REMEMBERING: The Disappearance of Kristopher Bryan Lewis

On this date two years ago, I released an episode about the disappearance of Kristopher Bryan Lewis. Kris was just 13 years old when he seemingly vanished after school one day. In February of 2025, marking the 11-year anniversary of his disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created a new age progression photo and missing poster depicting what he might look like now at 24 years old. If you have any information about the disappearance of Kristopher Bryan Lewis, please contact the Boston Police Department at 617-343-4687.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Kylie Low?

  Every case starts somewhere. A small town, a missing persons report, a family asking the same questions over and over. But sometimes a story reaches beyond its own community. Its impact extends further, calling for more attention, more conversation, and a wider audience. That's what Crime Junkie does every Monday. Ashley Flowers and Brett Preawat cover the cases you can't stop thinking about, from unsolved murders to missing people to investigations that still need answers. Because every new person who hears the story is another chance to uncover the truth. Listen to Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:45Kylie Low?

  Hey, Dark Down Easters. This is an off week for the show, but I didn't want to leave your feed empty when there are so many cases still awaiting answers and so many families waiting for their loved ones to return home. On this date, two years ago, I released an episode about the disappearance of Christopher Brian Lewis. Chris was just 13 years old when he seemingly vanished after school one day. In February of this year, 2025, marking the 11-year anniversary of his disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created a new age progression photo and missing poster depicting what he might look like now at 24 years old. The photo and poster are linked in the description of this episode. I'm Kylie Low,

• 1:30Kylie Low?

  and we're remembering the case of Christopher Brian Lewis on Dark Down East.

• 1:45Kylie Low?

  I first learned the name Christopher Brian Lewis on Facebook. Part of this line of work is staying informed of active and ongoing cases and keeping an eye out for under-reported stories. Social media, as rotten as it can be for some things, has proven to be a valuable tool for sharing and finding information about disappearances far beyond what the flyers-on-telephone poll strategy provided in the past. Christopher's name and photo were posted in a Facebook group dedicated to bringing awareness to missing people in Massachusetts. The post summarized the known details about his case at the time: date of disappearance, last known location, a physical description, and a tip line for the Boston Police Department.

• 2:28Kylie Low?

  I was struck by Christopher's age, just 13 years old. I started digging deeper, hoping to learn that he returned home safe, or that police had a lead, or at the very least, I'd find that his disappearance received ample coverage throughout the years. But that's not what I found. Instead, there was just a handful of news articles about Christopher, and it had been years since any mainstream media picked up the story and shared Christopher's name and photo. I wanted to change that, but I couldn't and wouldn't tell Christopher Bryan Lewis's story without contacting his mother, Nina Cancel Rogers, first. I found her on Facebook and sent her a message, knowing it would be filtered to her message requests folder.

• 3:13Kylie Low?

  A few months passed, but Nina eventually saw it and responded. After a phone call with her, she agreed to share Christopher's story. She'll do anything that might help bring Christopher home. Nina, tell me about your son, Christopher.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Christopher was an A/B student. He was awesome at school. He was, I can't even think of the word. He was a trier. I like to say he was a trier. He tried each sport until he found the one that he wanted. So he did try baseball, and when he got hit with the ball, he said, "No, that's not for me." And he walked off the field. But it was the cutest thing ever. He was just like, "Yeah, no, that's not it." I was like, "He only played one game, and mommy spent all his money on a uniform." And he was like, "No, that's just not it. That's no." He was just like, "No."

• 4:10Kylie Low?

  Christopher did eventually find a sport he loved, much to Nina's dismay.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  He did play football. I didn't want him to play football. Chris was my first son, and I was being a little overprotective about the football thing, because, you know, you get hit, and it's a wrap. He begged me for, I want to say, two years he begged me to play. And I finally let him play, and he loved it. Chris played up until he was 13, when he went missing.

• 4:40Kylie Low?

  Nina told me that Christopher was always independent and wanted to handle things on his own. He kept to himself, but had a close group of friends, too.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Chris never liked people, but he made, you know, like he had friends and that's the thing that killed me. Like, how do you not like people when you've got friends? Everyone who came in contact with Chris, or anyone who knows Chris, loved Chris, you know, and everyone would tell you, Chris is good, he's well-mannered, he like, he does everything for himself, he's helpful, you know, he was awesome at school, everything that he did, he excelled at it.

• 5:19Kylie Low?

