No Trace In Omak: Kit Mora

Before we begin, a warning this episode includes discussion of suicide and child abuse. Some of what you’ll hear may be difficult. Please take care while listening.

This is They Were Here.

Their name is Kit Mora. They were just sixteen years old when they disappeared in 2021.

Kit is nonbinary. An Indigenous teen beginning to ask questions about who they are, where they come from, and how to honor that history.

A student. A sibling. A best friend. Someone who loves art, music, and dinosaurs.

And someone who deserved to grow up safe and loved.

Instead, Kit vanished from Omak, Washington, under circumstances no one can quite explain.

CHARLOTTE
“Hello, I am Charlotte. I am Kit’s older sister.”

Charlotte remembers Kit as someone who could be both quiet and open.

CHARLOTTE
“Kit was always really bubbly, very reserved… kind of like the definition of an introverted extrovert, if that makes sense. Like once you got to know Kit, Kit was super happy, super smiley, very honest, very blunt.”

Kit’s best friend, Amythist first met them in kindergarten.

Amythist
“Hi, my name is Amythist McCart. I am 20 years old and my best friend was Kit Mora.”

Amythist
“Kit was very shy and a very sensitive kid… to outsiders, they didn’t really talk much, they kind of just like, were standoffish honestly. But the second that you got to know them, they were loud and they were funny and outgoing… they were just like this brilliant, smart, kind, funny person.”

Charlotte said that Kit loved Elvis. They loved dragons. They sketched, they wrote, they dreamed.

CHARLOTTE
Kit was super into the, like, How to Train Your Dragon… drawing. Kit had started doing some writing, but never really wanted to share it.”

Amythst said they really loved art. 

Amythist
“ They always had like a sketchbook or they were drawing on the phone. They created entire worlds in, like, through their pictures. And they wanted to be a paleontologist when they were older. And they had like a very big obsession with dinosaurs.”

The people closest to Kit hold on to the small moments - memories that capture who they were.

CHARLOTTE
“My favorite situation with Kit that kind of shows our relationship dynamic the best was when Kit was four or five and I was either 10 or 11 and we had this yard sale at my dad’s house… Kit comes up to me just so mad. Like genuinely angry and just looks at me and goes, ‘You know, you ruined everything.’ And I was like, well, what did I ruin?… and Kit just goes, ‘My dream.’”

The memories Amythist carries are vivid. One that stands out was when they were 11 or 12.

Amythist
“ It was like that awkward transition between elementary school and middle school. I think like that summer. And we were at home and we told my grandma that we wanted to go to the park. Kit’s grandma Bonnie, she was protective… told Kit that she didn’t want them going anywhere that wasn’t accompanied by an adult.”

But Kit and Amythist wanted to go anyway. And the simple act of disobeying - of stepping outside without an adult - felt like breaking the rules of their childhood.

Amythist
“So we like thought that we were being so rebellious by going to this park and not telling Bonnie that we didn’t have my grandma with us. And it was like seven in the morning pouring rain, and we went to Sportsman’s Park and just like ran in puddles.”

It wasn’t the park itself. It was the freedom. Sneaking out early in the morning, soaked in rain, laughing.

Amythist
“I don’t know how else to describe that day other than just feeling the most free I think I had ever felt honestly. And we just enjoyed each other’s company… it was something that I haven’t had or felt with anyone else, and it was the most liberating. I think about that a lot ”

Their lightness, their humor, and their depth defined Kit. And yet, by the time they were sixteen, they would vanish under circumstances no one can quite explain.

For Kit, growing up meant learning how to balance who they were inside with the way the world expected them to be.

CHARLOTTE
“Kit was pretty quiet about it. So, growing up Kit was, you know, definitely presented as feminine for a vast majority and didn’t really start being more androgynous until, I wanna say, like right at the end of middle school, beginning of high school.”

Even then, it wasn’t something Kit shared openly with family.

CHARLOTTE
“I talked a lot about like sexuality, gender identity and stuff with Kit, but Kit never officially came out to me or my parents. So it was kind of always just suspected… but Kit came out to like their close friends and definitely got to explore that deeper with them than with family.”

One of those close friends was Amythist. She saw the weight Kit carried.

Amythist
“So honestly, like, it being trans affected them in a very negative way. They had a lot of dysphoria, and they didn’t feel as though… their grandparents wouldn’t really understand. Especially considering Kit wasn’t necessarily transitioning into being male. And so like it’s harder for older generations to kind of grasp the concept of someone being non-binary.”

