up so there was nothing that led to a solid returning of Jaylen
and were what were you thinking in those early days were did you think that he could still be alive were you were you
concerned about F play I'm very optimistic I never want to speak death on anybody right because one thing about
it is our words have power and so if I start putting that out there I never know what power I put into it and so I
have to operate in my truth we don't know the answer when you talk about going in you said every case you you
forget what you knew before it's a different family it's different circumstances and I think people are
quick to judge what were the circumstances here like why did why did his mom wait two days I know that she
was fed up with the involvement that didn't you know watching everybody else just say that um he's not missing he'll
be right back and and that's another thing he's the baby right so he has older siblings so she eliminated her
cousins and everybody else it's he over there that I do remember clear as day I can almost you know feel like she's
saying it all over and you again you're not you don't think you're living in that reality no I it's got to be there's
got to be an explanation there's got to be I'm not thinking of something this is
going to be I'm going to be so pissed when he comes back this is going to be something we talk about later right and
and so and ultimately that what happened so she eliminated every family member that he could have been with you know
she had her own process and then it's like okay he's not home yet and when we finally get on we have
to start from Ground Zero we have to go back and do checks and balances we have to treat treat it as if it just happened
yesterday MH and so we requested that um polygraphs be done and it wasn't that we
had any idea that the family could do anything but we still had to eliminate them at this point he's gone so long did
you or I don't know if they knew this in early days or if this is something that
you were the one who came and find out did he ever make it to the store that he went to so we did have a young boy that
was on the news interview right after then say he seen him over there but he didn't know he was okay sure right and
so it placed him on Broadway okay I I didn't know when you're talking about polygraph in the family I'm like I mean
because truthfully I was like we got we have Mom saying that he went there right
but you that was his intention he was going to the yeah and and now we know someone actually saw him there right and
another mom story credibility absolutely right and so you always have people trying to tear down the parent like they
did us and we we're working family we don't lay in front of the door like many people don't we don't lay in front of
the windows and we don't hear our kids as they enter and exit the house all the time we go to sleep we're humans and so
ultimately we when we first got it we went back to ground zero and we started canvasing again we we had Flyers being
removed in the community which was very eerie to me and so we did you figure out
who it wasn't a big deal to some people so we went back and we asked those same people that were volunteering and
willing to post them up in our Medical Campus which we have um three hospitals in within a block range of each other he
could have been at the hospital and nobody knew he was missing so we got that initiation going again that
initiated again um buried the violence my organization and Western New York missing and un
unidentified persons also came together and we started with canvas in the community cuz they found out that the
neighbors didn't know and so we had to start literally from where he was last seing leaving his house cuz that's all
we know is he left the house and he walked towards Broadway and so we we had those canvas in again we actually went
and followed up on the tips and leads of where he was said to be that were given to police the phone calls that
were coming to his mom and sister and in this year year and a half had police changed their tune did they did they
recognize that this is something concerning when they are getting these tips are they doing anything about
it yeah feel like I know the answer so where so yeah so one of the tips were that he was in a trailer park a trailer
home okay that somebody some's dad had did something to him and took him in a truck
or a van to this trailer park right and did did this person do you know who Dad no so these are the tips that were given
we took the information uhhuh and we went with what they said we took the basics we're looking for a creeper van
or a truck that's so vague right it's so vague but what happened was they gave us
a area of where he was taken it was an address so we went there and where he was taken not where he was taking from
okay right right and so we went to that area on South Park in laana which is the
outskirt of the city okay so we go out to this trailer park and we're canvasing and we see creepy stuff and we
see things that are like well this doesn't make sense like this is a bandit maybe he's in here could he be there we
see spaces underneath the trailer parks well can we look under there and so we had to go to the police and say can you
guys come with us in laana can you come with us because we need to see what's in
here mhm and so this area is far past his house not somewhere he's walking to nowhere near it yeah okay and so then we
look across from this trailer park and you can see the the I 190 the interstate where another tip was said that he was
at so literally we go right across the street until the street ends and end up on the side of the
I90 so we go down to this space that they say he's at and we did our own investigation in which we took back to
the police we found some rolled up rugs and and the trailer park that you guys were talking about it's right over there
and so you're almost getting like all of these tips and leads that are not like right you're not finding
them so they're not the one but they're all they all feel like they're clustered
and one of those things where like there's like there's got to be a little truth in there somewhere for it all to