  Chris never really got into any trouble, but Nina remembered one day when some kids were picking on him at school, and Chris stood up for himself.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Chris never got into trouble. I mean, there was like this one time where he got in trouble at school, and when I went up to the school, I was more mad than anything because it was, you know, some kids that were teasing him because he was passing his classes. He ended up getting pushed or hit or something, and the teacher stood right there and didn't say anything, but then because Christopher had said something back, he wanted to discipline Christopher. So that's the only time Chris has ever got in trouble in school. That was major. It was like when I went to the school, the teacher was like, "Yeah, I did, I seen them hit him, but I didn't feel like I should jump in because

• 6:14Speaker 01

  boys will be boys." And I'm like, "But you're disciplining him now for saying something out of character because he was hit on and you did nothing." So, yeah, the teacher ended up getting in trouble for that, but I didn't get, you know, punished Chris for it or anything. I didn't take anything from him because of that, because of the situation.

• 6:36Kylie Low?

  What made Christopher unique?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  I would say his character, on how he just carried himself. You know, he carried himself as the king that he is. Like, he always had his head up high, but he never down-talked anybody, you know, he was always there to help anybody who wanted help.

• 7:01Kylie Low?

  Chris wanted to help his mom, too. He wanted to make it big as a pro football player someday, so he could repay everything she'd given him.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Well, he wanted to play football. That's what he wanted to do. But me being me, I'm like, oh, no, you can be a scientist. Because he knew numbers like right off his head and it was safer than being a football player. But he really wanted to play football. And, you know, his big thing was he wanted to make the big dollars to take care of his mom. That was his thing. That's what he wanted to do. And I just wanted him to do something safe, like a scientist.

• 7:44Kylie Low?

  Nina is a wonderful mother, and her kids recognize that. Christopher wasn't the only one who wanted to grow up and take care of his mom.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  My youngest says it now. Like, he plays golf. So he's like, I'm gonna be a golfer so mommy doesn't have to work so hard no more. And, you know, that, and that, it makes me like, okay, so I'm doing something right, that they notice that I work hard for everything that I do. And, you know, everything that they have, so for them to know that I work really hard to make sure that they don't have to struggle. You know, it makes me feel like I'm happy inside because, you know, I did my part. I did make sure that they're not struggling for anything.

• 8:24Kylie Low?

  Nina always made sure Christopher and all of her children had everything they needed. And she let them know that she was a safe space for them. No matter what, her kids could turn to her.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I mean, like, usually, I usually let them feel out what it is that they're going through. And I always tell them, no matter what, you can always speak to me, you know, no matter, no matter what. I tell them that, you know, we have an open table policy. You wanna go to the table, we can go to the table. You can say whatever you want and you won't get in trouble for it. So that way you know you can speak to me for anything. And the boys do that. To this day, they still do it.

• 9:06Kylie Low?

  Nina and Christopher were as close as a mother and firstborn son could be. He had his moments, what young teenager doesn't, but they had a special bond from the day Chris was born.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, he was my baby. You know, he was, everyone used to say that was my mini me. He looked just like me. I didn't see it at all. I've seen his dad in everything that he did. Yeah, he was just, he was my guy. He was, he was my guy. And he still is my guy.

• 9:41Kylie Low?

  It was February 4th, 2014. Nina and 13-year-old Christopher, her husband and her other sons, all lived on West Selden Street in the Matapan neighborhood of Boston. Christopher was a student at Lee School, and that morning started out like any other weekday morning. Nina remembers it vividly.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Um, I remember everything about that day. He got off of school, walked to his bus stop. That was the day he was just like, Mom, you need to stop walking me to the bus stop. I'm too big for this. And I was just like, what? You know, it was just, it just threw me off. And, um, so we talked about that as we walked to the bus stop. He got on the bus, he went to school. He went and he did his whole day in school. I didn't get any phone, no, I didn't get any phone calls from school that day, so he had a good day.

• 10:33Kylie Low?

  Nina expected Christopher home by his usual 5:00 PM or soon after.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  When it's time for him to get off of school, I was already home because I had just started a new job and, you know, we were supposed to celebrate that day because it was a job that I really, really wanted. And, um, we were supposed to celebrate, so since Chris got home first, before his brothers, Chris got to decide what we had for dinner. So we had made up that rule, like whoever gets home first gets to pick up dinner when we're doing something special. And, you know, since Chris was home first, so I'm like, okay, Chris will be home in a little bit. Let me pull out the menus. Let me finish clean up this mess because I actually cleaned up the whole house.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And when I looked at the clock and I, and he wasn't home yet, I went outside. I stood outside on the main road and like when you stand on the main road and you look down the street, you can see his bus stop from the street. So I really didn't have to walk him or anything. And I didn't see him. So I'm like, okay, well, maybe he walked home with his little friend.

