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When young Kobe Jones discovered the festive decorations, two trash bags filled with water balloons and a water slide, hidden at his mother’s house, he knew she was planning exactly what he had hoped for – a splash birthday party.
But the water loving boy never got his celebration. On August 28, 2003, two weeks before Kobe turned six, his mother dropped him off at school and he never saw her again.
Dymashal Cullins, a 32-year-old real estate loan officer, spent that day working and running errands in the Atlanta area and then had dinner with a friend, according to phone calls she had with her mother and her estranged husband that day. But that night, she never returned home.
“I remember there was this energy she gave off that day,” Kobe told The Independent, recalling the last time he saw her. “She knew something was wrong. Told me and my brother to look out for each other. Everything about that day was weird.”
Two weeks later, Kobe’s birthday came and went, and there was still no sign of his mother.
“That’s when I knew something was wrong,” he said. “Because she would’ve been there.”
The 1994 red Jeep Grand Cherokee that Dymashal was driving was found three weeks after her disappearance, abandoned in an apartment complex parking lot, along with her purse.
That was 21 years ago. There have been few tips and leads in that time. This week, Kobe will celebrate his 27th birthday. His mother is still missing. But he has never given up hope that she will be found alive.
In 2010, Dymashal was declared dead and her case grew cold. But her family believes there was not enough done by law enforcement – and they have pushed for the police to keep investigating.
Earlier this month, their determination paid off.
The Atlanta Police Department announced they were reopening her case – giving the family a sense of hope.
“We got the case reopened so that’s something, that’s big,” Kobe told The Independent.
“Now it’s time to get answers. It’s time to find my mom.”
Dee Dee’s 2003 disappearance
It was the end of a hot, humid Georgia summer in 2003 when Dymashal, known as “Dee Dee” to her loved ones, seemingly vanished without a trace.
She was 32 years old at the time and a dedicated mother to five children, including twin girls.
Dymashal and the father of the twins were married but separated, although in early 2003, they considered reconciling. He moved back into her house in August – the same month she vanished – despite Dymashal telling her mother just a month prior that she wanted to file for divorce.
“She was dating a new guy,” Dymashal’s mother Viola Corbitt told Essence. “She was laughing and happy when she called me.”
Their conversation took place on August 28, 2003 around 7pm. It was the last time Viola spoke to her daughter.
While Dymashal was out running errands that day, she also allegedly called her estranged husband, who was home with the children, at 11.30pm, to tell him she had just dropped a friend off and would be home shortly.
But Dymashal never returned home that night or the next morning. Her concerned husband rang Viola, who, along with her family and friends, began trying to contact Dymashal but their calls went unanswered.
Viola had a gut feeling something was wrong and filed a missing persons report with Atlanta police.
The friend she was with that night later told police, according to the report, that he also tried to call her the next morning, but her phone was off.
The friend, whose name was not released, told police he last saw Dymashal at 11.50 pm on August 28, 2003. They’d spent several hours having dinner together, he said.
She then left in a 1994 red Jeep Grand Cherokee with Georgia Wildlife tag 11 HE9, and her last known location was near the 600 block of Mayland Avenue, in Atlanta.
Dymashal’s mother told police the Jeep belonged to her coworker, Allen Jameson, who confirmed at the time that he had let Dymashal borrow it.
“She needed a vehicle, and I had two,” Jameson told 11Alive last month. “These are things you do for friends where I come from.”
A clue in the mail
Three weeks after Dymashal was last seen, Viola received her daughter’s driver’s license in the mail and alerted the detective on the case.
This led to the discovery of the missing Jeep — which was found abandoned at an apartment complex in Decatur, just outside of Atlanta.
A man who said he noticed the Jeep at the complex found the ID on the ground next to it and mailed it to the address.
He was interviewed by police at the time, but was cleared of any involvement with her disappearance, according to Viola.
There was red dirt on the driver’s side of the car and police found Dymashal’s purse and a bloodstained blanket inside the vehicle, according to her mother.
She said the police never said anything else about the blood stain.
No leads, no answers
As the 21st anniversary of Dymashal’s disappearance approached this August her mother once again pleaded for answers.
“You could lay there and think that somebody has her, torturing her, or she could just be somewhere that they threw her away like she wasn’t anything,” Viola tearfully said in an interview with 11Alive.
“And you have those nights, you have those days, to where you say, ‘God, just please give me some peace. Let me have her one way or the other. I don’t care how you give her to me, just give her back.’”
Viola claimed there were many aspects of the case that police never investigated. Through the years, she alerted police to clues she thought to be suspicious. But they always brushed her off, she said.
“I told my detectives a lot of things,” Viola said. “He [one of the detectives] told me to stop watching 48 hours.”
“I wanted them to do their job and find my daughter, but they didn’t,” Viola said. “I felt like they [the police] didn’t do a lot of what they could have done. I felt like they closed the case early. I didn’t give up on the case. Even years after, we would still go out and pass out flyers.”
Dymashal’s case has been closed since 2010, her son Kobe wrote in a GoFundMe campaign.
The account was created last month to help raise money for their search efforts, to hire a private investigator and ultimately to reopen her case — unaware that investigators were going to reopen it themselves just weeks later. Kobe wrote that the funds will go to support not only his mother’s case, but also used to support other missing women in the Atlanta area.
“It will be an honor to get answers and finally be able to get justice,” he wrote.
And the lack of police attention is part of a wider systemic issue, her mother noted.
“I’m sorry to say it, they do not look for Black women the way they look for white women,” Viola said. “It’s just another person who’s missing to them.”
According to statistics from the Black and Missing Foundation, “thousands of people are reported missing every year in the U.S. and while not every case will get widespread media attention, the coverage of white victims versus minority victims is far from proportionate.”
New investigator, renewed hope
Dymashal’s family still takes to the Atlanta streets and hands out fliers to the community with the hope that someone will have information that will lead them to her.
“We try to do something every year,” Kobe said, adding that social media has helped get his mother’s story out.
“For so many years, it didn’t seem like people cared,” he said. “But I see now that they do.”
Last week, the family finally received some hopeful news.
Atlanta police announced that Dymashal’s case was being reopened and a new investigator would be assigned.
Her family hopes this is the key to finding her.
“I pray to God that something will come out of this,” Viola said in a recent interview with 11Alive.
But there’s still hard work to be done.
“I don’t know what made them reopen the case, maybe the interviews, but they did it,” Kobe said. “We can’t slow down now.”
Dymashal, who would be 53 years old if found alive now, has been described by her loved ones as a dedicated daughter, a caring friend and a loving mother.
At the time of her disappearance, her black hair was colored light brown, according to the flier. The 5ft 6in woman with brown eyes has a tattoo on the right side of her neck of a dove and a rose with the name “Dee Dee” written underneath. She also has pierced ears and another tattoo of a rose on her right shoulder blade.
“I believe she’s still out there,” the son said. “I say that is because of how strong she was as a person. That’s me keeping the hope alive.”
Anyone with information that could lead to the whereabouts of Dymashal Cullins is urged to call the Atlanta Police Department at 404-546-5602.