be circling around this one area that isn't the place that he went missing from right and so as we go
backwards from that area then you go to South Buffalo South Buffalo this one Street South Park
connects all of these towns that area became very prominent to us it became a question can you guys go over
there and search we need you to get drones we needed Dr things we didn't have money for and so come to find out
some of those things weren't available through the Buffalo police SVU either so we had to request dogs we had to request
drone drones and then they could go over there and look at what we seen to be interesting okay I did have the
detective on the case at the time uh go with me into the fi to go through those rugs and cut open and nothing was found
there but they didn't take fers either okay so that was like they're working with us
MH right and so we requested that we get the flyer of him missing with the Crime
Stoppers on it m it took years to get that it took right and and so even with me calling I had to get the police to
push it through the detectives to push it through so we requested all these things and
then we have the visibility campaign that we had went to hire this lady to put it together for us to say how do we
ask people for help and so Liberty Taxi Company helped us by putting it on the digital platform his missing flyer on
the digital box that's in the car was anyone saying they were seeing him or were the most of the tips you were
getting later and later about something having happened to him no but not we weren't getting anything new mhm and we
were going on social media and still finding people writing about him up until 2023 oh wow jaylen's mother knew that
something was absolutely wrong because his brother Jaan was shot and killed steps away from their home right older
brother younger brother his older brother he was 18 at the time and is this after he went missing and this is
after he went missing so then you have him missing he never returned so is this is reason and as to why his mother just
knew her baby was gone he never showed up for the funeral and that was 6 months after Jaylen went missing was it
connected in any way or completely separate incidents we don't have any information on that because Jawan is a
Cold Case yeah yeah they didn't do an investigation that brought forth any information and so in 2023 September
2023 jaylen's mother's um Health declined and she transitioned M she passed away before any answers were
found in either of her son's cases in either of the cases that family has experienced so much loss does he does
are there still there are other siblings out there right I mean she had other kids Joan had six
children and um so you have the Griffin children and then you have the Roberts children so yeah but they're all hers
cuz I when people say step it drives me but they're all out the same mother and so now here you have it that you have
the baby missing and you have the 18-year-old brother shot and killed murdered murdered no answers and so this
is happening around Thanksgiving and then it's funerals in December and she would literally talk about you know what
day it is and I'm like no and she's like she's living on the schedule of the traumas and the tragedies oh you know
it's coming up the day that jayen went missing what are we doing this year we bringing out our
lanterns and I'm like this is really sad yeah that the quality of life has become
scheduling around around the traa around trauma we speed up 2023 September she passes away she had a
beautiful home going and then um his sister's birthday was April 12th 2024 and there was some information
buzzing around that they got a call that police were walking around with her brother's Jalen's flyer asking if anyone
has seen him in the neighborhood yeah it was kind of like well what's going on and we do begin
tonight with breaking news that breaking news out of the city of Buffalo the search for a boy missing since 2020 has
ended in tragedy police announcing today they have recovered the body body was found in a home on Sheffield Avenue in
South Buffalo a missing person investigation now turns into to a homicide investigation Monday
morning her jaylen's grandmother called me Joanne's mother and said baby they around here looking for Jaylen in this
neighborhood and we need to know what's going on and I'm like well they'll call us right and so I'm actually teaching
the class of social workers about what really goes on behind the people that you have come into your chair know it's
coming from trauma and extreme circumstances be empathetic Be watchful and watch out for this right so I'm
talking about all my jazz about the trauma that we dealt with stone face right and then when I got off the phone
with her I felt so heavy like I came back and I'm in tears and I'm talking to them and
they're like what happened and I'm like nothing I'm trying to figure out what's going on but that was one of my cases
and was the grandma and she's telling me that you know yeah so let's finish up here and by the time I get finished with
this the detective is actually calling me at this point and she's telling me that
um we are going to meet with Deana jaylen's oldest sister and that the commissioner of police would like for
you to come down to headquarters and I'm like that feels significant and not to match you know
the feeling that I already had earlier not knowing what it was but there was a discovery made and so when we get there
I see everybody in the room that I've been dealing with on the phone for years and I'm like oh but why is everybody
here and they're like so we could pretty much you know why you're here I'm like well uh detective bince did tell me that
she was going to talk to jaylen's sister and it's about Jaylen okay he was discovered in an attic by a maintenance
man deceased and I'm like what you found Jaylen so I'm like you found jayen yeah
uh yeah right and so this maintenance man had called and reported that there was a body in the
Attic on the day of his sister's birthday that they were right they they were out there looking and that was the