• 11:38Kylie Low?

  It was 5:30 PM at that point. The walk home from the bus stop would have only taken him 10 minutes tops, five minutes if he hurried straight there. But Christopher's friend lived just a short walk down a side street and it wouldn't have been unusual for him to go to his house after school.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  So I was like, okay, so let me call. And they said, no, Chris wasn't with him. He said Chris had walked up the street already. And I'm like, okay, well, Chris isn't home.

• 12:05Kylie Low?

  Nina hung up the phone and considered who to call next. She contacted the school bus company to confirm that Chris had actually gotten on and off the bus at his stop.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Then I, you know, I called the transportation to make sure. And they're like, no, he got off the bus and the bus driver remembers Chris because Chris always talks to him. So then I called, I called my husband and I told my husband that, you know, he wasn't home. And he was like, I'm on my way home. And we started looking for him.

• 12:37Kylie Low?

  It was early February. The sun sets early that time of year in the northeast. It was already dark and getting cold. Not wanting to lose a single second, Nina called the police. But she didn't get the response she expected when she told them her 13-year-old child hadn't returned home from school yet.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  And then when I called the police, the police were really, really asinine. They were jerks and it was just crazy. The whole police situation was crazy.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?

• 13:24Speaker 02

  I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  And on our brand new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:51Kylie Low?

  An officer responded to Nina's West Selden Street home.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  When, when they came, the cop didn't want to come into the house because we had a pit bull. And even though I put the dog up, he still refused to come in the house. He handed me a paper and was like, fill this out. And I'm like, okay. So I filled out the paper, you know, given description of what Chris looked like, what he was wearing, where he was. And then he just took the paper and he left. He never spoke to me. He never, he never physically took a report. He didn't do anything. He just handed me a paper, told me to fill it out, and that was it.

• 14:29Kylie Low?

  Nina didn't know if police planned to take immediate action to locate her son, but she and her family couldn't just sit still and wait out the night.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  You know, we had, all my family had came by the house and they were like, well, we're going to go out and look for him. And we went out looking and we couldn't find him.

• 14:47Kylie Low?

  The sun rose the next morning and there was still no sign of Christopher. Nina remembers Boston police checking in with her the next day, and she'll never forget how they talked about her son.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  And the only thing that he, that they said to me when they came to the house the next day, because Chris still wasn't found, was that, oh, you sure that? He said, did you guys get in an argument over anything? And I'm like, no, I don't argue with my children. I said, that's, that's what you guys mess up at. They're children and I don't argue with children. And then he was like, okay, well, is he in a gang? And I'm like, no, he's not in a gang. And then they were like, well, that's the problem with some of these parents. They don't know when their children are in gangs. And, um, or they don't know where they are half the time. He said, so he's probably just mad at you about something. He'll be back in a few days. I'm like, what?

• 15:41Kylie Low?

  Nina was stunned.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  The detective that was on his case, he was so rude and so disrespectful. And I swear, if I was dying, his bedside manner was ridiculously poor. Like, it was horrible. It was like the worst experience I ever dealt with. Like, I was like, not only is my son missing, but you're coming here disrespecting me in my house about my son, you know, calling him a drug dealer, saying that he's in gangs. And, you know, I was just like, he's 13. You know, like, what can he do at 13? Like, there's no way.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  And they, sure enough, he, oh, you know, maybe you were just being too rough on him and didn't get him what he wanted. So he'll be back soon. And I was just like, oh, my God. This is crazy.

• 16:37Kylie Low?

  Feeling dismissed by law enforcement, Nina decided to reach out to media outlets. She'd seen reports of missing persons on the news before, and she wanted Christopher's name and face to be broadcast far and wide, too.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  When he still wasn't home, we were trying to call the TV stations and trying to get them to put Chris on the news so that people would know he's missing. And they told us that they don't put missing people on the news.

• 17:06Kylie Low?

