Rochester, New York mother pleads for answers in 2022 disappearance of 27-year-old Tommy Williams

Joyce Williams implored the Rochester, New York community, “Open your mouth.” “It could be one of your loved ones.”

Joyce’s son Tommy Williams, 27, has been missing for a year. He was last seen on February 2, 2022 in Rochester, New York.

“Tommy’s never coming home,” Joyce said. “Something is wrong.”

Joyce told Dateline that she raised her three children in Rochester. Tommy is her middle child and was living with Joyce at the time of her disappearance. “My children are very close to me,” Joyce said. “We are very close.”

“You know, if he had his last dollar and you asked for it — he’d give it to you,” Joyce said of his son. “He was always smiling.”

Joyce told Dateline that she last spoke to her son on February 2, 2022. She said she saw him in the morning before going to work. “I was getting ready for work and he sat on my bed and he said, ‘Mom, give me a hug and a kiss because you never know – I might disappear,'” Joyce recalled. “I looked at him and said, ‘Tommy,’ and he put his hands up and half-smiled at me.”

Joyce told Datelin that she thought nothing of it at the time. “I didn’t know it was the last time I’d see him,” she said. “If I could go back in time, ‘What’s going on?’ I would say. You know, because he had to have something to say that.”

Joyce told Dateline she was working during rush hour, so she didn’t notice Tommy was missing until the next day. “I worked a job, went to the grocery store, dropped off groceries, then went back to my night job, then back to my day job,” Joyce told Dateline. “And then he came home and found out he never went home.”

According to Joyce, she and Tommy were in regular contact. “Tommy would never come home without calling me and saying, ‘Mom, I’m fine.’ I’m not coming home tonight,” said Joyce. She rejected the call and immediately reported her son missing.

Rochester Police Lt. Greg Bello told Dateline in an email that Tommy was last seen on Feb. 2, 2022, and his mother went missing the next day.

“We last caught him on camera at the corner of Garson Avenue and Chamberlain Street,” Bello wrote in Rochester. “He was seen talking to someone he knew about extra work. It was common for Mr. Williams to do extra work like raking leaves and shoveling driveways.” According to Lt. Bello, the person Tommy spoke with is not considered to be someone who has no interest in his disappearance.

Tommy doesn’t even have a phone. Lt. Bello said he was last pinged where Tommy was caught on camera.

Investigators searched Rochester’s Northeast Quadrant with “cadaver dogs in Tryon Park and drones along the Genesee River,” exhausting “every lead, including all the digital evidence we could get hold of,” the lieutenant said.

Lt. Bello told Dateline that foul play is not currently suspected in Tommy’s disappearance.

Tommy’s mother, Joyce, believes it should be.

He told Dateline that during his investigation, he learned that Tommy had been involved in a heated argument in the weeks prior to his disappearance. “Some guys threatened him – came to my house and threatened him, and I didn’t know about it until it happened,” Joyce said. “I asked my neighbor and he said, ‘Yeah, he saw Tommy outside and ‘he was really upset’ and said there were these guys in there.” According to a neighbor, Joyce said the boys left while Tommy stayed at her house.

Lt. Bello told Dateline that investigators have reviewed the evidence. “We’ve eliminated all those opportunities,” he said, adding that nothing came of it.

Joyce told Dateline that she will never stop looking for answers to her son’s disappearance. “I miss him so much,” Joyce said. “It was my little dining partner. [We] watched TV together. I miss her smile.”

Joyce said she knew she would never see that smile again. “I know he wouldn’t have lived because Tommy would have come home,” she said. “He never came home.”

Tommy is 5’9”, 180 pounds, has a tattoo near his right eye, and other tattoos. He was last seen wearing ripped gray jeans and a blue and red shirt.

“You know, he’s a son, he’s a brother, he’s a cousin, he’s a nephew,” Joyce said, imploring the crowd to come forward. “Open your mouth, it could be one of your loved ones.”

Anyone with information about Tommy’s disappearance is asked to call the Rochester Police Department at 585-428-6720.