discovery that we didn't know how did they know so quickly it was him he fit the demographic black young boy the only
one in the system that matched it and so what happened was the reason why they didn't
reach out until us until Monday yeah was they had put his request in for his dental records and when the dentist came
back to work Monday and confirmed that it was his Dental record then they could tell you then they could tell us what
was going on I have a thousand questions I want to know specifically I guess I think the two biggest ones are
like are what condition was he found in and what's the deal with this house like
to me it seems so simple it's like okay who owns the house like if you f if you find a body in the house problem solv
like but it's not I know it's not that simple so first of all let's start with um how was he found so commissioner
gaglia of the Buffalo police said that he was badly decomposed and he had to be there for a significant amount of time I
know what a couple and a few means but I don't know what significant means well that's what I that's what I was asking
that the fact that they knew was him we're talking two years three and a half years he three and a half years I would
expect him to be skeletal if he had been there since the no well we don't know that yet they're not telling us so his
autopsy won't be available until mid August okay and that's for the family and where we come from it's like top
secret and you can't fo you our medical examiner super great I I'm dealing with some stuff here in Indiana and I'm like
this this is also kind of [ __ ] like I pay the taxes and at what point are you like accountable to people and not
accountable to people right but that's a story for another day and so through his
D um records They found out that it was our 12-year-old Jaylen Griffin um and this was right before his birthday cuz
his birthday is April 22nd and so that was 10 days that you know from the day he was
found right yeah and um so we just hosted his memorial and we had these questions we
don't know how he got to the space which is off of South Park right so that's my
second question whose house is this this is a let's talk about the house is owned by
a company oh that has people um that are paroles they are said to be sex fenders
sex offenders at this address and this is like um halfway house okay but it's not State
contracted okay and so then of course the city goes through their own sleuth moment where they're looking
on um they're researching the house people are skip tracing cuz that's what we do and they're saying who lived in
the house they're putting names out they're putting pictures out they're going on um Google and you know you can
go to the street view and you could look on the camera in 2014 this saying all of
the things that Diana has done right and so this is this is what I'm watching on Facebook and which I
just got to get off at this point because it's over stimulating like we're already doing our work yeah and then we
watch everybody else with their stories but they don't know in the background that South Park that was where he's
found that is 5 miles away from its home but further down South Park and we don't
have these answers is that trailer park that the one that you went to right and that entrance off the
I90 so you're back in this like in this bubble where everything was kind of circling around mind yep and that piece
in that carpet that they didn't collect like what was in that carpet like my brain just goes there right and you and
because you don't have the autopsy report you don't know if he was in the Attic the whole time or part of the time
right in a in a significant amount of time isn't a time for me have have you or have the police talked to the people
who were living in and out of that home and there's got to be a lot of people and not only that
but who was monitoring those people that address alone 107 Sheffield is the devil
you look at the reports and you see people um throwing uh mattresses out the window you see the windows open at a
certain time on Google you have all this data and then you have the calls to look
back at how many times the police were called there to that house right to that house and then you have to think about
there were contractors that were in this house he was in an attic like who had access because this house is owned by a
company where residents allowed in the Attic there's a million questions to go with your thousand and how did no one
know he was there I mean I I have never smelled a decomposing body myself but the stories I've talked I've heard from
law enforcement is like I mean you can't mistake it for anything you you would think they knew that mainten this man
know he knew that smell is that is that how he or was he so that he went up to the atct because of the smell he went up
to the atct because that's where supposedly whatever he needed to access that's and as soon as he was up there he
knew he know so what is happening right now in the investigation because I would
I would hope wait what do you mean you're shaking your head are police asking the questions that I'm asking
about who who are they asking the questions to they're not talking to us um once it gets to homicide it's a
homicide case it went from SVU to homicide and we're locked out right and so then um there's a you know family
Dynamics I play right and so they talk to the next of kin the next of kin is his father not his sister or no this
father is still alive okay so he's the next to Kin at that point and and he's not in in contact with any of not
siblings oh well he does and so he does still have um so sadly the three Griffin
children that she had there's one surviving Griffin from the mom's side um so they really don't have a
communicative relationship so he doesn't communicate with her about whatever is going on if he's talking to them if
they're talking to him and when I say they I mean law enforcement so we are locked out we don't know and so what
happens is you know by law they do have right to get the autopsy results and that's something will they next of Ken
or siblings okay so it automatically goes to them but the siblings have to pay for it okay but they do have access
