The toddlers were unrelated but connected through family and friends. Lamoine was in Woodville, Mississippi on Mother’s Day with his Uncle Glenn Edwards and Aunt Leola Jackson, who served as his unofficial guardians since his parents lived out of town. Meanwhile, Kreneice’s mother, Carla Russell, was dating Glenn Edwards’ uncle, Tyrone Edwards.

It started out as a typical day for Carla. She attended the morning service at New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Edgard with her mother, sister and two young daughters. Having received an invitation to attend a Mother’s Day program at a Mississippi church where Leola was to serve as the mistress of ceremony, she and her children traveled to Woodville, a small town just over the West Feliciana Parish line.

After church, Kreneice and Lamoine played with several other children in front of three homes owned by the same family. Carla remembers ironing her change of clothes in the back of the Jimmy Jackson Grocery Store on Highway 24 when the children came inside, looking for candy. She told them to wait until after they ate, not knowing it was only a matter of time before Kreneice and Lamoine would disappear.

Lamoine was last seen wearing a blue and black Hawaiian shirt, blue shorts and black sandals. Kreneice, also known by her nickname “Maw-Maw,” was wearing a multi-color one-piece outfit and pink slipper sandals when she went missing.

L’OBSERVATEUR recently connected with Carla, who detailed the day the children went missing and shared discrepancies in early reporting on the case. She also shared her experiences years after the disappearance, when she met a young woman whom she believed to be her long lost daughter. The accounts of Kreneice’s family members can be found in part 2.