CLAY COUNTY, MO (KCTV) — A family is still searching for answers one year after a local woman went missing and was later found dead.
The family of 45-year-old Alesha Reade hopes new facts in her case may be the key to solving it.
They’re also offering additional reward money for any information that leads to an arrest in her death.
Reade’s daughter, Sandrea Brown, said she got to spend a lot of time with her mother in the weeks leading up to her disappearance.
“She was my mom and I know that she loved me very much,” Brown said. “She had a heart of gold. She would give her last $20 to homeless person when she herself didn’t have a place to lay her head.”
Reade was last seen February 9, 2021 at the Fav Trip gas station on E. 23rd Street S. in Independence.
Investigators are now releasing that she was last known to be a passenger in a dark-colored Volkswagen Passat.
Two days later, Reade’s remains were found in rural Clay County near Cameron and Easley roads.
“It’s just not fair trying to think of why or how someone could do this to a person,” Brown said.
Brown said Reade had eight children and five grandkids. Two of those grandkids are Brown’s own children, one of whom remembers and misses his grandmother. The younger child was robbed of those memories.
“The people who did this to her don’t need to be out of the streets. It’s horrendous what happened and they’re out there and could possibly do it again,” Brown said.
Brown and her entire family are urging anyone who might have any piece of information to come forward and pass on the information to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.
Even something that may seem insignificant could be the missing puzzle piece investigators needs to close the case.
The family is offering a $5,000 reward on top of the $2,000 offered by Crime Stoppers.
Until the family can get justice and closure, Brown will be reflecting on this quote: “You are unsure which pain is worse. The shock or what happened or the ache or what never will.”
