This week’s featured missing person is Donald Lamond Hicks, a 33-year-old black man who disappeared from Hazelwood, Missouri on April 2, 2011.
He was last seen leaving a bar. Never made it home apparently, and wasn’t carrying his phone. His car turned up abandoned on a local interstate exit. I don’t know what condition it was in, if it was in running order or what.
He’s got some tattoos and two gold teeth. Nothing else remarkable about his appearance. If still alive he’d be 42 later this month.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Irwin Yafeth Stewart, a one-and-a-half-year-old boy who was abducted by his non-custodial mother, Elvia Bravo Ibarra, from Houston, Texas on November 30, 2002. Irwin is biracial; his mother is Hispanic and his father is black.
Elvia and Irwin may still be in the Houston area, or they may have gone to Mexico. Iwin would be 17 years old today.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Nicole Sherese Cearo, a 20-year-old pregnant woman who disappeared from Seattle, Washington on March 30, 2009.
Nicole’s disappearance was the subject of excellent, in-depth coverage by the podcast Under the Redline, and various people close to the case were interviewed. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, the Under the Redline podcast is no longer extant. (Which is a shame; it was really good.) But I was able to get most of their information onto Nicole’s page.
This is one of those cases where it is manifestly obvious what happened, and well-known in the community, it’s just that the police don’t think they have enough evidence to prosecute the suspect. I am sorry for it; Nicole deserves justice.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is fourteen-year-old Justin Emile Cosey, who disappeared from New Orleans, Louisiana on July 12, 2002.
Justin is not listed with the NCMEC for some reason, only NamUs and the Louisiana database. He is, however, mentioned in passing in the book Tales of Two Cities: How Race and Crime Intersect on Local TV News: In New Orleans and Indianapolis. (I haven’t read it, but came across the snippet about Justin a Google Books preview.)
I don’t know enough about the case to guess as to why Justin disappeared, but it’s been sixteen, going on seventeen years since anyone’s heard from him. If he is still alive he’d be 31 today.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is actually three rolled into one: sisters Monique Rae Smith, one month old, and Sidney Keara Smith, one year old, and their mother, eighteen-year-old Jennifer Dawn Lancaster. They all disappeared together from Topeka, Kansas on May 12, 2000. The children are biracial, black and white, and their mother is white.
The family’s car was found at an apartment complex a week later, and that doesn’t look good to me at all. However, I have been able to find very little information on this case, no articles, nothing.
If Sidney and Monique are still alive, they’d be 19 and 18. Jennifer would be 37.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Lakerian Demell Thomas-Peters, a 22-year-old man who disappeared from Pensacola, Florida on May 30, 2016.
Lakerian worked for a distribution company while he hoped to gain a footing in the rap music industry, but he lost his job and was depressed afterwards. I don’t know if he was depressed enough to walk away forever, or to take his own life, though. He had asked to borrow his mom’s car the day she disappeared (I think his own car was out of gas or something) and she said no, so he left on foot.
I think if he is dead and still in the local area, he hasn’t been found yet. He’s got very distinctive tattoos that would help identify his body if he was located. I hope he’s still alive. If he is, he’d be 25 today.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Sheryia Ronsha Grant, a twenty-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from Kilgore, Texas on August 19, 2016.
The police seem to think they know what happened: three suspects, one of them a juvenile, have been charged with evidence tampering in Grant’s case. The evidence they allegedly tampered with was a corpse. You can draw the lines from there.
According to her family, one of the suspects is Grant’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her unborn baby, whom Grant planned to name I’yanna Ree. No trials have happened as of yet, however, and Grant’s disappearance remains unsolved.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Stevey Howard Sommerville, a fourteen-year-old boy who disappeared from Brooklyn, New York on September 6, 1990.
He is classified as a runaway, and uses a string of aliases, all close to his original name. Unfortunately I don’t know anything else about this case.
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Consuella LeShaun Cash, a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Los Angeles, California on January 3, 1975.
She’s “missing under suspicious circumstances and may have been the victim of a homicide” but unfortunately I know nothing else about this case, whether it was an abduction, if there was family involvement, nothing. I’ve tried searching in news archives for her name under various spellings but turned up doodly squat.
Consuella must have had a family, someone who loved her, someone who helped put those ribbons in her hair. Someone who missed her. Are any of them still alive today and looking for her?
In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Tristan Markey Rivera, a 21-year-old man who disappeared from Irving, Texas on August 5, 2007. He is biracial (black/white) and mentally disabled.
He was last seen in the Trinity River floodwaters and is presumed drowned.
The Charley Project Blog 