Family Of Diamond And Tionda Bradley Search For Answers 19 Years Later

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A family is hoping for new information on two sisters who went missing 19 years ago.

The family of Tionda and Diamond Bradley held a gathering at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Taylor Park, at 48th and State streets.

Tionda and Diamond were 10 and 3 when they disappeared from their apartment near 35th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue on July 6, 2001, while their mother was at work.

Their mother found a note on their back porch, saying the girls were going to school and a nearby store.

Police launched one of the biggest manhunts in Chicago history after the girls disappeared, searching open fields, railroad cars, and 5,000 abandoned buildings. It mostly turned up nothing.

Today, Tionda would be 29, and Diamond would be 22. Over the years, the family has continued to release age-progressed pictures to show how the sisters would look now. There are newly produced images of what the sisters could look like today.

In 2008, a private detective concluded that a mysterious Internet picture that appeared on a MySpace profile was, in fact, Tionda Bradley; but that conclusion later proved incorrect.

Last year, a Texas woman claimed she was Tionda Bradley, but Bradley's heartbroken family quickly revealed that woman was lying.

Their mother has long since moved away from the Bronzeville neighborhood where the girls were last seen, and has changed her phone number.

The sisters' great aunt, Shelia Bradley-Smith, said several years ago that she got in touch with the family that now has that phone number to let them know about the girls, just in case Tionda ever dialed the number that used to be hers.

Anyone who was planning to attend the Monday gathering was asked to wear a face mask.