to it and you said that comes mid August for them that comes mid August and will
they get any kind of I know the police don't have to update them but will they get any kind of hopefully we've been and
and this is actually a thing right now um the oldest sister did receive a call that um she's wondering like where are
you why aren't you talking to me what's going on she calling for update and they're like well we we can't
communicate it right now and I'm like what the hell is going on what is going on that you guys aren't talking to her
because still I don't care if you're not talking to his dad if you are talking to
his dad the family Dynamic is these children still want to know what happened to
their sibling and even if I and even if you can't say exactly what you're doing in an active investigation to know is
something happening are we progressing or is is no one working on or are we doing Cold Case again yeah the community
deserves to know if there's a killer on the loose um that's snatching kids and keeping them for years and what happened
that's the thing too right like he had no connection to the area he's found the house that he's in so when you when you
talk is like quite literally one of those scariest scenarios where it is this a complete stranger at least what
it's what it's looking like a complete stranger abducts him off the street on the way to or from the corner store and
he's found years later in an attic and we don't know how long he's been there or how he got there or what happened in
between and that neighborhood is um workingclass neighborhood is uh majority pretty white people that live there
nothing like the neighborhood he came from who seen him going into the house how long was he in the house you know
the questions that everybody want to know but this neighborhood has Neighbors in the hood and they have made
complaints about this house there even a lawsuit from one of the neighbors from the damage that their house had from an
incident that took place at 107 Sheffield it's wild that I I I don't know right like but it's wild to me that
he I don't think he could have been there the whole time and no one noticed when you have police coming in and out
or or maybe they can and nobody's paying attention that's very unsettling that someone could take a kid
off the street for three and a half years and then he ends up in a home like in a space cuz I can't call it a home
yeah and so we we we're looking to honor him through um his legacy we started a petition to strengthen the laws of
runaways because just like we started out with my niece being labeled to run away he was labeled to run away how many
more runaways do we have to lose before we stop calling them runaways when there's everyone wants proof that
something happened but I'm like here's proof that they didn't just walk away right right ultimately at 12 years old
who's going to take care of you you can't take care of yourself well and also when especially when you think
about everything else that's going on right we talked about everything intersecting even if they quote unquote
ran away they left the home home of their own free will when you talk about the trafficking and the stuff that is
happening around them they're not necessarily safe they're not safe they're not safe because you you think
about adults who are used in relationships and they're abused right they're adults educated adults so do you
think that children can't be manipulated and brought into spaces where they believe somebody's going to help them
and then they're violated MH like let's really get to the reality like every child that walks outside of their home
on making that decision does not know what they're walking into that is the truth of it so where can people find the
petition if they want want to support the petition is on our website www. BTV buffalo. org and that's BTV as in
Berry the violence and it's under the about section because we need to strengthen the laws in New York state to
have accountability from law enforcement to the Schoolhouse we need awareness is there
anything else that our listeners can do to support the work that you're doing well we are a nonprofit organization
we're just not funded yet and so we do have a space on our website that they can um make a donation But ultimately
we're looking for also outside of that let me just make sure I'm making it clear we do love people to help share
our content because we never know how far it can go the missing Flyers you have family that lives in other states
you have friends that live in other states you're on social media share our content so the information can get out
we are actually going to start sharing our intellectual properties because if they're not calling us in and
Contracting us to teach them this we need to get it out to the general public and hope that they utilize it we're open
to volunteers they do have to be screened which also costs money if they help us the things that it will go
toward is helping us print colored flyers that cost money um getting skip tracing tools that are more so what
we're used to like Lexus Nexus and Ben verified just hit us for $37 last night you know they'll come at
you for every di they'll come back and get you right and so you know those things is that's what we need help with
so making sure that there's not another lania making sure that there's not another jayen making sure that we and
keep pushing that workout and other 200 plus families are served that we have more people helped and it is sometimes I
think people feel overwhelmed they're like oh I can't donate hundreds of dollars to your point it's $37 from B
verified like every little every right and so um we do our Safety and Security kits we were upstairs talking about um
our UV gel spray pepper spray so we do securing our sisters where we provide provide people with safety kits and this
UV jail spray people don't even know it exists ultimately if I'm going to ma somebody to get away from them and it
blows back in me I did myself a disservice okay but if they have this gel pepper spray and it hits that person
