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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four, when I decided to reopen the cases,
Speaker 2: I was really concerned because in talking to some other
Speaker 2: detectives that other people around they were under the impression
Speaker 2: that the cases were closed.
Speaker 3: And I knew better.
Speaker 2: I knew that, you know, there had been a massive
Speaker 2: investigation of the being Vega guys, but the evidence eventually
Speaker 2: showed that that was a farce, that they didn't have
Speaker 2: anything to do with it. So I decided I was
Speaker 2: going to take up the banner of these cases because
Speaker 2: they should have been close. There wasn't a real emotional
Speaker 2: toll on me when I went to homicide. My primary
Speaker 2: reason for going to homicide was to handle all the
Speaker 2: instant deaths, the child's deaths in the city, the abortion cases,
Speaker 2: and so seeing young people dead, you don't ever get
Speaker 2: used to it, but you know that's part of your job,
Speaker 2: and once you break down and cry and so forth,
Speaker 2: then you're not serving the public because your personal feelings
Speaker 2: get in the way of what you're.
Speaker 3: Trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2: You know, after you work so hard on the case
Speaker 2: and you talk to so many people, you kind of
Speaker 2: get a feeling of what types of young ladies they were,
Speaker 2: and the fact that the youngest woman was ten years
Speaker 2: of age. You know, you can imagine how they felt
Speaker 2: that somebody had abducted them off the street and there was.
Speaker 3: Nobody to stop it.
Speaker 2: And then the abduction site were heavily populated places, but.
Speaker 3: Nobody saw anything, and it's just so hard to believe.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I felt that, hey, if I
Speaker 2: can bring resolution to these cases, I will do it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try my best to do it. But
Speaker 2: I'm also going to try to make sure should I
Speaker 2: not be able to get a resolution in these cases,
Speaker 2: then I'm going to see that everything that was humanly
Speaker 2: possible is done to solve these cases. I felt I
Speaker 2: owe that to the family and owe that to the girl.
Speaker 4: The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl cases.
Speaker 2: This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't go no way, I wouldn't talk about house.
Speaker 3: Those first five murderers should have been a huge warning
Speaker 3: belt for the police.
Speaker 6: We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 3: Person must have saw that.
Speaker 2: They were thinking that maybe it's just one person, and
Speaker 2: he says, oh, they need to know.
Speaker 1: This is me.
Speaker 4: I thought that they would catch him.
Speaker 5: I thought it was just a matter of time.
Speaker 6: I'm Celeste Headley, and this is freeway Phantom. The murders
Speaker 6: of eight young black girls, six of whom were confirmed
Speaker 6: Freeway Phantom victims, were undeniably tragic, but their cases were
Speaker 6: just the beginning. In the decades since their murder, the
Speaker 6: plight of missing and murdered black girls in DC has
Speaker 6: only intensified. Today, it just looks a little different, but
Speaker 6: the issue of these cases not getting the proper media
Speaker 6: coverage or police attention they deserve is still too prominent.
Speaker 5: Each year, they are over six hundred thousand people reported
Speaker 5: missing in the United States, and close to forty percent
Speaker 5: of persons of color, and that numbers about two hundred
Speaker 5: and seventy thousand a year that's reported missing. There's so
Speaker 5: many more individuals that are not reported missing to law enforcement,
Speaker 5: where they're not added to the national crime database. These
Speaker 5: families are not speaking up, so we believe that the
Speaker 5: numbers are much larger.
Speaker 6: This is Natalie Wilson, one of the co founders of
Speaker 6: the Black and Missing Foundation.
Speaker 5: The inspiration behind the Black and Missing Foundation is that
Speaker 5: in two thousand and four, Tamka Houston vanished from Spartanburg,
Speaker 5: South Carolina, and that's the hometown of my sister in law, Derko,
Speaker 5: and we learn how her family struggled to get media coverage,
Speaker 5: particularly national media coverage around her disappearance. So Derek and
Speaker 5: I decided to do some research. We weren't sure if
Speaker 5: this was an issue affecting the minority community, particularly the
Speaker 5: Africa American community, and most aren't young, attractive white women.
Speaker 5: In fact, most were persons of color, particularly black African Americans,
Speaker 5: and they made up thirty percent of all persons missing
Speaker 5: and attracted almost no media coverage at all, especially nationally.
Speaker 5: So you know, it weighed really heavy on our hearts,
Speaker 5: and Dereka and I decided why not us, why don't
Speaker 5: we do something about it because I'm in public relations
Speaker 5: or media relations and Dereka's in law enforcement, and those
Speaker 5: are the two critical professions needed to bring awareness to
Speaker 5: our missing and that's how the organization, the Black and
Speaker 5: Missing Foundation was created. We said, you know, if we
Speaker 5: can just bring one person home or provide closure for
Speaker 5: one family, we have done our job. And now we're
Speaker 5: motivated to keep going because forty percent of all persons
Speaker 5: missing are of color, and these families rely on us.
