Alexandria Lowitzer was riding the school bus home from school on the afternoon of April 26, 2010 when she called her mother to tell her that she had forgotten her house key. The 16-year-old, who preferred to be called Ali, also asked if it was okay for her to walk to the Burger Barn where she worked to pick up her paycheck. Her mother, JoAnn, told her not to worry about not having her house key, as her older brother was still at the house so the door was unlocked. She did not, however, think it was a good idea for Ali to walk to get her paycheck. Although the Burger Barn was less than a half mile from their home in Spring, Texas, Ali had never walked there before; she only recently started working there and her grandmother had always driven her. It was a short walk, but there were no sidewalks along the main road Ali would have to take to get there.
Like most teenagers, Ali could be very persistent. She pleaded with her mother, assuring her that she would be careful. She also wanted to see if there was a possibility of her picking up a shift at the Burger Barn that night so she could make some extra money. Ali had only been working at the Burger Barn for 5 weeks, and it was her first job. She liked the idea of being able to make her own spending money. JoAnn finally relented, telling Ali to text her if she ended up staying at work so JoAnn would know what time Ali needed a ride home that evening. Ali promised her mother that she would check in with her later.
Ali got off the school bus at her normal stop on Low Ridge Road around 3:00 pm. The surveillance camera on the bus showed her and two male classmates exiting the bus there, then heading off in different directions. The boys went directly to their homes, while Ali turned off Low Ridge Road and headed in the direction of the Burger Barn, located near the corner of Cypresswood Drive and Treaschwhig Road. Her classmates would be the last people to report seeing Ali that day, as she never made it to work and she never returned home.
JoAnn got home from work around 5:30 pm that evening and was surprised to find the house empty. Since she hadn’t heard anything from Ali, she had assumed the teenager had simply picked up her paycheck and returned home. She sent her a text message asking if she had been able to pick up a shift at work, but got no response. Assuming that Ali was busy at work and didn’t have immediate access to her phone, JoAnn wasn’t too worried. When she didn’t hear back from Ali, she decided to drive to the Burger Barn at 9:00 pm. That was the time that Ali was normally finished working in the evening, but when JoAnn went to the restaurant that night, it was already dark and empty. There was no sign of Ali or any other employees; it was apparent that they had already closed up and gone home.
Starting to panic, JoAnn continued to call Ali’s cell phone while driving around the neighborhood trying to think of places where she might be. Ali, though she had a large circle of friends, rarely went to their homes. She preferred to invite friends to her own home, and it was unusual for her to be away from home this late at night. JoAnn continued driving around for about an hour then returned home to look for Ali there.
The house was dark and quiet, and JoAnn was certain something was wrong. She and Ali’s father, John Lowitzer, had recently divorced, but he lived nearby. JoAnn called him to see if perhaps he had heard from Ali, but he was as mystified as JoAnn. The two of them decided that it was time to get the police involved.
John joined JoAnn at the house and was there with her when a patrol deputy from the Harris County Constable’s Office responded to JoAnn’s 911 call. It was close to midnight when the deputy arrived, and she didn’t appear too concerned. She asked a few basic questions about Ali and took a quick look around the teenager’s bedroom. She asked John and JoAnn if there had been any kind of argument with Ali earlier that day, but JoAnn was adamant that everything had been normal. Ali had initially been annoyed that JoAnn wouldn’t allow her to walk to the Burger Barn, but JoAnn had relented and Ali had been fine when they ended their conversation that afternoon. The deputy tried to assure the worried parents that Ali was probably just acting like a typical teenager and would likely return shortly. She told them to call the police back in the morning if they still hadn’t heard from her.
John and JoAnn weren’t pleased with the flippant attitude of the deputy, but there was little they could do. Ali’s brother, Mason, called some of his friends and they spent the night driving around the area looking for the teenager. JoAnn continued calling around to Ali’s friends, but no one had seen her since school had ended earlier that day.
By 5:00 am, there was still no sign of Ali. JoAnn knew that something had to be desperately wrong, and John agreed with her. At 9:00 am, they called the police once again, trying to convince them that the situation was serious. They did not believe that Ali was a runaway, as all of her things were still in her room. They only things she had with her when she got off the school bus had been her cell phone and her backpack. Her purse, money, and all of her clothing and makeup remained in her room at home.
John and JoAnn were obviously in distress, but police were still not convinced. They believed that Ali was a runaway and would return home when she was ready, and they refused to open a missing person case. Realizing they were wasting their time, Ali’s frustrated parents decided to start investigating on their own.
After speaking with the school bus company, JoAnn learned that each bus was equipped with a video surveillance system. She and John were able to view the footage, which showed that Ali had been on the bus when she had last spoken to her mother, and she had gotten off at her normal bus stop. They noticed that two of her classmates got off at the same bus stop, and spoke with them to see if they could recall anything that might have happened after the bus pulled away. The boys explained that they had each headed for home, but Ali had walked off, alone, in the opposite direction.