and leaves a mark it helps you and helps law enforcement I love that idea so um that's part of what we also do to help
people who are in domestic violence situations to get away without using guns and then we try to get them the
personal alarms uhhuh and then we teach them the Dow 911 to hang up because if you stay on the phone sorry law
enforcement but if you stay on the phone with that dispatcher they're going to continue to question you and they know
you're okay do they actually have better response rates if you're not on the call
they yeah that's [ __ ] terrifying the reality is terrifying Clues you can use Clues you can use you
need that on a shirt right there you go there you go there are um a couple other
cases you mentioned I know if you wanted we talk about those really quickly cuz obviously jaylen's case is far from the
only one that your organization is helping with people have been shot in historic uh Parks shot and killed Joel
northr um was shot and killed after a basketball game happened there were threats made it's on Facebook live Joel
wasn't even playing basketball at the time that this happened here you have substance right you have people in this
space you have everything you need witness on a live stream on a it was on a live stream he wasn't killed on live
oh but the fight was everything that took place around it oh my God so you can see the people right yeah and so how
do we dare let this happen in Delaware Park where families go to the Buffalo Zoo right across the street and Delaware
Park has been stap for basketball tournaments like they just had one with the former Buffalo Bills player Stevie
Johnson and team Joel actually won that so I'm looking forward to them opening up these cold cases and team Joel making
another one that they find out who killed Joel Northrup we also have Jalia morero who is
like so heart-wrenching so Jalia moro's dad was shot and killed by her boyfriend
and he did it in quote unquote self-defense according to um the statement that Jalia
made with law enforcement but you take a young girl that's a senior and you put her in the situation where somebody
shoots and kills her father in front of her and then you ask her a question which side do you think her
protector just got shot and killed in front of her Jalia went missing soon after her dad was
killed and then she was found in a shallow grave oh no they haven't even started from step one of her her dad
being killed let's look at this as domestic violence and a young girl had to watch her father be shot and killed
her protector be shot and killed and then she leaves with that person what would you do truth of the
matter is I mean listen to the stories you've told over and over again yes police were asking here police aren't
her aren't going to be her Savior and that's why she's not here so um we want Justice for Jalia and if anybody has any
information please don't hesitate to reach out to the Buffalo Police Department and leave those tips they
have tip lines you can reach out to us and transmit the information over because these are just two of the Cod
cases that we need solved and just to remind people that website you're talking about it's
BTV buffalo. org that's also where they can go to sign the petition to enact jaylen's law yes it's the safer youth
act um there were other people looking to do jayen laws we kind of back up and let family do what they need to do and
so again the main reason why we started was lania was listed as a runaway and then years later we have Jaylen approved
that they're still treating runaways as if they don't have value and Worth to be
looked for and so we need safer youth act that if a child does make a decision to walk out of their home that they come
back alive I know sometimes people can get overwhelmed when talking about making a donation because they're
thinking oh I don't have hundreds of dollars but I mean we literally just said that you know been verified once
$37 like it's the small amounts that matter and so again I would really encourage our listeners to head to the
website BTV buffalo. org to make a donation advocacy is always at the Forefront of what we're doing here at
audio check so we want to make sure we're continuing to support that so we'll also be making a donation to the
organization so please you guys join me in doing that to to help continue on this work which is so important for this
community well thank you for the work that you're doing thank you I'm so grateful for the people like you who are
out there who see something and and do something about it you You' buil it's incredible the thing that you have built
around you and for your community and I I encourage you guys to go again that's BTV buffalo. org you can also follow
Barry the violence on Instagram and on Facebook and please go make a donation if you're local think about volunteering
and I hope that this isn't the last time that we get to be together this is thank
you so much for coming for having me it's an honor hi there it's Ashley with just a
quick update for you as you know Karima and I spoke at length regarding the case
of Jaylen Griffin and on Friday August 23rd local media Outlets reported that investigators confirmed jaylen's cause
of death was due to stabbing Karima has also informed us that as of this recording J 's older sister and siblings
have still yet to receive a copy of his autopsy report there have been no arrests made in the case and it remains
an active homicide investigation authorities are urging anyone with tips or leads to contact the Buffalo Police
Department tip line at 716 847-2255 or you can call Crim Stoppers if you want to remain anonymous their
number is 716 867 6161 Crim Stoppers is offering a $7500 reward for any information leading to an
arrest in jaylen's case you guys don't forget to follow this show add it to your library don't
forget to follow crime junkie and we'll have a brand new episode of crime junkie
AF the last Friday of every month but if you can't wait until then you can also hear crime junkie radio on the Sirius XM
app for your 24/7 True Crime fix and you can follow me Ashley flowers on Instagram @ Ashley flowers and Ashley
flowers crime dunky on Tik Tok I'll see you guys next month CRI