Speaker 5: We are their last resort. By the time they get
Speaker 5: to us, they're desperate, they don't know what to do,
Speaker 5: and many times they're not getting the assistance from law
Speaker 5: enforcement or the media to help find their missing loved one.
Speaker 6: Natalie says one of their core objectives is getting the
Speaker 6: media involved. Whenever there's a new missing person's case.
Speaker 5: Media coverage is very important, especially intense early media coverage.
Speaker 5: It ensures that the community is looking for that missing
Speaker 5: individual and it increases the chance of a recovery. And
Speaker 5: for us throughout the years, because we started this organization
Speaker 5: in two thousand and eight, I've been able to build
Speaker 5: media partnerships with black Press so that again they're using
Speaker 5: their platforms with millions or hundreds of thousands of followers
Speaker 5: to help us get the word out about a missing individual.
Speaker 5: So it's vital and we believe that media coverage should
Speaker 5: be equal across the board.
Speaker 6: We asked Natalie why historically the media is so hesitant
Speaker 6: to report on these cases.
Speaker 5: Well, there are a number of reasons for the lack
Speaker 5: of media coverage. One is we're realizing that when a
Speaker 5: child is reported missing oftentime, law enforcement they classify the
Speaker 5: child as a runaway, so they do not receive any
Speaker 5: type of media coverage or especially the Amber alert at all,
Speaker 5: and that is not necessarily the case. We have so
Speaker 5: many cases of missing children where law enforcement classified them
Speaker 5: as a runaway and they did not leave voluntarily. So
Speaker 5: we need to stay away from that phrase as runaway
Speaker 5: because ultimately, even if the child left home voluntarily, what
Speaker 5: are they leaving from and ultimately what are they running too.
Speaker 5: We know that children who leave home voluntarily, they're on
Speaker 5: the streets within twenty four to forty eight hours. Their
Speaker 5: proposition for sex because they have to find a way
Speaker 5: to survive, and they have to find a way for
Speaker 5: you know, housing, food security, and these predators, you know,
Speaker 5: they get them into a lifestyle that they cannot get
Speaker 5: out of us. We also need to change the narrative
Speaker 5: that missing black and brown individuals are most likely involved
Speaker 5: with some type of criminal activity and they're represented as
Speaker 5: such in the news cycle. You know, we have to
Speaker 5: realize that these missing individuals, they have names, and they
Speaker 5: are an important part of our society, our community. Their mothers,
Speaker 5: their fathers, their sisters. There's brothers, aunts, uncles, their grandparents,
Speaker 5: and we need to make sure that we represent them
Speaker 5: in the best light.
Speaker 6: Natalie says the issue has become much more complex than
Speaker 6: it was during the time of the Freeway Phantom, but
Speaker 6: she says there are things we can do now.
Speaker 5: You know, many of our cases, it highlights the significant
Speaker 5: racial injustices, you know, not just in policing but media.
Speaker 3: So we need.
Speaker 5: To make sure that we vote and that there are
Speaker 5: laws to protect our children. You know, Marylyn has a
Speaker 5: safe harbor law where if an underage child has been
Speaker 5: arrested for prostitution, that they are not thrown into jail.
Speaker 5: They are then taken to a safe house where they're
Speaker 5: given the resources to be rehabilitated. So we need to
Speaker 5: see laws like this that protects our community. And there
Speaker 5: also needs to be laws where there's a sense of
Speaker 5: urgency and a sense of fairness when a person is
Speaker 5: reported missing. So again there's a loophole with the Amber Alert.
Speaker 5: So if you're classified as a runaway, you do not
Speaker 5: receive the Amber Alert or any type of media coverage.
Speaker 5: How do we close that gap? We need to really
Speaker 5: take a look at it to ensure that the individual
Speaker 5: who did not voluntarily leave home gets the right classification
Speaker 5: when they're reported missing.
Speaker 6: Natalie told us about one case that highlights the problems
Speaker 6: evident in the current system. It was a story of
Speaker 6: a girl named Relisha Rudd who went missing in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 5: She and her family were evicted from their apartment in
Speaker 5: Das and they moved to the DC General Homeless Shelter
Speaker 5: and Relicia was one of six hundred children living at
Speaker 5: the shelter. And we became involved with relicious case as
Speaker 5: one of our then board members and she was Assistant
Speaker 5: Chief of Police. Diane Grooms shared the news release issued
Speaker 5: by MPD on March to twentieth about relicious disappearance.
Speaker 6: Flicia was last spotted on a hotel security camera, accompanied
Speaker 6: by a man named Khalil Tatum, a friend of Relicia's mother.
Speaker 6: A few weeks later, Tatum's wife was found shot dead
Speaker 6: in a hotel, and after that, Tatum's body was found
Speaker 6: in a shed, dead from an apparent suicide. Relicia was
Speaker 6: never found.