 Kit had grown up with their great-grandparents. Kit never felt like they could fully explain what they were going through. Out of respect, and out of fear of being misunderstood, they kept most of their identity private.

Amythist
“They used to like layer and double layer their sports bras and like wrap their chest a lot. And actually the last time that I saw Kit, it was their 16th birthday and I had bought them their first binder. But it was a secret because they just didn’t want… they didn’t wanna have to explain it to their grandparents.”

Here is a voice memo Kit sent Amythist. 

Kit

Well, I mean it's 2020, we're Gen Z. We're pretty open. Unless you were raised by like very conservative Christian family sort of things and you know, you followed your parents' values and beliefs and stuff. But for the most part, I'm just saying that like it's about time that like people are acknowledged for who they are and just how like diverse people are.

Kit’s search for belonging also reached toward culture.

Amythist
“They always gravitated towards learning towards like, Indigenous cultures, but they never really practiced anything… and after Kit moved in with Lori, they were telling me that they were learning more and more about it and finding it more and more interesting and thinking that they identify closely with the Two-Spirit form of identity.”

Kit didn’t know much about their Indigenous history, but they were always researching. When they learned what being Two-Spirit meant, they embraced it - proud to know they were Indigenous. Charlotte believes that if Kit were still here, they’d be learning their customs and honoring their ancestors in every way they could.

Sixteen is young for anyone to carry so much. But for Kit, identity was not an abstract question - it was daily, lived, and sometimes hidden.

For most of their childhood, Kit lived with their great-grandparents in Yakima, Washington. But in 2020, their mom - Lori Sue Nelson - reached out. At first, Kit resisted. Then, after the death of an older brother, who died by suicide, the pressure to reconnect grew stronger.

CHARLOTTE
“Kit’s mom… played into that and was like, ‘I just lost my son. Don’t let me lose you completely too.’”

 By summer 2021, Kit agreed to visit Omak. They were supposed to stay for just a couple of weeks.

Amythist
“We were on the phone one day… and Lori had invited them to go to Omak and meet Lori and her kids… and within the next week they were in Omak. At first they said they were just gonna go for a week… and then around the end of the month I called again and was like, hey, when are you coming back? And they said, yeah, so I think that I’m actually gonna do this school year in Omak.”

From the outside, it looked like Kit was settling in - choosing to spend the school year in Omak. But inside the family, things were more complicated, with Kit caught between wanting to come home and being persuaded to stay.

CHARLOTTE
“As soon as school gets out, Kit goes over there… calls my dad and says, ‘Hey, I wanna come home.’ And my dad’s like, okay, yeah, you know, whatever, let’s set it up. Where do I need to meet, where am I coming to get you? Then a couple hours later, Kit’s mom calls and says, well actually no, Kit’s gonna stay.”

The back-and-forth went on for weeks - Kit calling to say they wanted to come home, then changing their mind. 

Amythist 

“…around the end of the month I called again and was like, hey, so when are you coming back? Like, I’d love to see you. And they said, yeah, so I think that I’m actually gonna do this school year at, um, in Omak. And I said, really? And they’re like, yeah. I said, well, I’m glad that you’re having such a good time, but I thought that we were gonna finish school together. And they’re like, well, yeah, I can come back for senior year, but I think that I’m gonna do my junior year here…”

For Kit, the move brought something new. At first, it seemed like freedom.

Amythist
“Lori had been one of the first people that Kit had felt comfortable coming out to about their gender identity. And so they had a different way of living there than they did here in Yakima. Lori didn’t want to confuse the kids, so she just introduced Kit as the kids’ older brother. And they were able to like, be masculine and be a different version of themselves than they could here.”

But beneath that sense of recognition was another reality - Kit was taking on more responsibility than ever before. Not only were they babysitting their siblings but they also worked at the store their Mom owned, the The Storehouse Mercantile. They texted Amythist. 

Amythist
“Pretty much if I’m not in school, I’m watching the kids or I’m watching the store. And I’m just exhausted… I just wanna come home.”

Amythist offered to drive to Omak, to bring Kit back herself. But Kit said no.

Amythist
“They were like, well no, because who’s gonna take care of the kids if I leave? And I’m like, who took care of the kids before you got there?… And then they said something really odd that worried me… they told me, they asked me if I could delete that conversation. And I asked them why. And they said, well, I just don’t want my mom to see it and feel bad.”

