After 14 years, Richmond teen’s body identified

In June 1995, Toussaint Gumbs' family reported the 16-year-old missing from his grandparents' home on Richmond's North Side.

Earlier that month, just a few blocks away in an alley behind the 3500 block of Missouri Avenue, police discovered the body of a young man who had been shot to death. Nearby, they found shell casings, but no identification.

The victim's face was recogniz able and the description of the body was similar to Gumbs, down to the scar on his upper left thigh that would eventually lead to his identification -- but not until this year.

A volunteer researcher using the National Institute of Justice's new online National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUs, spotted the similarities and in March, DNA testing proved Gumbs was the victim.

Richmond police did not respond to requests for comment yesterday and Thursday about why they didn't draw the connection between the unidentified body and the missing-person report on Gumbs.

Gumbs' father, Robert Gumbs, 55, of New York was in a hospital a few months ago recovering from surgery when he learned his son had been dead for almost 14 years.

"I went off. They thought I was going to tear the place apart I was so angry," Gumbs said. "He was already cremated. I had always hoped that he would show up. If not for me, at least for his mother's sake."

The victim's mother, Hope Jennings, 49, of Charlotte, N.C., learned her son was dead two weeks ago when she called Robert Gumbs, her ex-husband.

"I was in shock. I was at work. I had to close my office door. I just started crying and he was shocked because he didn't know that I didn't know that they had identified him," Jennings said. "He apologized. He thought I knew."

The two want to know why police did not quickly identify their son as the June 6, 1995, homicide victim found lying face down in the alley.

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The circumstances surrounding the missing-person report for Gumbs and its details are unclear.

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, which has been assisting in the search for Toussaint Gumbs since 1996, said it was his understanding that Gumbs' grandfather reported him missing to Richmond police June 9, 1995. But Jennings said she, not the grandfather, called in the missing-person report that day, and that she included information about the scar on his thigh from a childhood injury. His grandparents told police what clothes he was last seen wearing, Jennings said.

Some accounts of Gumbs' disappearance posted on various missing-person sites on the Internet said he was last seen June 9, 1995 -- which would have been three days after the slaying. Jennings said that from what she knows about the missing-person report, it "is all messed up. . . . They had me listed as 'Joy.'" instead of Hope. Jennings does not have a copy of the report, and police did not provide one.

Todd Matthews, a regional administrator for NamUs, said that while he does not know what happened in this case, there are times that "date reported missing" gets confused with "date last seen" and vice-versa in such reports.

An August 1995 story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that detailed the difficulty police have in identifying some murder victims included what is now known to be Gumbs' slaying.

Getting the identification verified often involves searching missing-person reports, police said at the time -- apparently months after a missing-person report was filed for Gumbs.

Jennings said Toussaint was not living at home with her in Richmond at the time he disappeared.

"We were going through the teenage thing. He didn't want to listen," she said. "He was between households. He'd get mad at me and go to his grandparents' house and he'd get mad at his grandparents and come back home."

She and Gumbs' father said that some of the boy's friends were "the wrong element." Jennings said Toussaint had been shot in the back during an attempted robbery just weeks before he was reported missing.

"I tried to get him to come back home at that point but he said, 'No, Ma, I'm all right. I'm going to my grandparents' house,'" she recalled.

Not long after that, she said her son's grandparents told her they had not seen him for two days. "I started calling'round to his friends and stuff to see if they saw him and nobody'd seen him. I called the police and filed a missing-persons report," she said.

In March 1996, eight months after his disappearance, Allen said Jennings contacted the missing children's center for help.

"It is really unfortunate for the family and his mom that it took so long," Allen said. "It's sad, but so many or these parents tell me the worst is the not knowing."

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Crucial to the identification of Gumbs was NamUs, a new Web-based program aimed at matching missing-person cases with unidentified deceased people across the country.

The NamUs site gives authorities and the public access to two databases, one of unidentified deceased people and the other of missing people. Data ranging from vital statistics to tattoo details and dental records are included when available.

NamUs' Nashville-based Matthews said that last year, details about the unidentified Richmond homicide victim from June 6, 1995, were entered into the NamUs Web site.

Michele Money-Carson, a NamUs spokeswoman, said a volunteer searcher spotted the close dates between Gumbs' disappearance and the unidentified, 1995 Richmond homicide victim -- as well as the similar description of the two young men, including the scar on the thigh.

Allen said that in 2008, the missing children's center arranged through the University of North Texas's Center for Human Identification to have Jennings' DNA typed and entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, CODIS.

He said that when the missing children's center learned of the possible match in Richmond identified by the volunteer searching NamUs, they contacted Virginia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and learned that there was blood from the 1995 victim that could be used for DNA typing.

The University of North Texas also developed a profile for the unidentified body's blood and ran it through the CODIS database. On March 18, Allen's office was notified by the university that there was a "hit," or match, between Gumbs and his mother.

Gumbs' father was told an identification was made, but Jennings was not.

Now, 14 years later, Jennings said she believes it will be difficult to find out who killed her son. "In my heart, I just want to know why, why did he have to die? What was so great that you had to take his life?"

She was told her son's body was kept in cold storage by authorities and then cremated in 1999, his ashes spread on private property in West Virginia, as was the state practice at the time.

Ending the uncertainty has not been a relief for Jennings.

"Now that I know, it's like I'm grieving all over again. It's like added to the grief I've had for the last 14 years. I'm working through it as days go by and I know I want to do a memorial service for him," she said.

She said Toussaint Gumbs' story needs to be told -- maybe somebody will remember something and come forward with information to solve the crime.

In the meantime, she has some advice for parents: "Keep your children close. Know who their friends are and don't be afraid to be in their face and question them about what's going on in their lives, because it might save their lives."

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .