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De Soto Woman Takes to TikTok to Find Her Missing Dad | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

February 9, 2023

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click to enlarge Courtesy Cameron Punjani Cameron Punjani and her dad Naushad, who has been missing for over a year.
Cameron Punjani never had any particular interest in listening to true crime podcasts or watching true crime documentaries, much less scrolling through #truecrime social media posts. But a little over a year ago her own father disappeared and, disappointed with what she saw as police’s lax attitude toward the case, she took to TikTok to try to stop her dad’s story from being forgotten. “I’m just not OK with not having the answers,” Cameron says. “I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, my dad went missing, I guess there’s just nothing I can do about it.'” By day Cameron, 22, works at a dispensary in Festus. But her videos are increasingly finding a big audience, with the more recent ones regularly garnering views in the tens of thousands. They’re also leading to tips that she hopes could provide a big break in the ongoing missing-person case — and stirring up a host of amateur sleuths eager to help in her quest. January 14, 2022, started out as usual for Cameron’s dad, 50-year-old Naushad Punjani. He left his home in De Soto and drove to St. Louis, where he clocked in at his job at a plastics manufacturer in north city. But he never came home. His family reported him missing soon thereafter. Cameron says her frustrations with law enforcement began almost right away. A Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy came to her house to interview her, but she says she later found out that the report was never taken to a detective. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department disputes that. Grant Bissel with the sheriff’s department says that the case was assigned to a detective on January 20, six days after Naushad’s disappearance. “We’ve had someone on it since days after his disappearance was reported,” Bissel says. On the night of January 15, Cameron says that someone crashed her dad’s car in the Mark Twain neighborhood of St. Louis. The car crash occurred less than two miles from Serioplast, the plastics manufacturer where Naushad worked. Months later, Cameron says, police interviewed the woman who had been behind the wheel of Naushad’s car, who said that she’d gotten the car from her cousin. But the police couldn’t talk to her cousin because he had been killed in March. That story sounded a little too convenient to Cameron. Another potential lead that Cameron feels wasn’t followed up on quickly enough was that not long after her dad disappeared, she started getting requests for money via Venmo from someone who had Naushad’s phone. Bissel says that “pages and pages and pages of reports” have been compiled by a detective, with additions to the case file as recently as last month. He adds that the detective has been doing investigative work in north county and north St. Louis city, areas outside of where Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office personnel would typically operate. Cameron made a TikTok about the case in January 2022 when her dad first went missing. But by October she’d grown frustrated with the lack of updates coming from police, so she started making more short videos. @cameron.punjani #greenscreen She also said my dad is skinnier now (which I expected). Its crazy how every time I called Illinois about my dads case they made it seem like I was wasting their time or made me feel stupid. I’m really hoping this is him and that we can bring him home. Please keep sharing! #fyp #fypシ #missingperson #stl #stlmo #missing #truecrimetiktok #truecrime #stlouis #crimetok #crimetiktok #stlouismo #fypage #FindNaushadPunjani #GraniteCity #Illinois #GraniteCityIL ♬ original sound – Cam Cameron says that she’s motivated by the fact that her dad was in a place where voluntarily ditching the life he’d built for himself just doesn’t make any sense. Naushad had previously been in debt but after a year of working at Serioplast he was back on firm financial footing. Cameron says her dad was also excited about becoming a grandfather and about Cameron’s younger brother starting college. “He had a lot that he was looking forward to,” Cameron says. She’s keeping an open mind about what happened to her dad and is trying not to jump to conclusions. “The possibilities are honestly endless,” she says. “He could very much be alive or he could have died a year ago and I have no idea where his body is.” As Cameron’s audience has grown, so have the tips that her videos generate. Last week, in a video that has almost 400,000 views, Cameron announced that she got a tip that her dad had been seen at a convenience store in Granite City. Cameron and a friend took it upon themselves to investigate. Employees at the convenience store didn’t recognize Naushad’s photo, but when Cameron stopped in a bar two doors down, a server there said she’d seen Naushad just a day prior in the bar drinking coffee. However, when Cameron managed to get a photo of the person who might be her dad, she said that the hair and jawline didn’t match. Undeterred, she updated her followers about the lead that didn’t pan out. In her most recent video, posted Sunday, Cameron reports that she got a tip from someone who saw one of her videos who thinks she might have seen Naushad in south St. Louis County, specifically on Butler Hill Road near the intersection of Lemay Ferry. That video has now been viewed more than 60,000 times. “Just an exit up from my house,” wrote one viewer in the comments. “I will keep an eye out!” This story has been updated with information from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at [email protected] or follow on Twitter at @RyanWKrull. Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

10 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

10 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

10 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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