The Second Walk: The Disappearance of Tyler Blake Weathersby

He had already been out once that morning.

By the time MonaLisa Perez got up on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, her husband had gone for a walk and come back. The family said goodbye in the garage as she left to take the kids to school, she told Dateline. “We give him a kiss,” she said. The words were the everyday kind: love you, bye.

Then she pulled out of the driveway, and Tyler Weathersby started walking again. He didn’t take his phone. He didn’t take his wallet or his keys.

More than two years later, no one has been able to say where the second walk went. Police said in 2024 that they had no reason to believe a crime had happened. No one has been named a suspect.

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 7

Two peas in a pod

Janine Weathersby Harris raised four children. Tyler was shy as a boy, she said, “but he was inquisitive.” He never stopped telling her he loved her. “Mama, I love you,” he’d write in his texts.

He was closest to his brother, Gregory. Their mother called them “two peas in a pod.”

As teenagers the brothers got into dance and started a performance group. Gregory says a talent agency in Los Angeles signed them. Later they made music and toured two or three times.

Tyler shot all of Gregory’s music videos and his photos, and helped market the work. Together they started a clothing brand called Millions United.

Sources for this section: 1

Wake

Eventually Tyler wanted a path of his own, and Gregory respected that. In the mid-2010s Tyler moved to South Dakota and started a business built around “self-love and community.”

He called it Wake. It began as streetwear. MonaLisa became his business partner. Together they ran pop-up shops, fashion shows and mental health events. Over time Wake grew into a creative agency doing marketing and public relations for other brands.

They married in 2021. Tyler became a stepfather to MonaLisa’s two children, and in March 2024 the couple had a daughter.

“He loves to create and build and just really influence the people around him in such a positive way,” MonaLisa said.

Sources for this section: 1

The walks

Tyler sometimes struggled with depression, his wife said. Walking was how he meditated and reset, how he would “revamp and rejuvenate.”

His mother described a disciplined life: daily exercise, clean eating, intermittent fasting.

A walk could last an hour and a half. Sometimes two.

Sources for this section: 1

September 3

Janine’s visit to Sioux Falls was planned for August 26 through September 4, so she could spend time with her new granddaughter. By her account, everything was good.

On September 3, she and Tyler argued. For her, it had no precedent. “We’ve never had an argument,” she told Dateline. What the argument was about has never been made public.

That evening Tyler drove his mother to the airport. Her flight wasn’t until the next day. Gregory arranged a hotel room for her.

Sources for this section: 1

Speaking in circles

That night, Gregory got his brother on the phone. Tyler didn’t sound like himself, he said, and never clearly explained what had happened.

“It was like he was speaking in circles,” Gregory said.

At home, MonaLisa noticed it too. The things Tyler said that night were “really, really odd,” she said later. He was still upset when he got back. Neither of them slept much.

Sources for this section: 1

The garage

The first walk came and went before MonaLisa was up. Tyler was home again as she got the kids ready to go.

As MonaLisa tells it, the family was in the garage. A kiss. Love you, bye.

She pulled away. He set out on foot. Police put the time at about 7:45 a.m. The Charley Project lists it as 7:15.

He was last seen in a white T-shirt, black shorts and a tan stocking cap. His head was shaved, and his hair and beard may have grown back since. He is 6 feet tall, about 155 pounds, with brown eyes. He has a scar on one leg from ankle to knee and a tattoo on his right wrist of a crown with a halo above it.

Behind him, at home, were his phone, his wallet and his keys.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 5, 6

10:30

For the first couple of hours, MonaLisa wasn’t worried. That was a normal walk for Tyler.

By about 10:30, it wasn’t. She called her family. She searched the neighborhood. She checked the place where he went to meditate. He wasn’t there.

“We were called in the afternoon, maybe around 4:30 p.m.,” Sam Clemens, the police spokesperson, told Dateline of the missing person report.

The next day, MonaLisa reached Gregory, and he called their mother right away. At first Gregory thought his brother might have needed to blow off some steam.

Sources for this section: 1

Toward the interstate

Police found footage from the neighborhood and a nearby business. It showed Tyler walking on his own.

Clemens told Dateline it did not show anyone forcing him to go anywhere. He seemed to be heading toward an interstate. Whether he reached it, or turned off somewhere, investigators said they didn’t know.

The Charley Project places Tyler on a surveillance camera near West Madison Street and North Marion Road at 7:50 a.m., walking east toward Interstate 29.

Dateline described his neighborhood as northeast Sioux Falls. Dakota News Now says northwest. KELOLAND says western.

Within two weeks, police had received well over 100 tips. “We believe that somebody out there has some piece of information,” Clemens said.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6

The first weeks

In the first weeks, investigators reviewed video, talked at length with the people closest to Tyler, and flew a drone over different areas. Tips came in. None led to him.

“We don’t have any reason at this point to believe there was anything criminal that happened,” Clemens told Dateline in October 2024.

Sources for this section: 1

Legal Eye

The family organized searches, some with dog teams. Legal Eye Investigations, the private firm the family hired, hung posters, searched, reviewed neighbors’ video and interviewed people connected to the case.

Gregory started a GoFundMe to help pay for it. He said online questions about the money hurt. “I’m past being hurt. I’m angry,” he said. Nothing in the reporting supports any claim of wrongdoing.

His mother and his wife have both said they don’t believe Tyler would hurt himself. MonaLisa thinks he’s alive somewhere, just not thinking clearly.

Sources for this section: 1

The silver Hyundai

In February 2025, Legal Eye released a dashcam video from the intersection of Marion Road and West Madison Street.

According to KXRB’s description of it, Tyler is waiting to cross the street. He talks with a young boy on a bicycle. Then he approaches the driver of a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.

MonaLisa said police had given her the same outline. He was talking to a car, and to someone on a bike.

What was said has never been made public. Neither has whether police identified the boy or the driver. Nothing in the public record suggests either one did anything wrong.

It’s the last glimpse of Tyler the public has been given.

Sources for this section: 1, 4, 7, 8

The police report

Police said they’d had the dashcam video “for quite some time.” It’s part of the police report, Clemens said, and the department doesn’t release police reports or their details.

MonaLisa called the video “very helpful and eye-opening.” She said she believes police have more footage of Tyler walking toward the interstate. That hasn’t been confirmed.

In February 2025, Police Chief Jon Thum said the file had been reviewed by other agencies, federal and local, though he didn’t name them. “This is still an open and active investigation,” he said.

KELOLAND reported there were no suspects and no foul play suspected.

Sources for this section: 3, 4

Two years

In August 2025, a police spokesperson said there was no new information. “The department is still actively investigating this case.”

In October 2026, a community group called the Lone Wolves Initiative announced a demonstration outside the Sioux Falls Police Department for Wednesday, October 21, at 11 a.m. It called for transparency, independent reviews and digital evidence work, among other things. Those are the group’s demands. They aren’t findings.

Tyler Blake Weathersby is still missing. He was 31 when he walked out of his garage.

Sources for this section: 1, 5, 6, 7, 8

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