Made a connection

I’ve always considered getting my hair dyed to be an unpleasant experience, not much better than going to the dentist. It takes about two hours, is slightly painful, costs a fortune and is sensory overstimulating to me. But I bit the bullet and went to get it done today for the first time since January.

The hairstylist and I did the usual chatting and, inevitably, I told her a little about the Charley Project. And she told me her story: her cousin has been missing from Chicago for five years, the family has no idea what happened to her, and the police don’t seem to know anything, or care. She told me her cousin’s name and I don’t have her on Charley; in fact I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of her.

I gave her my card. I might be able to help her, beyond just putting the cousin’s name and face on the internet. Maybe get her put into NamUs too.

MP of the week: Marcie Peterson

Marcie Tokeysha Peterson is this week’s featured missing person. She was 28 when she disappeared from Marietta, Georgia the day before Halloween in 2003. She has at least three tattoos, two of which are of Chinese symbols.

Marcie had run into some personal setbacks and was having (shall we say) some difficulties with several different people prior to her disappearance, and she’d been threatened. In spite of this, however, her sister said she didn’t seem concerned about anything and was trying to put her life back together. It’s possible she traveled to New York after she went missing, but police believe it’s more likely that she came to harm.

I don’t have much on her and as far as I know, no one has been named as a suspect in her case. Essence Magazine, a monthly publication for African-American women, featured Marcie’s case along with several other missing black women about four or five ten years ago, but I can’t find the article now.