Candlelight Vigil for Local Teen Missing Since 1999

Nov 24, 2015 at 06:12 pm by bryan


Friends of a Riverdale High School junior who disappeared 16 years ago will remember her Monday with a candlelight vigil on what would have been her 33rd birthday.

China Videon, 16, disappeared Oct. 19, 1999. Her mother, Suzanne, last saw her daughter that evening at a beauty salon at Jackson Heights Plaza. She planned to get gas for her black 1999 Mazda Protégé and go home. Her mother never saw her again.

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Grade school friends Angela Mathews and Dixie Smotherman Ashworth are sponsoring the vigil at 4 p.m. Monday at a Barfield Crescent Park pavilion off Veterans Parkway. They invite China's friends to attend.

Rutherford County Sheriff's Office detectives have investigated the case. Detective Steve Kohler said he's received leads and more cooperation recently.

"We are getting closer every day to making an arrest," Detective Kohler said. People who have information may call Detective Kohler at 615-904-3046.

Mathews said China was her best friend since second grade. They were supposed to spend time together the night she disappeared. A school resource officer told her the next morning China was missing.

"I knew something was seriously wrong," Mathews said. "I just cried. We knew she didn't run away." China had just ordered her class ring and received her car. She and Ashworth decided to remember China on her birthday Monday.

"All of us are finally coming together to celebrate her life and the times we had with her," Mathews said. "Anybody who wants to celebrate her life is more than welcome."

Suzanne Videon said she plans to attend the vigil. "I am appreciative that China's friends are remembering her on her birthday," Videon said.

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