Episode 161: Kiona Turner – Bite-Sized Crime

When a woman disappears on Thanksgiving Day, the last person to see her doesn’t have much information to offer. What happened to Kiona Turner?

Episode Media

Kiona with her boyfriend Khalif *(Facebook)*

2009 Kia Optima LX similar to Kiona’s car *(JD Power)*

Episode Sources

Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a missing persons case that has had very little news coverage, but it’s one that I believe can be solved with the right information. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

In the fall of 2024, 33-year-old Kiona Lasha Turner was living in Gary, Indiana, a mid-sized city on the shores of Lake Michigan. Originally from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Kiona had faced many challenges in her life. She got pregnant in high school and gave birth to a daughter when she was just 15. It wasn’t long before Kiona was getting in trouble with the law. By the time she was 18, Kiona was on probation for a theft conviction. She spent the next decade in and out of court, serving time for theft and identity fraud, among other things.

Eventually, Kiona moved to Indiana, while her daughter Ra’Kell stayed with family in Arkansas. Kiona’s probation was transferred from state to state, and she worked hard to get her life back on track. She had gotten her cosmetology license in Arkansas and was able to put it to good use in her new city. In August of 2024, she posted on Facebook that she was thinking about going to school to become a registered nurse. She was determined to move forward and make big changes in her life.

In November of 2024, Kiona was looking forward to the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays. She had the day off from work and was planning to spend it with her new boyfriend. On Wednesday, November 27th, Kiona talked to her daughter Ra’Kell on the phone – even though they lived in different states, they spoke almost every day. Ra’Kell was 18 years old and thriving; Kiona was so proud of her.

Ra’Kell told The Times of Northwest Indiana that she and her mom texted back and forth on Thanksgiving Day – November 28th – until about 3pm. After that, Ra’Kell didn’t hear from her mother at all. “I didn’t talk to her Friday or Saturday, so by Sunday when I realized I hadn’t heard from her, I called her around the time I thought she’d get off work. Her phone went straight to voicemail, her FaceTime was just ringing and ringing.”

When Ra’Kell checked her mom’s location using the Life360 app, she saw that Kiona’s phone data hadn’t been live since Thanksgiving Day. This was very strange – Kiona was on her phone constantly, posting to social media multiple times a day. It wasn’t like her to suddenly go silent.

Ra’Kell contacted the Gary Police Department and requested a welfare check. Kiona’s phone had last pinged at her boyfriend’s house on Hovey Street, so police went to the home and knocked on the door. According to Ra’Kell, Kiona’s boyfriend told the officers that Kiona didn’t live there anymore – he hadn’t seen her in days, and he didn’t know where she had gone.

Ra’Kell officially filed a missing persons report with the Gary Police Department on December 1st, but there was only so much she could do from 600 miles away. Some of Kiona’s cousins in Gary printed missing flyers and hung them around the city, hoping that someone would see her and call in a tip.

Naturally, Kiona’s family was eager to talk to the last person who had seen her – her boyfriend Khalif. They knew she had been at his house because she had FaceTimed her cousin on Thanksgiving morning as she was getting ready for the day. But when they reached out to Khalif on Facebook, he said she had gone to the store on Thanksgiving and never came back. He said he hadn’t slept since she left, and that he wanted to clear his name of any suspicion.

On December 6th, a week after Kiona disappeared, Khalif gave an interview with Cherise Wilson, the founder of Missing Lost and Trafficked. According to Khalif, Kiona had been living with her father in Gary when they met. They started talking, and before long, Kiona was staying at his house almost every night. She kept a few personal items there, some clothes and hair products, but Khalif said she never fully unpacked, just carried things back and forth in bags.

On Thanksgiving Day, Khalif said that he had been in and out of the house all day, going on runs for his Instacart job. Kiona had the day off, so she was there doing her hair and makeup, chatting with her cousin on FaceTime. Around 5pm, Khalif came back to the house, saying he had a turkey in the oven, but then he went back out on another job. He recalled Kiona saying she was going to the store to get a drink, although it wasn’t clear what store she meant, especially since most places would be closed on Thanksgiving Day. When Khalif returned around 8pm, Kiona was gone.

Khalif claimed that he called Kiona multiple times, but she didn’t answer her phone. He waited for a while, thinking she would be back soon and they could eat dinner together, but she didn’t return. Khalif went into the closet and noticed that all of Kiona’s things were gone. He told Cherise that he figured Kiona needed some space. “I feel like maybe she was definitely getting bored with somebody that’s working and never around.” But earlier in the interview, Khalif had claimed he and Kiona rarely texted each other because they were together all the time.

This wasn’t the only confusing part of Khalif’s story. During the interview, Cherise tried to get Khalif to clarify the timeline of events, but he just bounced back and forth. He didn’t see her phone at the house, but she had two phones, one that was on WiFi; he couldn’t say which one she had on her when she left the house. He remembered talking to the police when they came to do a welfare check, but he also never talked to the police – they had talked to his neighbor instead. He couldn’t remember which day the police had come, if they had come at all, and he couldn’t say if they had searched his house or not. He had a Ring camera, but it was broken. He had called Kiona’s probation officer to check on her, but he also didn’t want to get her in trouble. He promised Cherise that he would send her screenshots of his messages and phone logs, but it doesn’t appear that he ever did.

If investigators are working on Kiona’s case, they are keeping the details close to the vest. On December 21st, a resident of Gary, Indiana, told Cherise Wilson that a “large police presence” was seen at Khalif’s residence around 9pm. An officer was heard on the police scanner saying that they would be at the house for follow-up. “I will be recovering property.” Whether or not police actually did recover anything from the house remains to be seen. Khalif has never been publicly named as a person of interest in the case, and he maintains that he had nothing to do with Kiona’s disappearance.

However, in June of 2025, a friend of Khalif told Cherise Wilson that Khalif had confessed to killing Kiona during a conversation they had over the phone. According to the friend, he thought Khalif was joking when he said that he had gotten rid of his girlfriend. The friend knew Khalif to be kind of goofy sometimes, and he assumed this was one of those times. But as months passed and Kiona didn’t come home, the friend began to wonder if Khalif really had done something to her. Of course, this is all alleged, and police have made no statements about Khalif or his relationship to Kiona.

As of this recording, Kiona Turner is still missing. Some believe that she met with foul play; some believe she went missing voluntarily, skipping out on her probation and possibly leaving the state. Her car is also missing. However, there has been no activity on her bank accounts or her social media, and her family doesn’t believe she would ever purposefully cut off communication with her daughter.

Kiona Lasha Turner was last seen on November 28, 2024, at her boyfriend’s house in the 500 block of Hovey Street in Gary, Indiana. She is described as a Black female standing 5’7” tall with brown hair and brown eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she was 33 years old. She has multiple tattoos as well as piercings in her ears and eyebrow. She may be driving a gray 2009 Kia Optima LX, last seen parked near Fifth Avenue and Clark Road in Gary.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Kiona Turner, please contact the Gary Police Department at (219) 881-7300. And please share Kiona’s story on social media. Let’s bring her home.