It was one of the last text exchanges Amythist would ever have with Kit.

Around the same time, Charlotte noticed things that didn’t feel right.

CHARLOTTE
“I’d been having these weird gut feelings… there were posts from Kit’s mom on Facebook that just didn’t really look like Kit, like Kit was wearing dresses. And it was just strange.”

In Yakima, Kit had cringed at the idea of wearing feminine clothes. But in Omak, something seemed to shift.

Amythist
“They had told me actually, I think that I’m starting to like a little bit more feminine things as well. And I said, oh, that’s awesome. I’m glad that you’re able to express yourself in that way and feel comfortable being feminine. But… it did make my heart sink a little bit, because here in Yakima, the idea of wearing a dress or a skirt or anything like that would make them physically cringe.”

Later, Amythist would learn that Kit had been posting on Twitter - writing about arguments with Lori, and her transphobia. Posts Kit never shared directly with her.

Amythist
“On the Twitter thread, they had talked about how their mom was… saying stuff to their little siblings, like don’t call him your older brother, he’s a girl because he has boobs. And that was quite literally the opposite of everything that Lori had said when Kit moved up there.”

By late fall, even Kit’s texts started fading.

Amythist
“Our text messages went from every day to every other day, to once a week, to once a month, very quickly.”

And then, in November, they stopped altogether.

Amythist
“The last day, the last time that we talked was November 5th, 2021. And it actually makes me emotional. The last three messages that Kit sent me were: ‘We will be adults soon. Where did the time go? I swear, middle school felt like not that long ago.’”

At the time, she tried to explain it away.

Amythist
“I just figured, you know, every friendship, every relationship has this point where they just kind of drift a little bit, you know, so I didn’t think much of it.”

After that, silence. New Year’s came and went. Birthdays. Repeated calls and texts. None of them answered.

Months passed with no replies. Kit’s phone stayed silent. Amythist tried to convince herself they were just busy, that maybe their friendship was drifting. But by the fall of 2022, that explanation no longer made sense.

Amythist
“My friend Kayla messages me and says, hey, have you heard from Kit? And instantly my heart dropped… because it’s one thing that Kit hadn’t talked to me, but Kit hadn’t talked to Kayla either. And Kayla and Kit kept really close contact.”

For Amythist, that was the breaking point. She and her grandmother decided to drive over three hours from Yakima to Omak to look for Kit themselves.

Amythist
“So we drive to Omak, I think it was September 24th. We go to the store - it’s completely boarded up, like the store is closed. And we’re so confused, like, where do we even go from here? What do we do now?”

They stopped at a neighboring business, hoping someone might know more.

Amythist
“We asked them, hey, what happened to the store next door? Do you know where the owner is? They said, yeah, she sold that building. I guess she couldn’t keep up with it. We asked, do you know Lori, do you know where she lives? And they seemed kind of standoffish… but they were like, we know she still lives in town because she comes into our store every now and then, but we have no idea where.”

Running out of leads, Amythist and her grandmother tried one last idea.

Amythist
“So we go to the library. Grandma’s thinking maybe they have some form of like directory or phone book, and hopefully Lori’s in there. She has lived in this town for a long time, you know, maybe she’s in the phone book. Um, no luck. We go to leave the library, and as we are leaving, we see the police station straight across the street. And instantly we both know like we’re gonna have to go to the police.”

Inside the station, Amythist made her plea.

Amythist
“We go in and we tell them, I think my friend is dead. I think… something seriously wrong. I just want someone to check on them and let me know that they’re okay.”

But instead of reassurance, the news they got was worse.

Amythist
“As we are pulling out of Omak, we get a phone call from the police and they tell us, yeah, so Lori said that Kit’s been missing since April. And I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s September.”

Charlotte remembers when she heard.

CHARLOTTE
“Kit’s mom had said Kit had ran away in April of 2022… Kit wouldn’t just run away. Kit was watching their younger siblings and working at the store last we heard… it wasn’t adding up.”

Instead of launching a full search, police labeled Kit a runaway.

Amythist
“They said they were gonna file them as a runaway right now because Lori says she doesn’t know where Kit went. All she knows is that Kit ran away with some woman from Yakima that they loved. And my grandma was like, there’s no one from Yakima that they would’ve run away with that we wouldn’t know about. And we start freaking out, like we’re panicking at this point.”

Charlotte was disheartened by the lack of police assistance.

