Cameron Punjani never had any particular interest in listening to true crime podcasts or watching true crime documentaries, much less scrolling through #truecrime social media posts. But a little over a year ago her own father disappeared and, disappointed with what she saw as police's lax attitude toward the case, she took to TikTok to try to stop her dad's story from being forgotten.
"I'm just not OK with not having the answers," Cameron says. "I'm not going to be like, 'Oh, yeah, my dad went missing, I guess there's just nothing I can do about it.'"
By day Cameron, 22, works at a dispensary in Festus. But her videos are increasingly finding a big audience, with the more recent ones regularly garnering views in the tens of thousands. They’re also leading to tips that she hopes could provide a big break in the ongoing missing-person case — and stirring up a host of amateur sleuths eager to help in her quest.
January 14, 2022, started out as usual for Cameron's dad, 50-year-old Naushad Punjani. He left his home in De Soto and drove to St. Louis, where he clocked in at his job at a plastics manufacturer in north city. But he never came home. His family reported him missing soon thereafter.
Cameron says her frustrations with law enforcement began almost right away. A Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy came to her house to interview her, but she says she later found out that the report was never taken to a detective.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department disputes that. Grant Bissel with the sheriff's department says that the case was assigned to a detective on January 20, six days after Naushad's disappearance.
"We've had someone on it since days after his disappearance was reported," Bissel says.
On the night of January 15, Cameron says that someone crashed her dad's car in the Mark Twain neighborhood of St. Louis. The car crash occurred less than two miles from Serioplast, the plastics manufacturer where Naushad worked.
Months later, Cameron says, police interviewed the woman who had been behind the wheel of Naushad's car, who said that she'd gotten the car from her cousin. But the police couldn't talk to her cousin because he had been killed in March.
That story sounded a little too convenient to Cameron.
Another potential lead that Cameron feels wasn't followed up on quickly enough was that not long after her dad disappeared, she started getting requests for money via Venmo from someone who had Naushad's phone.
Bissel says that "pages and pages and pages of reports" have been compiled by a detective, with additions to the case file as recently as last month. He adds that the detective has been doing investigative work in north county and north St. Louis city, areas outside of where Jefferson County Sheriff's Office personnel would typically operate.
Cameron made a TikTok about the case in January 2022 when her dad first went missing. But by October she'd grown frustrated with the lack of updates coming from police, so she started making more short videos.
Cameron says that she's motivated by the fact that her dad was in a place where voluntarily ditching the life he'd built for himself just doesn't make any sense.@cameron.punjani #greenscreen She also said my dad is skinnier now (which I expected). Its crazy how every time I called Illinois about my dads case they made it seem like I was wasting their time or made me feel stupid. I’m really hoping this is him and that we can bring him home. Please keep sharing! #fyp #fypシ #missingperson #stl #stlmo #missing #truecrimetiktok #truecrime #stlouis #crimetok #crimetiktok #stlouismo #fypage #FindNaushadPunjani #GraniteCity #Illinois #GraniteCityIL ♬ original sound - Cam
Naushad had previously been in debt but after a year of working at Serioplast he was back on firm financial footing. Cameron says her dad was also excited about becoming a grandfather and about Cameron's younger brother starting college.
"He had a lot that he was looking forward to," Cameron says.
She's keeping an open mind about what happened to her dad and is trying not to jump to conclusions.
"The possibilities are honestly endless," she says. "He could very much be alive or he could have died a year ago and I have no idea where his body is."
As Cameron's audience has grown, so have the tips that her videos generate.
Last week, in a video that has almost 400,000 views, Cameron announced that she got a tip that her dad had been seen at a convenience store in Granite City. Cameron and a friend took it upon themselves to investigate.
Employees at the convenience store didn't recognize Naushad's photo, but when Cameron stopped in a bar two doors down, a server there said she'd seen Naushad just a day prior in the bar drinking coffee.
However, when Cameron managed to get a photo of the person who might be her dad, she said that the hair and jawline didn't match. Undeterred, she updated her followers about the lead that didn't pan out.
In her most recent video, posted Sunday, Cameron reports that she got a tip from someone who saw one of her videos who thinks she might have seen Naushad in south St. Louis County, specifically on Butler Hill Road near the intersection of Lemay Ferry. That video has now been viewed more than 60,000 times.
"Just an exit up from my house," wrote one viewer in the comments. "I will keep an eye out!"
This story has been updated with information from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.
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