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Monday, October 17, 2022

What Happened To Teleka Patrick?

     Raised in New York City, Teleka Patrick graduated from the Bronx High School of Science before earning her Bachelor of Science Degree at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. Three months after graduating from medical school at Loma Linda University in southern California, Teleka, in June 2013, began her four-year residency at Western Michigan University. She moved into the Gull Run apartment complex in Kalamazoo.

     At seven o'clock in the evening of December 5, 2013, Teleka Patrick was caught on a parking lot surveillance camera at the Borgess Medical Center where she worked. She had just finished her shift. From the hospital, a male co-worker gave her a lift to the Radisson Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo. A hotel surveillance camera recorded Patrick entering the lobby dressed in a black hoodie and dark slacks.

     According to a Radisson employee, the woman in the hoodie tried to rent a room using cash. Because she did not show any identification, the person on the front desk refused to register her.

     At eight o'clock, Teleka Patrick got a ride back to her car at the Borgess Medical Center in a hotel shuttle van. The shuttle driver later described her behavior as nervous. He said she ducked between cars to avoid being spotted. From the medical center parking lot that night, Taleka Patrick went missing.

     Two hours after Patrick returned to the medical center, an Indiana State Trooper 100 miles from Kalamazoo came across, off Interstate 94 in Portage, an abandoned light-gold 1997 Lexus ES 300. The vehicle, registered to the missing woman, had a flat tire.

     Inside the Lexus, officers found a wallet containing Teleka Patrick's driver's license and credit cards. The car also contained pieces of the missing woman's clothing and a small amount of cash. The car keys were gone along with Teleka's cellphone.

     A bloodhound later traced Patrick's steps from the abandoned vehicle to the freeway where her trail went cold. A search of the area surrounding the car failed to produce any clues to her whereabouts.

     According to Carl Clatterbuck, a Kalamazoo private investigator hired to find Patrick, the missing woman's ex-husband and a former on-again off-again boyfriend, were not suspects in her disappearance.

     In late December 2013, several YouTube videos made by Patrick surfaced. Unfortunately, they raised more questions than answers. One of the videos, produced in early November 2013, featured a table in her apartment containing an elaborate breakfast spread. The narrator, identified as Patrick, says, "I just wanted to show you what I made. If you were here this would be on your plate." In another video, she addressed an unknown person as "baby," and "love."

     On January 1, 2014, Ismael Calderon, married to the missing woman from 2000 to 2011, told a Grand Rapids, Michigan television reporter that his ex-wife suffered from a serious mental problem. The illness led her to believe she was being followed. "This is a tragedy," he said. "I don't think she's hiding somewhere. I think she's being held against her will or the worst. I think that Teleka had this fear of first, being branded with a mental illness. Second, the practical fear of losing her career."

     The next day, a 46-year-old Grammy-nominated gospel singer and Grand Rapids, Michigan pastor named Marvin Sapp said he had filed a protection order against Teleka Patrick three months before she disappeared. According to Reverend Sapp, she had sent him 400 love letters, joined his congregation and contacted his children.

     On April 6, 2014, a man fishing on Lake Charles in the northern part of Indiana saw something floating in the water. It turned out to be a body, and the corpse was Teleka Patrick. The lake had been frozen over during the winter. According to a family member, Patrick had been on her way to Chicago to visit a relative.

     Three days after the discovery of Patrick's body, the Porter County, Indiana Coroner's Office announced that Teleka Patrick had died from asphyxiation from drowning. In Michigan, according to Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller, Patrick's drowning had been accidental. As a result, the criminal investigation of this unexplained death was closed.

9 comments:

  1. Was it snowing that night? Were semi trucks allowed to park at the Shelton fireworks store overnight and did it have surveillance cameras? Did Teleka Patrick know how to swim?

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    1. She is black does that mean she cannot swim ?

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    2. Is that a serious question? There are several bodies of water where her car broke down. Perhaps she walked for help at night in the dark and fell in. Or maybe she caught a ride with a trucker who parked at the firework store feet from where her car broke down. Their website invites truckers to park in their lot.

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  2. Weird how Marvin saap's wife had a masters in psychology from western university where teleka was doing residency for psychology

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    1. Now, that's suspicious, they both went to the same college, wow her and his wife!

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  3. " the criminal investigation of this unexplained death was closed."

    it was explained she drowned and was mentally ill.

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  4. marvin sapp will answer to this because God is watching us

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  5. This case has fascinated me since she was first reported missing. Did she have a psychotic break and wander off into the snow? Or is there more to this Marvin Sapp story?

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  6. It's obvious she had Paranoid Schizophrenia. The hearing voices, the delusions, the pretending she was Sapp's lover, the stalking of him, the fear that she was being followed by ducking around cars- they all point in that direction. Her ex was right- she was severely mentally ill. It's too bad one can only forced to get help if one is being dangerous to self or others! One should be forced on the first sign of illness!

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