CHARLOTTE
“They didn’t wanna take the missing report… Kit’s mom labeled Kit as a runaway. And the second you’re labeled a runaway, they don’t care.”

It had been nearly a year since Kit was last seen. And still - no one in authority seemed alarmed.

When I reached out to Lori Nelson - Kit’s mother - the person on the line said it was the wrong number. She didn’t respond to emails.  And silence has been her most consistent answer since Kit disappeared.

 
Court documents paint a clearer picture of life inside Lori’s home.

On June 17th, 2022, CPS received a report that Lori was leaving her four young children barricaded in a bedroom upstairs, home alone. When police arrived, they found a makeshift gate tied with rope across the stairwell. Inside the room, the kids were eating Burger King on a bare platform bed. The report noted soiled diapers, caked-on dirt, tangled hair, and injuries - including burns and bite marks.

A Dependency Petition by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families describes “numerous contusions,” evidence the children “may have been choked,” and that they were immediately taken to Mid-Valley Hospital.

The documents also describe Lori’s long history with child welfare: six founded findings for neglect or abuse between 2004 and 2008, dozens more intakes since 2015, accusations of punching, choking, and verbal abuse. Lori has had nine children in total. At the time of this petition, only four were still in her care.

Her partners - Kenneth Diaz and Leroy Zacherele - also appear in the files. Diaz was found hiding in Lori’s home, despite a no-contact order, when the children were removed. Zacherele, the father of two of Lori’s kids, has a long history of criminal charges, domestic violence, and child welfare involvement.

This is the environment Kit entered when they moved in with their mom.

And yet - Lori has never spoken publicly about Kit’s disappearance.

Amythist 

“…hopefully you can find out something. Hopefully Lori responds to you. Maybe she can tell her side of this. And I feel like a big part of the reason why I have so much like, like anger towards her is because she has never once actually told her side of things. And maybe if I knew her side of things, I would have a different version of it. Maybe I would feel differently, maybe I would have a better understanding what’s going on. But because she hasn’t, I had no idea. So hopefully you can get some form of response.”

Questions about Kit’s disappearance don’t end with Lori. One of the men connected to her - Kenneth Diaz - was also drawn into the story. Kenneth was living with Lori at times, and later found hiding inside her home when child welfare officials removed Lori’s children.

Amythist once reached out to him directly, hoping for answers.

Amythist
“Some point someone had leaked Kenneth Diaz’s and Lori’s phone numbers on Facebook. And I had messaged Kenneth. Our conversation was very odd. I asked him what happened to Kit, who did they run away with. And he said, she ran away with someone who she said she loved, someone she met online. You can choose to believe me or not, but she ran away ‘cause we told her she couldn’t be with someone way older than her. And that she decided to run away with that woman. That’s all I know. I have no reason to lie about this.”

Amythist pressed for more details.

Amythist
“I said, thank you. Did she say a name? And he said, she did, but I don’t remember it. I asked, why didn’t Lori ever make a police report? What if something happened to them? And he said, look, I’m gonna be real with you. When she ran away, I wasn’t living in the house, so I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t with Lori. She had a new man living with her and kids. So I can’t help you. I wasn’t even there when she ran away. Stop bugging me.”

The conversation quickly turned hostile.

Amythist
“I said, bugging you? Do you have any idea how this feels? Have you ever lost someone close to you and had no closure? And he said, I lost my mom and grandpa this year, so don’t sit there and tell me about losing someone. So yeah, fuck off. Stop messaging me. You don’t know shit about heartache.”

For Amythist, his defensiveness raised more suspicion than clarity.

Amythist
“I thought it was very odd that he was like, stop bugging me. Because as the people who actually care about Kit, like, I’ve told this story five million times, but never once am I going to pass up another opportunity to tell it, because I care. Charlotte is the same way. Kayla is the same way. Bonnie is the same way. So why is it bugging you for me to ask what happened?”

Whatever Kenneth knew, he wasn’t willing to share it.

When Kit’s disappearance was first reported, police treated it like a runaway case. That decision shaped everything that followed.

Amythist felt it too. What police called a “runaway” never matched the reality of who Kit was - and it meant the case wasn’t taken seriously.

Amythist
“They just brushed it off because people don’t take runaway cases seriously, which honestly, in my opinion, is ridiculous. Because children are children for a reason. Just them being a runaway shouldn’t be enough of an excuse to not look for them.”