Ashley Flowers sits down with Kareema Morris, the founder of Bury the Violence, and organization that has reunited over 200 missing children with their families. Ashley and Kareema discuss Kareema's movement into true crime after her niece's murder. They also discuss the Jaylen Griffin case, which remains unsolved.

Learn more about Bury the Violence here: https://www.btvbuffalo.org/

If you know anything about Jaylen Griffin's murder, call the Buffalo Police Tip Line at 716-847-2255 or contact Crime Stoppers at crimestopperswny.org or 716-867-6161.

Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkieaf.com/

Crime Junkie AF is hosted by Ashley Flowers.

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Brief Summary

Karima Morris discusses the tragic case of Jaylen Griffin, a missing boy found dead, and the systemic issues in finding missing children.

Key points

Karima Morris: Advocate for the Missing. Karima Morris shares her journey from survivor to advocate for missing children.
The Tragic Case of Lanai. Karima recounts the heartbreaking story of her niece, who was found murdered.
From Grief to Action. Karima discusses how her niece's murder propelled her into advocacy work.
The Search for Jaylen Griffin. The desperate search for a missing 13-year-old boy in Buffalo continues, raising questions about his disappearance.
Tragic Discovery. The search for Jaylen ends in tragedy as police recover a body in a home.
Justice for Jalia. Jalia Morero's tragic story highlights the impact of domestic violence and the need for justice.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is one of the most mysterious cases I've come across in a while.

Introduction to a case about a missing boy found years later.

1:23WatchSep 6, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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