Found Six Years Later: Kaswella Anderson

Six years ago, as a 13-year-old, Kaswella Anderson disappeared in Syracuse. Her name was soon displayed on Internet Web sites devoted to missing children. Relatives hung fliers carrying her photograph around the city. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children agreed to help find her.

Last fall, unexpectedly, Kaswella emerged. Police confirmed she had given birth to twins in a New York City hospital.

There was no joyous homecoming. According to investigators, Kaswella, now 19 and a legal adult, rejected any contact with her family in Syracuse.

“As far as I know, (the police) talked to her and she doesn’t want to be found,” said Kaswella’s mother, Andrea Killins, who has four other children in Syracuse. “I have no money, no resources, to go after her. I just want to know if she was forced to stay away, or if she was forced to leave Syracuse, or was this all on her own? I want to know what caused her to leave in the first place.”

Kaswella went missing on Feb. 18, 2002. She was a 13-year-old pupil at the Hughes Magnet School, a child with a history of running away. For the next five years, Killins said, she heard nothing of her daughter — which left Kaswella’s family to fear the worst.

In October, a letter arrived from Killins’ insurance company. It explained Kaswella had given birth to twins in a New York hospital, and had tried to charge the fees to her mother’s insurance. Kaswella apparently could not remember the name of the company, and the best she could do was offer Killins’ name.

“I think,” Killins said, “she did it on a whim.”

By the time the hospital got in contact with Killins, the trail was again cold. Because Kaswella was an adult, hospital officials could not release personal information. Killins said she took the letter to the police. Detective Kelly Moran, who handles missing person cases, made some followup calls in New York.

For reasons of confidentiality, Moran said, she can only disclose basic details of what she learned: Kaswella is alive, and Moran was told the 19-year-old has no wish to see her family.

Killins said she finds that hard to accept. She recalled her daughter as an unusually peaceful infant. Kaswella grew into a little girl who took saxophone lessons and wrote poetry.


As she grew older, she became harder to control, Killins said. Friends started telling the family they’d seen Kaswella hanging around with other youths on street corners. In response, Killins said, she and her husband Lavon — Kaswella’s stepfather — tried imposing tougher rules.

Kaswella rebelled. The conflict ended up in Family Court, Killins said, where Kaswella signed an agreement promising to obey her parents. If she broke her word, the response would be swift placement in a juvenile center.

She ran away again, Killins said, and came home for one last night.

The next morning, she left for school. She never returned.

That was in 2002. Killins filed a report with the local missing person’s unit and eventually sought help from the national agency for missing children. A friend told the family Kaswella called once from New York, seeking money — but did not call again.

“I never stopped thinking about her or where she was,” Killins said. “I worried, but I never got the feeling she was dead.”

She became especially afraid, she said, when police captured such sex offenders as John Jamelske, now in prison for imprisoning and attacking women in a bunker at his DeWitt home. But each case would come and go with no mention of Kaswella. The years passed slowly by, without news.

Killins said she struggled with depression, “a lot of it stemming from the fact that she was missing.” Her marriage broke up. She said her joy at the unexpected letter about the twins quickly turned to grief when she learned her daughter would not bring those babies home.

“I’m happy to know she’s alive,” Killins said. “She’s 19, and she can be missing if she wants. I’m glad she’s fine and the twins are fine. But I’m depressed she doesn’t want to talk to me.” To accept it, Killins said, she needs some basic answers: Where was Kaswella during the years when she was a minor, after she ran away from home? Who took her daughter to New York City, and how did she survive there? Is Kaswella refusing to come back by her own choice?

If so, Killins said, she wants to know why.

While police cannot reveal how they gained their information, Chief Gary Miguel said standard procedure would be “interviewing the young lady to make a determination on what happened when she went missing.”

Killins was told an interview occurred, but she isn’t sure if it was done by Syracuse police or by someone in New York. She said investigators told her Kaswella rarely uses her real name — which means her daughter again has dropped out of sight, accessible only to those with law enforcement power.

“I’d just like to see her, and find out why she left, and why she stayed there,” Killins said. “That’s all.”

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