A young woman who vanished after taking a mystery online job made a cryptic call pleading to be rescued, her mum says - amid fears she may have unwittingly joined a cult.
TiJae Baker, 23, went missing after she travelled from New York to Washington DC last month to create artwork for a woman she met online, according to her family.
The young woman, who was in her final semester of college, vanished after taking a bus to the US capital on May 1.
She previously lived at home with her mum, Toquanna Baker, and her family heard nothing from TiJae until she made a call from a Maryland salon on June 1.
In the call, she pleaded to come home in a whispered and scared tone, ABC 7 News reports.
Grandmother Roxanne Baker said: "She said just tell her mother to come get her - now."
However, by the time the family arrived in Maryland, they say TiJae wasn't there.
Surveillance footage from the salon has been shared by mum Toquanna that reportedly shows her daughter pacing around while on the phone.
The mum also claims that she's tracked down the person who asked her daughter to come to Washington - and now fears that her only child may have unwittingly joined a cult.
TiJae's desperate family reportedly filed numerous police reports but say that the first police flier put their missing person on a wanted poster.
Toquanna has now been making her own missing persons posters and has been putting them up around the city and the Washington area.
"My baby is out there, and traumatised and scared," she told CBS News.
Now, local councilmembers say they want to improve how missing persons cases are handled.
"On the missing person bill, they don't register Black people as quickly as they do white people, so when a white person's missing, the whole world stops," Councilmember Darlene Mealy told CBS News.
"When Black people are missing, 'Oh, she'll be calling back. Or she might be a partying.'"
TiJae has been described as a 5ft 7ins, 130 pounds, a Black woman, with black hair and brown eyes.
Her mother says TiJae, who has never disappeared before, was in good physical and mental state and usually calls and texts her every day, although her phone has now stopped ringing.
