Woman last seen in Tres Piedras still missing

Taos News
Olivia Lewis
January 8, 2025

It’s been over a year since Tameka Norris, 46, went missing after she was last located in Tres Piedras, New Mexico, but Norris’ mother is holding onto the hope she’ll be found.

“The fact is that no parent wants to outlive their children,” said Shelia Wells, Norris’ mother. “We’re supposed to go first, not them. That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid the cops are going to call, come to my door and tell me something happened to her. That’s why I need somebody to find her.”

Wells was last going to see Norris in June 2023, when she missed a flight from North Carolina to her mother’s home in Columbus, Ohio. Norris called Wells to tell her she was still coming, but never did. On Oct., 14, 2023, Norris blocked her mother and aunt, Kitty Harris, on Facebook and they haven’t heard from her since.

“She was coming home for my birthday,” Wells said. “She ended up in New Mexico.”

Wells said Norris has disappeared before, but this is the longest she’s been unable to communicate with and locate her. Norris was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in 2018, but wouldn’t keep taking her medication. Wells is worried about Norris’ worsening health and wants to seek guardianship if she can have her medically evaluated in Ohio.

“She isn’t in her right frame of mind,” Wells said. “This is not my daughter, this is not Kitty’s niece. I don’t know who she is.”

Prior to losing contact on Facebook, Wells was able to discover Norris purchased a small plot of land at Tres Piedras Estates in October 2023. The plot lacked running water, a septic tank and shelter, but Norris used to express she wanted to live in a tent or truck somewhere.

“That land, we looked it up,” Wells said. “It didn’t have internet, it didn’t have water, a bathroom, so we couldn’t understand why she would buy something there. I don’t know if she was tricked into getting it and then all of a sudden she realized it was a bad deal.”

Wells contacted the Taos County Sheriff’s Office for help and spoke with the records clerk, Miguel Rodriguez. He referred her to Taos County GIS Coordinator Anthony Martinez, who pinpointed the lot’s longitude and latitude.

Wells then asked Taos Central Dispatch for a welfare check. Jeffrey Vargas, a former Taos County Deputy, arrived at the property and told her it looked like it was abandoned for a while. Wells said Vargas helped her file a missing person report on Nov. 20, 2023.

“She didn’t pay a lot for it because she doesn’t make that much money,” Wells said of the land. “She probably put a down payment on it, but they said it was abandoned, so I don’t know where she is.”

Tres Piedras is located almost right at the line between Taos County and Rio Arriba County. Tres Piedras Estates is also made up of privately owned land, muddling jurisdiction for either of these counties. Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera noted a transient population exists in Tres Piedras, where living off-grid is not uncommon.

“People come and go,” Miera said. “They’ll sit there and they’ll come in for two to three months, then they’re gone. I’ve seen them a couple of times, then they disappear and who knows where they moved on to.”

He added, “It’s a huge swath of property, and the problem we’re starting to see that’s kind of prevalent is we have the actual legal owner, but then you have people that are coming in and selling lots that have no ownership of the property. Because it’s so remote, the actual owners don’t seem to care. There’s people out there actually building homes on these properties and weirdly selling them off.”

Wells and Harris say Norris was known for being kind-hearted, polite and “sharp as a tack.” She volunteered with her aunt at their local veterans affairs office in Ohio, owned a dog she loved dearly and at one time ran her own business called Small Furnished.

“People had small spaces, and she knew how to get the right stuff for them to fit in those small spaces,” Wells said. “She was doing really good, and this was her idea. She bought and did all of this on her own. She didn’t have no help from nobody, but like I said, she’s very smart, but she just doesn’t talk.”

Harris, a veteran, said, “She went with me every day, helped at the VA [Veterans Affairs] and she did it for about maybe seven months. She did some volunteer work and she would wheel the veterans around, take them to their places.”

Wells also reached out to the Columbus Police Department and Crisis Mobile Team. Neither proved fruitful, so they turned to the Black and Missing Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to raise awareness for missing people of color. The nonprofit provides resources to friends and families who struggle to find support from law enforcement or government officials.

Black women and girls go missing at disproportionate rates in the U.S. The FBI’s National Crime Information Center reports that in 2022, over 36 percent of the 271,493 girls and women reported missing were Black, despite comprising just 14 percent of the U.S. population of women.

Similarly, Black people overall made up 37 percent of registered missing individuals, despite comprising only 14 percent of the total U.S. population.

Wells remains hopeful Norris will be found, but struggles to cope with her disappearance.

“I cry many times a day and pray about it and hope the phone doesn’t ring and say she’s ill,” Wells said. “Then, I hope the phone rings and it will be her.”

Anyone with information regarding Norris’ whereabouts are urged to submit a tip to the Black and Missing Foundation’s tip line at blackandmissinginc.com/tipline/?mp_id=7450.

Photo credit: Shelia Wells