Deborah Tyson still waits for her daughter Amanda Grace Little to call, four years after the Whiteville-area woman disappeared in Dublin County.
“She always called me, just to talk,” Tyson said. “She said she was going to call me later, but she didn’t. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
At the time of her disappearance, Little was 32. She was in a custody dispute with a former boyfriend over her youngest daughter. The child’s father lived in Duplin County, and Little moved there in hopes of seeing her more. She still frequently came home to visit Tyson, and called on a regular basis.
“She got that baby one time for 15 minutes after moving there,” Tyson said. “They just strung her along.”
“I told her not to move over there,” Tyson said, “but she wanted to be near her baby.”
Little was living in Rose Hill when she called her mother on April 17, 2022, during the week of Easter. The mother and daughter frequently talked on the telephone.
Little has severe scoliosis, Tyson said. During their last conversation, Little told Tyson her back was hurting, and that she was going to take some medicine and take a nap. She promised to call her mother back later. When Tyson tried to call her back later, she got no answer. By the next day she was frantic with worry.
On April 18, Tyson contacted the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office and asked for a wellness check. They found no trace of the woman. She had a new telephone that the detectives said they couldn’t track, Tyson said. News coverage of the time indicated that a neighbor told deputies she saw Little behaving erratically, but did not place an exact date on when that allegedly occurred.
The girlfriend of Little’s baby’s father later called Tyson, looking for Little.
“She said they couldn’t find her anywhere,” Tyson said. “She had just vanished.”
Tyson said Little had made some mistakes in her life, but she was turning over a new leaf and “she loved those babies.
“She wouldn’t just walk off,” Tyson said.
Little stands 5’2” tall and weighed 95 pounds when she disappeared. She has dark brown curly hair and brown eyes. She is of mixed black and Caucasian ancestry. It is not known what she was wearing at the time of her disappearance.
Little has multiple tattoos including the name Raina Inside of her right arm; a dolphin on her right ankle; the letter “K” on the right side of her neck; the letters EW with a star on her right hand near her thumb; the name Tyrone on her back right hip and Little Momma on her left thigh.
Det. Edward Johnson of the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the case. The CUE Center for Missing Persons recently joined in the search for the missing woman.
Tyson said she constantly thinks about her missing daughter, and just wants her to come home.
“Nobody’s young’un is perfect,” she said, “but this is my young’un. I love her.”
Anyone with information about little is asked to contact the DCSO at 910.296.2150 or the CUE Center at 910.232.1687. All calls are kept confidential. A $5,000 reward is offered for information leading to her whereabouts.