By the time a detective was finally assigned, nearly a year had already been lost. Charlotte noticed the difference right away.

CHARLOTTE
“After getting him assigned, he’s been great. I text him anytime that somebody gives me a tip, or if I hear something, or if, you know, a body’s found anywhere in Washington… he’s looked into tips that realistically had no grounds to be looked into, just because someone told me it was a possibility.”

When I contacted Detective Brien Bowling of the Omak Police Department, he emailed me:

“As this is a very complex case and still under investigation, there is not a lot I can tell you about it at this point. My number and or email are great for any tips to the case.”

In August of 2024, the Omak Police Department shared a public update. They announced that the case was now being worked in partnership with the Attorney General’s Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and People Cold Case Unit. As part of that work, the Washington State Patrol Patrol Forensic Crime Lab had executed a search warrant, which displaced tenants living in the home connected to the investigation. Police said they had coordinated support for the family that had to relocate.

They stressed their commitment to finding answers in Kit’s case, but added that until the lab had information that could be released, they had nothing more to share with the community.

Detective Bowling emailed me:

“I can tell you we are not waiting on any results from those searches. We have since then searched hundreds of acres of possible body dump sites with both cadaver dogs and humans with no results. I am continuing to follow up on all tips received.”

Years into Kit’s disappearance, the official word is still that investigators are looking - but answers remain out of reach.

Today, nearly three and a half years after Kit was reportedly last seen, the case remains open. The Omak Police Department says they continue to follow up on every tip. Hundreds of acres have been searched, with cadaver dogs and human teams, but no trace of Kit has been found.

A $10,000 reward is now being offered for information leading to answers in the disappearance of Kit Mora.

But for Kit’s family and friends, the waiting is its own kind of pain.

CHARLOTTE
“My mom’s… physical health has declined so much since this has happened. I don’t know how much longer she has. My dad, same situation. My kids, they ask about Kit quite a bit. The ones that remember Kit, my oldest two… but I don’t have answers to give them. At least once a week, my oldest comes up to me and he just goes, mom, what happened to your sister? …We’re broken. There’s really no other way to put it.”

For Amythist, what hurts most is the absence of Kit’s voice - the everyday conversations that once came so easily between them.

KIT
“But yeah, I’m glad we can talk to each other about these sorts of things too. ’Cause I mean, and there’s just really nothing to hide. And we could just talk, just to fucking talk.”

Even in a short voicemail, you can hear the comfort Kit felt with their best friend - the relief of being fully seen. That’s what was stolen when Kit vanished. And that’s what their family and friends are still fighting to recover: answers, truth, and the sound of Kit’s voice in their lives.

Amythist
“Having to graduate high school without them was really hard. The new How To Train Your Dragon movie came out and that was like our thing. I actually got a How To Train Your Dragon tattoo for them. And it’s just hard to grow up and grow old knowing that they’re not by my side to do it. I think about all the firsts - getting a car, moving into my first apartment, starting college - and knowing Kit isn’t here to have those too makes it hard to enjoy them.”

For Charlotte, for Amythist, for their family - the silence is unbearable. And the questions never stop.

CHARLOTTE
“I feel like sometimes it seems like there’s nothing that’s ever gonna happen, like we’re never gonna get better.”

Amythist
“If they had been given the opportunity… this world was and is a better place because Kit was here. Everything that Kit touched, every room that Kit walked into, was lighter and better for it. And it breaks my heart that they don’t have everything they wanted. They deserved the world.”

For those who loved Kit, the fight isn’t over. They continue to share Kit’s name, their story, and their hope for answers.

If you know anything about the disappearance of “Kit” Mora, please come forward. Detective Brien Bowling with the Omak Police Department is leading the investigation.

You can reach him at 509-826-0383 or by email at opd406@omakpd.com.
Tips can also be shared anonymously through local Crime Stoppers.

There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to those responsible for Kit’s disappearance, the recovery of Kit’s body, or Kit’s safe return.

Kit has likely been missing since November 2021. They were just sixteen years old when they vanished from Omak, Washington. Kit is 5’2” tall, about 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. They are nonbinary, bi-racial - Native American and white - and lived with mental health needs.

If you know something, you might be the key to breaking this case.

Kit Mora deserves to be found. Their family deserves answers.

This is They Were Here.

Credits

This episode was produced by Jacqui Fulton 

Fact checking by Fendall Fulton 

Original Music by Aaron Levison 

Special thanks to Jen Dorman