Missing Teen Who Texted She Was Meeting A Man She Met At A Store Found Dead
Police have identified a body found outside Phoenix as missing 19-year-old Kiera Bergman, according to a press release from the Phoenix Police Department.
Kiera’s body was found on Monday, September 3 in a remote area. While details surrounding the case remain scarce, police have said Kiera’s case is now considered an active homicide investigation, reported NBC News.
No arrests have been made in connection to Kiera’s death.
Kiera was last seen on August 4 at her Phoenix apartment building about 45 minutes from where her body was found. The day she disappeared, Kiera sent a text message to her roommate and best friend, Destiny Hall-Chand. The text said she was meeting up with “some guy she met at a store,” KPHO reported.
Hall-Chand said this text was extremely out of character for Kiera.
According to police, Kiera’s ex-boyfriend Jon-Christopher Clark was the last person known to see Kiera. The two had recently split up.
Clark posted to Instagram five days after Kiera was reported missing and said she left the house on August 4 “because she was mad that [he] was contemplating going to live with [his] aunt in Texas.”
After Kiera vanished, the Phoenix Police Department spoke with Jon-Christopher Clark.
“When we spoke to him, investigators were able to identify places she had likely been before she disappeared, and one of those places was his car,” Sgt. Vince Lewis told Dateline in August.
After obtaining a search warrant for his car, police searched Clark’s vehicle and found numerous items that contained personal identification information for people other than Clark.
On Friday August 17, “Jon-Christopher was arrested and booked on 22 counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of forgery.” Police say the charges are not related to Kiera’s disappearance.
Clark, 23, is currently being held in the Maricopa County Jail for the unrelated charges.