Investigators said no charges had been announced Thursday after Ashanti Allen’s body was found in southwest Houston.
HOUSTON, Texas — A 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant and had been missing for days was found dead Thursday in southwest Houston, ending an urgent search that had drawn family members, volunteers and investigators to parks and wooded areas near where she was last seen.
Ashanti Allen’s death turned a widely watched missing-person search into a homicide investigation, though police had not announced an arrest or filed charges by Thursday afternoon. Her family had spent the week pleading for answers, saying Allen vanished under suspicious circumstances during a high-risk pregnancy. The case also drew help from Texas EquuSearch, whose crews used drones, ATVs and ground teams to comb areas near south Houston as the search expanded.
Family members and search volunteers had been looking for Allen for days before word spread Thursday morning that investigators had found her body at a park off Chimney Rock Road. Click2Houston reported Allen had been missing since April 8, while Texas EquuSearch listed April 10 as the date she was last seen leaving her residence near the 8700 block of Main Street. Her disappearance was officially reported April 10, according to local reporting. As crews worked the scene Thursday, police, crime scene investigators and search volunteers gathered nearby with Allen’s relatives. Her father, Edward Allen, spoke through grief as the search ended. “My body’s been numb ever since I received this phone call,” he said, adding that the family had held onto hope until the last hours of the search.
Allen’s mother, Trisa Gaines Colbert, had earlier said she became alarmed after receiving what she described as a strange message from her daughter’s phone saying, “I’m leaving and never coming back.” Colbert said she did not believe the message reflected her daughter’s state of mind. She went to Allen’s apartment and found that Allen was gone, along with her vehicle. Family members also said other belongings tied to the pregnancy had been left behind, deepening their concern. Allen’s condition made the case more urgent. Texas EquuSearch and other reports said she was in the eighth month of a high-risk pregnancy. Search teams set up a command post near Buffalo Speedway and Airport Boulevard and spent days moving through wooded tracts, brush and nearby open spaces while following tips that had not led to her.
By Thursday, investigators appeared to have developed a more specific trail. Edward Allen told reporters that investigators first located his daughter’s cellphone at Edgewood Park. Data from that phone, he said, showed it had earlier pinged near Chimney Rock Park, where her body was ultimately found. Authorities had not publicly explained when the phone was recovered, how long it had been there or whether the location data showed movement by Allen or someone else carrying the device. They also had not publicly released a cause of death, identified a suspect or said whether Allen’s vehicle had been recovered. Those unanswered questions left the case at an early and painful stage, with relatives waiting for information from police and the medical examiner.
The search had grown rapidly in the two days before Allen was found. Texas EquuSearch founder Tim Miller told Click2Houston on Wednesday that time was working against searchers as crews widened their efforts in the area near where Allen had last been seen. Volunteers used drones to scan from above and ATVs to reach rough ground that was harder to search on foot. Family members had made repeated public appeals while local news coverage spread Allen’s name and photo across the Houston area. Search notices described her as 23 and eight months pregnant, and Texas EquuSearch offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to her rescue or recovery. Those details underscored how serious the family and search groups believed the disappearance had become before her body was found.
Thursday’s developments shifted the focus from rescue to accountability. Houston police said no one had been charged in connection with Allen’s killing by the time the latest local reports were published. That means investigators still faced a series of key next steps: determining the cause and manner of death, tracing Allen’s final movements, processing evidence from the park and recovering any digital or vehicle records that might help explain what happened. Investigators also will likely lean on the medical examiner’s findings and cellphone evidence to narrow the timeline. For Allen’s family, the public search has ended, but the case itself has moved into a longer phase that may depend on forensic work and witness interviews before police decide whether to bring charges.
At the scene Thursday, grief stood beside the police tape. Search teams that had spent days pushing through brush and parkland were now standing with Allen’s relatives as the medical examiner left the area. Edward Allen spoke not only about losing his daughter, but also about losing the unborn grandson he said would have been his only grandchild. “She was my baby girl, and she had my only baby grandson,” he said. The words sharpened the scale of the loss in a case that had already shaken many people following the search. By late Thursday, the public facts remained limited, but the emotional toll was unmistakable for a family that had hoped the week would end differently.
As of Thursday afternoon, Ashanti Allen had been found dead, no charges had been announced, and investigators had not publicly explained how she died. The next major milestone is expected to come from Houston police or the medical examiner as authorities release more about the case.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.