After daughter and babies disappeared 23 years ago, Vicki Lancaster still doesn't know what happened
For nearly 23 years, Topekan Vicki Lancaster has had no idea what happened to her daughter and two granddaughters.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jennifer Lancaster was 20 when she vanished in May 2000 with her daughters, 1-year-old Sidney Smith and 5-week-old Monique Smith. Their vehicle was found empty and abandoned in the parking lot of a small southeast Topeka apartment complex.
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It was as if the three had "dropped off the face of the Earth," Vicki Lancaster told The Capital-Journal in 2001.
Today, their whereabouts remain a mystery.
"I don't know any more now than I did then," Vicki Lancaster said.
'Everything seemed fine' before Jennifer Lancaster vanished
Vicki Lancaster talked with The Capital-Journal at her Topeka home on Thursday, the 23rd anniversary of Monique Smith's birth.
She said Jennifer Lancaster grew up living at their family's home in southeast Topeka's Highland Park area, where she "got in with the wrong crowd" and "got into trouble." The 5-foot-5, 100-pound Jennifer Lancaster transferred to Topeka West High School, and graduated from there.
Jennifer Lancaster then got pregnant twice.
She was 19 when she gave birth to Sidney Smith on March 22, 1999, and 20 when she gave birth to Monique Smith on April 5, 2000.
While pregnant with her second daughter, Jennifer Lancaster worked at Remington's, a bar along Topeka's Wanamaker corridor, her mother said.
She said Jennifer Lancaster then left Remington's and worked "a couple days" at Baby Doll's, an adult entertainment club just south of Topeka, before she disappeared.
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Vicki Lancaster didn't like that her daughter worked at Baby Doll's, but she said Jennifer Lancaster was an adult and there was not much she could do about it.
When they vanished, Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters lived with Vicki Lancaster and Jessica Lancaster, then 17, Vicki Lancaster's daughter and Jennifer Lancaster's sister.
The five moved in the spring of 2000 from Highland Park to Misty Glen Apartments & Townhomes, 3201 S.W. Randolph Ave., where Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters lived in their basement, Vicki Lancaster said.
Vicki Lancaster keenly remembers the last night she saw her daughter
Vicki Lancaster said she, her two daughters and her two granddaughters were all among those present for a family dinner held May 12, 2000, at the southeast Topeka home of her parents Merlin and Opal Otteson.
"Everything seemed fine," she said.
Vicki Lancaster then briefly saw her daughter and granddaughters about 8 p.m. that day when she arrived at Misty Glen Apartments just as the three were leaving.
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Jennifer Lancaster carried a see-through trash bag containing quilts and baby clothes, and said she was taking them to be washed.
"But we had a washer and dryer there," Vicki Lancaster recalled. "I thought 'This doesn't make any sense.' That was the last time I saw her."
Jennifer Lancaster's Jeep Cherokee was found abandoned
Jennifer Lancaster had a boyfriend, who was the father of at least one of her children, so Vicki Lancaster said she didn't become overly concerned when her daughter and grandchildren didn't come home that night.
But as time passed, Vicki Lancaster grew increasingly anxious.
When she still hadn't heard from Jennifer Lancaster by the next evening, which was Saturday, May 13, 2000, she called police to report the three missing.
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Police took a missing persons report but noted that Jennifer Lancaster was an adult and wasn't legally required to stay in touch with her mother.
The 1994 Jeep Cherokee Jennifer Lancaster was driving was then found abandoned May 14, 2000, in the parking lot of a small apartment complex at 3032 S.E. Swygart, just southeast of S.E. 29th and California Avenue, Topeka Capital-Journal archives show.
All personal property belonging to Jennifer Lancaster had been removed, including two infant car seats.
Jennifer Lancaster left her cell phone at her mother's
Vicki Lancaster thinks her daughter took special steps to keep people from knowing she was about to leave.
After her daughter vanished, she said, she noticed that the baby clothes and quilts she saw Jennifer Lancaster carrying weren't her only possessions that were gone from their apartment.
"It looked like she had been taking things out the whole week, which I didn't notice because we had boxes and everything everywhere," Vicki Lancaster said.
Jennifer Lancaster had a cell phone, which was on a plan her mother maintained, but made no calls on that phone in the week before she vanished, Vicki Lancaster said. She left the phone at her mother's apartment when she disappeared.
Jennifer Lancaster had no credit cards, her mother said.
"She had a checking account but it had very little money in it and she just left it," she said. "She didn't close it. She just left it."
Vicki Lancaster said she got a call after her daughter's disappearance from Remington's, which said it had a paycheck for Jennifer Lancaster.
"I told them, 'Hold onto it and let's see if she comes and gets it,' but she never did," Vicki Lancaster said. "So I went out and got it, and just kept it."
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A few weeks after her daughter disappeared, Vicki Lancaster said, a Steak and Shake in St. Louis, Missouri, sent a mailing to her daughter at their Misty Glen Apartments address thanking her for taking the time to comment on the food and service it provided.
