Toya departed from her family's residence at the Perkins Homes, a public housing project in the 200 block of South Spring Street in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 24, 1982. She was going to walk to a grocery store two blocks away. Near the store, she stopped to talk to her mother's ex-boyfriend and one of his friends. She has been heard from again.

Toya was in the third grade at City Springs Elementary School in 1982. She lived with her mother, her two brothers and her sister. She was supposed to be the flower girl at her mother's wedding ceremony three days after she disappeared. Her mother, Annette Stanley, initially believed her ex-boyfriend had taken Toya in order to convince Stanley to start seeing him again. She repeatedly asked him about Toya, but he said he didn't have her and didn't know what had happened to her. Stanley said she went ahead with her wedding on schedule because she thought this would encourage her ex-boyfriend to give Toya back. After that marriage ended, she renewed her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and married him. She said she did this because she still believed he knew where Toya was. Stanley left the man again after only a few months. He is now deceased.

Stanley is still alive and still lives in the area, and hopes that her daughter may yet be found. Little information is available in Toya's case, but foul play is suspected.