Tiffany Whitton ran from a Georgia Walmart and disappeared

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(NewsNation) — The family of a missing Georgia woman is hoping that they will get answers as one person who may hold the key to finding out what happened is due out of prison this fall.

What happened to Tiffany Whitton?

Tiffany Whitton disappeared in 2013 from Marietta, Georgia. Nearly eleven years later, she still has not been found.

The last known sighting of Whitton is from Walmart security footage, where she was caught high on drugs, shoplifting around $20 worth of items with her boyfriend, Ashley Caudle, at 2 a.m. on Sep. 13, 2013.

Her mother, Lisa Daniels, found the footage odd.

“I know that she had put a couple of inexpensive items I think in her purse, which was weird because they had money with them,” Daniels said. “They actually paid for some items. They waited for them to go through the checkout before they actually grabbed her.”

Former Cobb County, Georgia, Prosecutor Jesse Evans said the pair evaded loss prevention.

“She passed the point of sale and got close to the door and the loss prevention people stepped out,” he said. “They grabbed her purse and she ran out of her flip-flops and takes off into the night.”

Searching for Tiffany Whitton

Caudle said after Whitton ran off, he tried to look for her.

“According to some people Caudle called some people to come to the Walmart and they said he asked them to do some sort of cursory look for her,” Evans said.

Caudle also went to a nearby IHOP, where Whitton had worked, to ask people if they’d seen her.

Daniels said the family also turned to Whitton’s social media to see what might have happened although Whitton had no phone with her.

“Somebody said why don’t you just call her and he said I can’t because I have her phone. I know at one point, I was told by Marietta Police she had accepted a couple of friend requests after that date and again how could she have done that?” Daniels said. ” She had no phone and no computer and no place to live so I don’t know how she would have responded to friend requests after that day.  So I feel like whoever had her phone did that.” 

Was Tiffany Whitton’s boyfriend Ashley Caudle involved?

Those accepted friend requests are one part of a story investigators have learned about the night Whitton disappeared. It’s left them with many questions still unanswered.

That includes questions about Whitton’s boyfriend.

“No doubt, Ashley Caudle is the primary person of interest. He was agitated and angry about this whole situation at the Walmart. That was clearly evident from the Walmart video,” Evans said. “The working theory is that whatever answers are out there, Ashley Caudle holds them and he has not been forthcoming with us about things.”

Daniels said Caudle didn’t always cooperate with investigators.

“He had said over and over that he would take a lie detector test but when he was given the opportunity to do that, he refused,” she said. “The communication that I’ve had with him is saying look, I just want to know where she is. I just want that peace, to know that she’s at peace and you can give me that. But so far he has not.”

Caudle has been in prison for the last decade for selling meth. He’s due to be released in September.

Pushing for answers in Tiffany Whitton’s disappearance

Meanwhile, Whitton’s family said the past eleven years have been a daily fight for answers. In the beginning, they said it felt difficult to get attention from investigators because Whitton was an adult with an addiction to heroin and meth.

Whitton’s sister, Summer Strain, said they struggled to get people to see past Whitton’s struggles with addiction.

“Everybody kind of like wrote her off because she was an addict. Addiction is a disease that you fight every day.  And she had the biggest heart. She would give you the shirt off your back,” Strain said. “She was a great person and people tend to not see that. And so that was the hard part for me. I feel like she wasn’t taken that seriously.” 

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The family said some of the hardest parts of her being gone are the milestones she’s missed, like her daughter Addie’s high school graduation this year.

“It’s just hard to know that she wasn’t there. To think about she wasn’t there to see it,” Addie said. “She would have been proud and it sucks that she couldn’t have been there.”

Because Addie was just six when her mother vanished, she’s lost the memories of our loved ones we treasure in our minds.

“I wish I had memories. Because I don’t have any memories really,” she said.

Investigators have suggested Whitton is likely dead, something that Daniels struggles with.

“My intelligent mind tells me she’s not still alive. My heart wants to believe that she still is. It’s a huge conflict. It’s a huge conflict for me and I just need to know because I feel I’ve lived the last eleven years in limbo,” Daniels said. “In the long run, all that matters to me is knowing that either she’s here on earth and she’s happy and healthy or she’s in Heaven. I just need to know one of those two things.” 

Whitton is 5’3″ and blond and weighed about 105 pounds when she disappeared. She has multiple tattoos, including Chinese symbols on the inside of her left wrist and a butterfly on her hip. Anyone with information on her disappearance should contact the Marietta Police Department at 770-794-2366.