  Nina was incredulous. She knew that wasn't true. She saw reports of missing kids on the news all the time. In fact, the same day she was turned down by a local news station, she watched as the face of a missing white child flashed on the screen. If people didn't know Christopher was missing, they wouldn't know to be on the lookout for him. So she started posting on social media, until finally, local media did take notice.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  So I posted on social media. I posted on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. And we were, like I said, we were trying to get a hold of the news station. And then we finally did get a hold of the news station. So they finally did a story on him. We reached out to Missing and Exploited Children. There was like a whole bunch of missing people sites that we also reached out to.

• 17:59Kylie Low?

  So much of that early awareness and search effort was on the shoulders of Nina and her family. This is often the reality for the loved ones of missing people.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  It was a lot of work trying to get it out there. You know, on one hand, it was kind of hard. On the other hand, it wasn't. I mean, we made our own flyers. We put everything out ourselves. You know, social media, all that, we did ourselves, which was pretty easy. But getting the police to get the report right, which they didn't get right, and to get the news to actually put it on so that it was out there was even harder. You know, and I don't think it should be that hard when someone's kid goes missing. You know, it shouldn't take, it shouldn't take a village just to talk to one person.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  It should be that parent and that person and say, listen, this is what happened. We contacted the police. You can look up the police report and go from there. I don't feel that it should have taken like 10 different people to call the news station and be like, hey, listen, this kid is missing. What are you going to do about it?

• 19:13Kylie Low?

  Christopher was a young black boy. It was evident to Nina from the earliest moments of his disappearance, with the comments about Chris being in a gang or wrapped up in drug dealing, that he wasn't being seen for what he was, a missing child.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  The favoritism of the race is another thing that, you know, factors in as well. You know, and it doesn't factor in just with the news station, but it factors in with the police as well. Like, the first thing that you say is gang. And that's not what it should be. It should be a child, no matter what the race is. And it's not.

• 19:53Kylie Low?

  In the last nine years, the case has changed hands within the Boston Police Department multiple times. Boston PD Detective Kevin McElmoyr now has the case. Despite her early negative interactions with the detectives on Christopher's case, Nina has renewed confidence in Detective McElmoyr. I reached out to him to get deeper insight into the work that was done on Christopher's case and the work that's going into it now, but unfortunately, he wasn't able to speak with me because the case is still open and considered active. But Detective McElmoyr directed me to Boston Police Media Relations and Sergeant Detective Boyle.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Relations officer.

• 20:37Kylie Low?

  Hi there, I'm looking for Sergeant Detective Boyle.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Um, he just stepped out of the office. Can I take a message, or do you want to call him back, or an email?

• 20:48Kylie Low?

  Um, a message would be fine.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Okay, what is it?

• 20:52Kylie Low?

  Detective McElmoyr told me to reach out to him for comment on the Christopher Brian Lewis case. It's a missing persons case from 2014. The detective wasn't able to speak to me and he referred me to Media Relations.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Okay, so you haven't spoken to Sergeant Boyle at all about this?

• 21:09Kylie Low?

  Not yet, no, I was referred to him by Detective McElmoyr.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, so you want to send him an email then with that message? Um, so everything can be in writing, it's a request.

• 21:18Kylie Low?

  So I did that, and I didn't hear back, so I followed up, and I still haven't heard back. I delayed the release of this episode several times in hopes of speaking with someone within the Boston Police Department, but it's the day before I intend to release this episode and I still haven't heard back. I understand, they're busy, they have a lot on their plates, but I really wanted to be able to ask what's happening in Christopher Lewis's investigation now, and whether there was any indication that Christopher was involved in gang activity, or if he ran away, as the early detectives were quick to assume. I wanted to ask if there have been any recent developments, or if Boston Police had anything new to share. I know

• 22:02Kylie Low?

  That because the case is open and still considered active, they probably wouldn't have given me much. They have to protect the entirety of the investigation. I get it. But I still would have liked the opportunity to ask had anyone called me back. So without comment from Boston Police, I'm left with the available public information about the case. And the circumstances known to the public at this point really don't narrow down what could have possibly happened to Christopher in such a small window of opportunity. If this was a random, isolated act, if Christopher was taken by an unknown perpetrator, for example, the distance between the bus stop and his home was so short and the route so heavily populated that it seems unlikely not a single person saw what happened.

• 22:47Kylie Low?

