Mom of missing Utica teen waits for answers: ‘I have to fight for her and keep searching’

It’s been 17 years since Shirlette Green-Smith received one final phone call from her daughter Ivory Green.

The 17-year-old girl left her Utica apartment around 4 p.m. Saturday evening, then called her mother at about 7:45 p.m. Green-Smith wasn’t sure whether it was a friend’s cellphone or not — she had answered on her house phone — but Ivory told her she was walking home as they spoke.

So Green-Smith kept her kitchen light on, and waited. But Ivory never came home.

“I never heard her turn the key,” Green-Smith said. “I waited up for her until daybreak.”

Utica police said the investigation into the March 6, 2004, disappearance of Ivory Green is still ongoing, with leads regularly coming in. Anyone with information is asked to call the Utica Police Criminal Investigations Division at 315-223-3510.

But as of this time, it still is not known whether Ivory, who would be 34 now, is dead or alive. Her mother is determined to keep the search going.

“I have to fight for her and keep searching for her,” she said. “Because nobody else will.”

At only 4’11” and 110 pounds, Ivory was small but athletic. A tomboy who looked up to her older brother, Ivory racked up basketball trophies and dance lesson certificates, her mother said.

“Just about everybody knew Ivory,” Green-Smith said.

She wasn’t a troublemaker; she always made it home, Green-Smith said. It wouldn’t be like her to run away, she said.

The two lived in the now-demolished apartment complex Washington Courts near downtown Utica. The day after her disappearance, Green-Smith went to the Cosmopolitan Center, where many children from Washington Courts spent their time, but no one had seen Ivory.

After calling the police station, Green-Smith started to walk down Genesee Street, asking anyone she saw if they had seen her daughter. No one had.

“I ended up basically walking across town,” she said.

In her neighborhood, there was a police officer who knew many of the children. Sometimes, she even stopped Ivory to tell her to head home, and called Green-Smith to let her know. Green-Smith specifically asked for her when she called the police a second time after getting home.

By this time, Green-Smith was in tears. It had been almost 24 hours since she had last seen her daughter. She filed a report over the phone, but her work was far from over.

Green-Smith contacted media outlets and organized a march and a candlelight vigil. She reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where she eventually became a volunteer until 2012. Every day, she stopped by the police station for an update.

Green-Smith, now 58, moved to Georgia seven years ago, but she continues to call Utica police daily for any update on Ivory.

She also urges parents to keep a log of the addresses and phone numbers of their children’s friends and their homes. In 2004, she hadn’t thought to do that with Ivory, she said.

Whenever she’s at the store, Green-Smith finds herself stopping by the wall of missing children’s posters.

“I try not to go there but I end up going there,” she said. “I stand there and I pray. I’m not going to lie, I cry, sometimes.”

H. Rose Schneider is the public safety reporter for the Observer-Dispatch. For unlimited access to her stories, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. Email Rose at hschneider@gannett.com.