Missing Lakewood Girl With Father, Officials Say

A 7-year-old Lakewood girl who disappeared after school is with her father, officials say.

Pierce County investigators said they were told by a relative that Toni Banks and her father, Hashim Banks, 25, arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday but that the family was trying to contact a lawyer before disclosing a specific location, sheriff’s spokesman Curt Benson said.

Investigators still had not heard from Banks by Friday morning, Benson said.

“We’ve told them to take her to the Las Vegas police,” he said.

The girl disappeared Tuesday afternoon after apparently getting on the wrong bus while leaving Southgate Elementary School in Lakewood. She was dropped off seven blocks from her home, and witnesses saw her walking toward her home, but she never arrived there.

The girl’s father had talked of retrieving his daughter, who had lived with him in Las Vegas until November, Benson said. Since then, she has been living in Lakewood with her grandmother, Emma Duvall, who was awarded custody last month and also got a restraining order against the father.

The girl’s mother is dead.

Hashim Banks, who is to go on trial in March on drug trafficking charges, faces possible kidnapping or custodial interference charges if it turns out he is responsible for the disappearance of his daughter, Benson said.