  If witnesses have come forward in the previous nine years, that's not public information. Nina had never worried about Christopher when he got off the bus before. She felt safe in their neighborhood, and he walked the same short route every single day without issue. The biggest threat to safety in the area at the time appears to have been the busy two-way street. A resident of the street told The Boston Globe in 2015, "There's no problem with the neighbors or crime. The problem is with speeding." That year, an eight-year-old girl and her 12-year-old cousin were hit by a car while riding their bikes together at their grandmother's birthday party near the 100 block of West Selden Street.

• 23:31Kylie Low?

  According to The Boston Globe's reporting, the driver attempted to flee the scene on foot before he was ultimately apprehended. The eight-year-old girl died from her injuries, and the driver was charged with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident and motor vehicle homicide. If Christopher was the victim of a hit-and-run on that busy street, surely there would have been evidence of such an accident. But there isn't anything in the publicly available information that points to this being the case. Nina firmly dismisses the idea that her 13-year-old son was involved in gang activity or other criminal behavior, and that that is what led to his disappearance. It has never been a working theory in Nina's mind,

• 24:15Kylie Low?

  despite how detectives first tried to categorize his case. Another theory that has been floated is whether Christopher ran away. Some media reports mention that Christopher had previously run away and was found in the Fields Corner area of Dorchester Avenue. But this, too, Nina denies. Christopher never ran away or disappeared before, she says. Nina is constantly working to dispel these rumors that only further distract from the most important detail: Her son was just a kid when he disappeared. He is still missing, and she is still searching.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Where you hear a courtroom term and think, "Wait, what does that actually mean?"

• 25:10Speaker 02

  I'm Eliza Orlandz, career public defender.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:37Kylie Low?

  Despite the years without answers and still no sign of Christopher Lewis, Nina is hopeful that Detective McElmoyle might actually be able to learn some new information. Still, Christopher's disappearance continues to impact Nina's every waking moment.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  So there's a new detective on his case and he's actually pretty good. He calls me, he gives me updates, you know, he's pretty good. But moving forward, I really haven't. I'm pretty fucked up. I hate to say it, but I'm pretty fucked up. You know, it's hard for me to move forward. It's hard for me to let the kids I have now go. My son who's 19, Jason, he's in Boston right now. And that's hard for me, for him to be there and for me not to be there. So it's just like, is he okay? What is he doing? You know, and Jayden has a field trip that's in Virginia next week. And I'm just like, no, he can't go.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  But it's just like, I, I'm trying not to shelter them because losing Chris was like the worst experience of my life. And it still hurts. Every day it hurts.

• 26:52Kylie Low?

  Nina has endured all kinds of treatment and judgment by those who cannot possibly know what it's like to walk through any parent's worst nightmare.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  And then people talk about what kind of mom I am. You moved out of state and you don't even have a son. You know, I had to move to get sanity for me and my other kids. But I still look for my son. I'm still in Boston. I go to Boston twice a year. I go the day he went missing and I go for his birthday. Like I said, I stay in contact with the detective. The detective that's on his case now, he's amazing. He's like the best. He calls me, he texts me, he makes sure I'm okay. So it's not easy, it's hard. And people think it's easy and be like, oh, she went all her life. She just got married, you know, she just had a, she got pregnant.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  And it's not easy. It's, you know, I'm sitting here with a new husband. We did get pregnant, but we didn't have the baby. But it was hard. And I think because of me stressing out, being pregnant all over again, and not having Chris here was stressing me out a lot. We put off on the wedding for a while because I didn't want to get married without Chris being here. So it's a lot of stuff that goes on that people don't see. And all they see is the front part of me. They don't see what's happening behind the closed doors.

• 28:24Kylie Low?

  After nearly 10 years, not knowing what happened to her firstborn son, still weighs just as heavy as the very first night without him. Nina and Christopher's entire family deserve answers. It's time for Christopher to come home. If you have any information about the disappearance of Christopher Brian Lewis, please contact the Boston Police Department at 617-343-4687.

• 28:56Kylie Low?

  You can find pictures of Christopher Brian Lewis and missing posters at darkdowneast.com.

• 29:12Kylie Low?

  Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Dark Down East. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Low, and this is Dark Down East.

• 29:44Kylie Low?

  Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

• 29:54Kylie Low?

  In New England, investigations can shift with the tide. And my friend Delia Diambra, host of Park Predators, knows just how the landscape can shape a case. From beaches to national parks around the world, Delia investigates true crime cases as compelling as the places where they occurred. Through her signature boots-on-the-ground reporting, she goes beyond the headlines and speaks directly with those closest to the case. If you're ready to follow the evidence beyond the trail, listen to Park Predators every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.