NORFOLK — Reshaunda Gerald turned 33 on Monday, but she wasn’t home to celebrate her birthday.
The mother of three has been missing since Jan. 4. She was last seen by her mother around 8 a.m. leaving her Coleman Place apartment with her married ex-boyfriend, according to documents filed in Norfolk Circuit Court.
Now, recently unsealed court documents show that Gerald’s ex-boyfriend may have deleted text messages sent to and from his phone the day she vanished.
Gerald and her ex-boyfriend spoke frequently. A Norfolk Police Department search of his phone showed that the couple spoke on the phone 45 times between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3, according to court documents.
And although the man told police he’d sent Gerald various texts since he’d last seen her on Jan. 4, a manual search of his phone didn’t show any text messages sent or received on that date; however, his cell phone records showed that he was sending and getting text messages at that time.
Norfolk police believe that he “physically deleted all of his SMS/text messages, both incoming and outgoing,” according to court documents.
Possibly deleted text messages aren’t the only discrepancies the couple’s cell phone records show.
Gerald’s last known movements
Gerald’s father reported her missing around noon on Jan. 6, about three days after her mother watched her leave their apartment with her ex-boyfriend.
Gerald’s cousin, Latoya Willoughby, said Gerald and her ex were engaged at some point, but they broke up as it became clearer that the man wasn’t divorcing his wife.
When questioned, the man told police that he is married and that he and Gerald had been having an “intimate” relationship for about a year, court documents show.
Gerald and the man had been arguing the weekend before he picked her up in his wife’s black Nissan. They were meeting up to sort through issues, Willoughby said in a January interview with Southside Daily.
Gerald left the house, wearing a fur-lined pink jacket, blue jeans with holes in the knees and black Jordan-brand sneakers. She said goodbye to her mother and promised she’d be home by 3 p.m. to pick her daughters up from school, but she never showed up.
Described as a social media “junkie” by her family, Gerald’s last Facebook post was a meme she shared at 8:12 a.m. on Jan. 4. Gerald’s family has tried to call her cell phone several times only to get sent directly to her voicemail.
They say it is not like her to disappear without telling her family or arranging care for her 15, 10 and eight-year-old children.
Cell phone, tunnel records tell story
The man told police that he used his wife’s car to pick Gerald up and take her to the Norfolk Utilities Department to pay her water bill. Later, he said they drove through the tunnel into Portsmouth where they went to a car wash and had sex in the car, court documents state.
He said that they spent about three hours together before he dropped Gerald back off in Norfolk near the intersection of Lincoln Street and Olney Road. Later, he and his wife spent the night at the Fairfield Inn, located at 1560 Crossways Blvd. in Chesapeake.
But cell phone and tunnel records show that the couple never went to a car wash in Portsmouth and Gerald was never dropped off at the intersection.
Instead, records show that Gerald’s phone pinged off cell phone towers located across from the Fairfield Inn during the time that the man was there with his wife. Gerald’s ex-boyfriend told police she didn’t come to the hotel with him, and he didn’t think she followed him there.
About two weeks after Gerald went missing, her ex-boyfriend went to Florida to attend drug treatment. During a Feb. 9 interview, police said the man couldn’t explain why his story contradicted the cell phone records, but that he hadn’t hurt or abducted her.
A search of the Nissan also revealed possible evidence.
Bloody hatchet, trunk mat raise questions
On Feb. 11, police searched the Nissan and found the trunk mat and a hatchet wrapped inside a plastic bag in the trunk. They tested the materials with a chemical called Blue Star, which showed that there were remnants of human blood on them.
Police believe the hatchet may have been purchased on Jan. 7 — the day after Gerald was reported missing — from Meigg’s Hardware Inc. It still had a tag on it, and there was an unknown material on the blade and at the top of the handle.
No one has been arrested in connection to this case. Gerald remains missing.
Gerald is described as a slender African American woman with a dark complexion. She has blue hair and brown eyes and is about five feet one inch in height. She also has the word “RIFE” tattooed on her neck and the word “MULE” tattooed on her chest, surrounded by angel wings.
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