Now that he was certain that Ali had at least started walking in the direction of the Burger Barn, John drove there and spoke to the manager who had been working the previous afternoon. He told John that he had not seen Ali at all during his shift, and she had not come in to pick up her paycheck, which was still sitting in the office. It appeared that Ali had never made it to the Burger Barn.
Noticing that there was a gas station across the street from the restaurant with a surveillance camera, John went there next and asked to view the footage recorded the previous day. Ali would have had to walk right past the gas station’s camera in order to get to the Burger Barn, but there was no sign of her on the film. This backed up the manager’s statement that he hadn’t seen Ali the previous day; it was clear that she had never made it to the shopping center where the Burger Barn was located. Somewhere between the bus stop and the restaurant, Ali had disappeared.
JoAnn was able to get Ali’s phone records, and she learned that she had not been the last person to hear from Ali on the day she went missing. After speaking with her mother at 2:45 pm, Ali had sent a text to a male friend. She asked him if he wanted to come over later that day if she didn’t have to work, but he told her he was busy. John followed up with this friend, but it was clear that he had not had any further contact with Ali after their text message exchange, and he had nothing to do with her disappearance. Ali’s phone showed her last location as being right on the outskirts of her own neighborhood, near where she got off the bus. It was as if she had vanished as soon as she turned the corner to start her walk to the Burger Barn.
Unsure what else they could do, and aware that the police were still convinced Ali had run away from home, the family reached out to the Laura Recovery Center, a non-profit group that worked to prevent kidnappings and help recover lost and abducted children. The group made official missing person flyers and helped the family distribute them around the area. The family also offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the location of Ali.
The Laura Recovery Center also helped the family organize large-scale ground searches in the area where Ali was last seen, and worked to get the case publicized by the local news media. By the end of May, the case had attracted enough attention that the police were forced to take notice. Harris County Constable deputies had taken the initial report, but the case was now handed over to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Within hours, there were homicide detectives knocking on JoAnn’s front door.
The family was pleased that the case was finally going to be taken seriously, but it also meant that they themselves would be under a lot of scrutiny. Homicide detectives always start their investigation closest to home; as Ali’s father, John was initially looked at with some suspicion and was interrogated for hours. They also took a hard look at Ali’s older brother, Mason, who had been home alone when Ali got off the school bus on the day she disappeared. He was also subject to hours of interrogation; he told police that he had heard the school bus dropping students off, but was adamant that Ali had never come to the house that day. He left to go to work shortly after that, and never saw his younger sister.
Joann, John and Mason were all given polygraph examinations, and detectives determined that each of them were being truthful. Joann and John, were cleared of any involvement in Ali’s disappearance. Although Mason passed a polygraph, detectives did not officially clear him as they still couldn’t completely account for his whereabouts at the time his sister went missing. Mason has always maintained he had nothing to do with the disappearance, and he was never named a suspect.
There was nothing about Ali that indicated she would have run away from home. She had been doing well during her sophomore year at Spring High School, and she was well-behaved and never got into any kind of trouble. She played on a softball team, was a Girl Scout, and had been excited about finally being old enough to have a job. She was very artistic, and although she liked to dress in dark clothing with a lot of dark eyeliner, there was nothing dark about her personality. She enjoyed making people laugh and loved to sing in her high school choir.
Ali was a very social girl who liked to stay in touch with her friends, but she preferred to do so from the comfort of her own room. Before she went missing, she had used her cell phone frequently, usually sending thousands of text messages a month back and forth with her friends. None of them could imagine Ali simply deciding to run away, and none of her friends have heard from her since she disappeared. Her phone went silent that day, never being used after 2:50 pm.
JoAnn and John have been relentless in their quest to find their daughter. Although they had been grateful that police had finally launched a serious investigation to find out what had happened to Ali, they were not going to stop their own investigation. Instead, they hired a private investigator and have continued their search for Ali. The private investigator theorized that Ali had been a victim of human trafficking, and police have considered this as well.
Detectives have never found any evidence to indicate that Ali is no longer living. Although her case has been assigned to the homicide department, this was done as a matter of policy as she has been missing with few leads coming in about her location. They continue to search for Ali, and believe that there are people who know what happened to her and have the information police need to solve this case.
Alexandria Lowitzer was 16 years old when she went missing in 2010. She has blue eyes and brown hair, and at the time of her disappearance she was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, black & white checkered skinny jeans, a gray hooded sweatshirt that zipped up the front, and black sneakers. She was carrying a multi-colored checkered backpack and a blue LG cell phone. She had pink braces on her top and bottom teeth, and her nose and ears were pierced. If you have any information about Ali, please call the Harris County Sheriff’s Office at 713–221–6000 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1–800–843–5678.