$110,000 reward offered after 16-year-old girl killed and left on Los Angeles freeway

Three weeks after a 16-year-old girl was fatally shot and her body dumped on a freeway in Los Angeles, authorities are offering a $110,000 reward for information about her killer.

Tioni Theus was found dead Jan. 8 on the side of Interstate 110 in south Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police said she’d been shot in the neck.

“She was thrown on the side of the freeway like trash, and she’s a child!” Tioni’s cousin Lakesia Barrett told KABC.

No arrests have been made, and police have not released any suspect descriptions.

Theus was last seen leaving her dad’s house in Compton after telling him she was meeting a friend for a party, the L.A. Times reported.

“Whoever knows what happened needs to say something,” Theus’ cousin Nafeesah Kincy told KABC. “It’s just as simple as that. She was a human being. She didn’t deserve this.”

At a vigil for Theus last Saturday, her family and activists pointed out that in a different Los Angeles murder case, that of 24-year-old Brianna Kupfer, a $250,000 reward was quickly offered. At the time of last Saturday’s rally, no reward had been offered in Theus’ case.

With new attention on the investigation, California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered $50,000 and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell put up $10,000, the L.A. Times reported. Los Angeles City Council is considering a motion to add its own $50,000 reward.

“Cases involving Black victims are four times more likely to go unsolved,” Mitchell said in a statement. “It is imperative that we do not allow implicit bias or adultification influence the media’s coverage and public outrage over the murders of Black girls.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said Theus may have been the victim of human trafficking, according to the L.A. Times. Kincy told the paper that a “man in his 20s” had manipulated and coerced her into sex trafficking.

“Children cannot consent to sex work,” Tiffany Blacknell of the DA’s office told KNBC. “(Tioni) was a child. Her life mattered.”