Another ET entry, out of Africa

I’ve got another Executed Today entry running today: Youssouf Ali. the first (of two) to be executed in the African island nation of Comoros. Ali had murdered a pregnant woman and was shot on this day 21 years ago.

Thinking aloud in today’s updates

1. This may be setting some kind of record in how many murder-without-a-body cases were included in a single day’s update: there are seven here (or five if you want to get picky). I’ve got John Charles Cizek, Marcia Ann Forsberg, Hoggle siblings Jacob and Sarah, Donna Mae Jokumsen, and Lyon sisters Katherine and Sheila.
2. The info I added to Marcia Forsberg’s page came from one of those “keep in touch with your high school class” type sites. In her profile on the page, Marcia talks about how happy she is in her marriage to her husband, described as her “soul mate and best friend” and “the love of my life.” Little knowing that the love of her life would, by his own admission, kill and dismember her a couple of years later. That’s hella depressing to read.
3. Why is the NCMEC using Photograph 1 of Cynthia Bravo on their poster for her when Photograph 2 (via CDOJ) is so much better quality?
4. I wonder if it’s significant that Cynthia disappeared just before her birthday. In Hispanic communities there’s something called the quinceanera or the fiesta de quince años, where there’s a massive party on a girl’s fifteenth birthday and she dresses up in a fancy formal dress, something like a prom dress or a wedding dress; it’s a rite of passage celebrating the girl’s transition from childhood to womanhood. Cynthia is Hispanic and vanished just one day before she would have turned fifteen. Just a thought.
5. Another question/thought about Cynthia: who the heck runs away with no shoes on?