Vicki Lancaster still has that mailing, which contained two coupons and a letter signed by a district manager for Steak and Shake. She said she contacted the company and asked to see the comment card filled out by the person who gave the name "Jennifer Lancaster" and shared the Misty Glen address.
"I know Jennifer's handwriting," she said. "I would have known if it was her."
But that comment card had been destroyed, Vicki Lancaster said she was told.
'She appears to be a conscientious mother'
The Topeka Police Department assigned Detective Terry Harris to investigate the disappearance of Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters.
Vicki Lancaster and Harris talked to The Capital-Journal for an article published several months later.
Harris said there was no evidence Jennifer Lancaster or her daughters became victims of foul play, adding that there had been no substantiated sightings of them since they were reported missing.
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"She appears to be a conscientious mother who wouldn't do anything to harm the children," he told The Capital-Journal.
"She's of legal age, and she's done nothing illegal," Vicki Lancaster said. "It's possible she just left to pursue a new life. Still, I find it very hard to believe that she hasn't gotten in touch with someone here."
Harris told The Capital-Journal he had spoken to Sidney Smith's father, who remained in Topeka, but that man hadn't heard from Jennifer Lancaster since her disappearance. The paternity of Monique Smith remained in question, the article said.
No one has seen Jennifer Lancaster since May 2000
Harris added that unconfirmed sightings of Jennifer Lancaster had been reported in Lawrence and in August 2000 by a truck driver in Iowa, who thought she was the lone female hitchhiker to whom he had given a ride.
That trucker came forward after seeing one of 500 flyers put up at sites that included restaurants, offices and truck stops in Kansas and other states asking the public for tips about the whereabouts of Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters, Vicki Lancaster said.
Harris interviewed all of Jennifer Lancaster's friends and looked closely at her boyfriend but found no connection between him and her disappearance, Vicki Lancaster said.
She said Harris even tracked down a young woman who looked a lot like Jennifer Lancaster and had been seen at Brookwood Shopping Center, not far from Misty Glen Apartments. That woman was not Jennifer Lancaster.
Harris is now retired, and Topeka police Detective Heather Stults-Lindsay is handling the missing persons case regarding Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters.
No DNA match has been made for Jennifer Lancaster
Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters all had Social Security numbers.
Vicki Lancaster said she thought the girls' Social Security numbers would "pop up" when the time came for them to start going to school, but that didn't happen.
In the years since the disappearance, Topeka police have contacted Vicki Lancaster intermittently.
She said she was once asked to provide her DNA to enable an organization called the Doe Project to compare it with that of a woman found deceased in another state. Vicki Lancaster responded by providing her DNA.
"They said they would contact the Topeka Police Department if there was ever a match, and I haven't heard anything," she said.
Jennifer Lancaster 'was a kind person'
Jennifer Lancaster had "some problems" but was "not a bad person," her mother said.
"She was young," she said.
"She was a kind person," Vicki Lancaster added. "She would help people in the grocery store if somebody needed help."
She said Jennifer Lancaster was particularly close to her maternal grandfather, Merlin Ottesen, whom she took to medical appointments as he fought bladder cancer.
Ottesen died at age 85 in 2009 while saying his only wish was that he could know what happened to Jennifer Lancaster, Vicki Lancaster said.
Topeka Police seek any new info on Lancasters disappearance
When people suddenly disappear today, social media quickly gets the word out to the public, making such situations rarer. But the founding of Facebook was still nearly four years away when Jennifer and her daughters vanished.
Authorities say extensive searches of nationwide databases have since turned up nothing about any of them.
Still, law enforcement keeps trying.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation in 2021 created and released images that show how Sidney and Monique Smith might look as young adults.
Vicki Lancaster and Topeka police are asking people to come forward if they have any information that might shed any light on what happened to Jennifer Lancaster and her daughters.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Topeka police criminal investigation bureau at 785-368-9400, the criminal intelligence unit at 785-368-9432 or Detective Heather Stults-Lindsay at 785-368-9415. Alternatively, anyone with information may email telltpd@topeka.org or hstults@topeka.org.
Anonymous tips may be made online at www.p3tips.com/128 or by calling Shawnee County Crime Stoppers at 785-234-0007.
Vicki Lancaster prays disappeared daughter, grandaughters found 'a wonderful life'
Jennifer Lancaster's disappearance came almost 23 years ago, but "it feels like yesterday," her mother said.
"I want people to know that I really do care," she said. "All of her family cares. We'd just like to know if they're OK."
Vicki Lancaster said that over the years, she's thought about every possible scenario regarding that may have happened.
She said she wonders whose vehicle her daughter and grandchildren entered after abandoning the Jeep Cherokee, for which Jennifer Lancaster kept the keys.
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She also kept her driver's license.
Vicki Lancaster wonders if her granddaughters — considering how young they were when they vanished — somehow ended up being raised by parents other than Jennifer Lancaster, and not knowing their birth mother.
"I could be a great-grandmother and not even know it," she said.
Vicki Lancaster hopes she'll eventually hear from Jennifer Lancaster.
"I'm praying that she met a nice guy, he adopted the kids and they have a wonderful life," she said.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Topeka police still seek tips in 2000 disappearance of Jennifer Lancaster
