CROSS PLAINS, Tenn. (WKRN) — Almost 19 years have passed since then 21-year-old Jennifer Wix and her 2-year-old daughter, Adrianna, disappeared in Cross Plains, and after nearly two decades with no answers, a new detective has taken over the case.

Jennifer and Adrianna’s family has waited for nearly two decades for movement in the case, which has remained stagnant until now.

“I would say over the past 15 years, they kind of worked it passively, so to have this active investigation, it almost feels like it did in the beginning where there are people looking at our case file every day,” Casey Robinson, Jennifer’s sister and Adrianna’s aunt, said.

Jennifer and Adrianna were last seen on March 25, 2004, at a gas station in Cross Plains.

Jennifer’s boyfriend at the time, Joey Benton, told police he dropped them off at the gas station and watched them leave in a white car. The next day, Benton said Jennifer came to his house in the same white car without Adrianna.

Police have never been able to confirm his story. Benton remains a person of interest, and the case is considered a homicide.

“You feel kind of helpless,” Robinson said. “Especially 19 years gone by, I never want to say you lose hope, but the less and less leads that come in, it kind of leads us in the direction of they’re no longer with us.”

Robinson and Kathy Nale, Jennifer’s mother and Adrianna’s grandmother, met with the new detective on the case last week. They learned he has decades of experience with the Robertson County Sheriff’s Department and has solved a different cold case before.

Robinson told News 2 the investigators were excited about new movement in the case.

“After 19 years as a mother, you lose a little bit of faith in not just the people who are working on it for you, but the faith and the hope that you will ever get answers, so for (my mother) to sit beside me the other day and see the spark and their eyes light up like that, that was huge,” Robinson said.

Although Robinson and Nale want the person or people responsible for Jennifer and Adrianna’s disappearance brought to justice, they won’t rest until they are able to bring their family members home.

“Even if we were to find Jennifer and Adrianna, be able to lay them to rest and we never found out who did it, that’s all my mom wants. That’s all that we want,” Robinson said.

There is a $25,000 reward for information in the case. If you know anything, call the Robertson County Sheriff’s Department at 615-384-7981, or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND. 

Callers can stay anonymous and could qualify for the $25,000 reward.