Speaker 5: We were very alarmed, but we were very determined to
Speaker 5: find Relicia. And there are so many unanswered questions about
Speaker 5: this case, and the most disheartening is that no one
Speaker 5: was really keeping up with Relicious whereabouts, you know, not
Speaker 5: her family, not the shelter, not the school. So there
Speaker 5: is enough blame to go around for everyone. And we
Speaker 5: believe that, you know, African American and Hispanic children, they
Speaker 5: deserve the same innocence as other children. So it's definitely
Speaker 5: a case that weighs heavy on our hearts. And when
Speaker 5: someone finds out that I'm, you know, one of the
Speaker 5: co founders of the Black Missing Foundation in the DC area,
Speaker 5: the first case they always ask us about is Relicious.
Speaker 5: What happened to her? We believe that she was a
Speaker 5: victim of sex trafficking and the janitor whom her mother
Speaker 5: gave supervision over her was grooming her for sex trafficking.
Speaker 5: It's just so heartbreaking, but we will never stop searching
Speaker 5: for Militia. Behold on to hope that she's alive and
Speaker 5: that she can be reunited. So much love in the
Speaker 5: DC area for her.
Speaker 6: One of the people working in the Relasia Rudd case
Speaker 6: all these years is Henderson Long, who he met last episode.
Speaker 6: Henderson is the CEO of DC's Missing Voice. He essentially
Speaker 6: acts as a go between for d c's Metropolitan Police
Speaker 6: and the black community. Henderson says that in many cases
Speaker 6: of missing and murdered children, someone in the community knows something,
Speaker 6: So you have to get out there and talk to folks.
Speaker 7: Tian Jones, you know, and I know y'all know about
Speaker 7: that homicide.
Speaker 6: And from Saturday, Henderson invited us to one outreach event
Speaker 6: at a seven to eleven in southeast d C. He
Speaker 6: was there handing out flyers with missing persons information about
Speaker 6: Relasia Rudd.
Speaker 7: The goal of to day is to create greater awareness about,
Speaker 7: you know, the tragic circumstances of all our children in
Speaker 7: the District of Columbia.
Speaker 8: Militia Rudd.
Speaker 7: Her day being a platform, I was going to read
Speaker 7: the proclamation and show you the proclamations, the Mayas sign
Speaker 7: regarding Militia Rudd Day.
Speaker 6: Like the Freeway Phantom Victims Relicious case, did not receive
Speaker 6: sufficient media coverage. For the first three weeks that she
Speaker 6: was missing, there was no mainstream media outlet covering the
Speaker 6: story at all. This was also due to the fact
Speaker 6: that no one, including police, considered her a missing person.
Speaker 6: But after she was officially reported missing, people like Henderson
Speaker 6: Long were able to get the media involved.
Speaker 8: Well, y'all on July eleven. That was the big media pushing.
Speaker 8: You know, everybody's not on social media.
Speaker 7: So my goal was to take Milicia Rudd's plight and
Speaker 7: all the plight of all our children and missing persons
Speaker 7: to the street because you never know what you're gonna
Speaker 7: run into. We may run into some information that's usual
Speaker 7: to help us close the case and bring some closures
Speaker 7: to some families and make the district a little safer,
Speaker 7: you know, it's our cart.
Speaker 8: I approach this work with the.
Speaker 7: Understanding that the police can't do it alone, that we
Speaker 7: both need each other and in the community is a
Speaker 7: tremendous asset to the police department when they can get
Speaker 7: these tips in. I heard Chief Conti yesterday begging people
Speaker 7: to call me. I'm send the rest in pieces up,
Speaker 7: but I need phone calls.
Speaker 8: I need people to call in and give me some tips.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 7: I appreciate the flowers, the cars, this that and the other,
Speaker 7: but we need calls. We need people to call in.
Speaker 7: We need information in the community. They know who's committing
Speaker 7: these crimes. These crimes, anything that involve criminal malice, they
Speaker 7: know who's doing and we need the police to handle
Speaker 7: that type of stuff. When it's not anything a criminal nature,
Speaker 7: you need them.
Speaker 8: To be involved.
Speaker 6: Henderson says, there are certain valuable pieces of info you
Speaker 6: need when investigating one of these cases. You need an
Speaker 6: up to date photo, a complete physical description, and if possible, fingerprints.
Speaker 7: Fingerprints is heavy in terms of identification union positivity. I
Speaker 7: d somebody who it is, because sometimes you'll find someone,
Speaker 7: you'll locate someone, somebody will come upon them. They may
Speaker 7: be incapacitated, they may even be deceased. We can roll
Speaker 7: those fingerprints and if they had any pride, run INDs.
Speaker 7: You know, y'all know the deal, You pull them right up.
Speaker 7: So fingerprints are invaluable.
Speaker 6: Henderson says the biggest goal of these outreach events is
Speaker 6: to build relationships between the community and the police. That's
Speaker 6: why there were a handful of officers there unarmed, handing
Speaker 6: out flyers.
Speaker 7: We try to educate people on what MPD within their
Speaker 7: general orders, what kind of what they expect, because some
Speaker 7: people come to the thing with the wrong expectation. So
Speaker 7: we get out into the elementary schools, we get out
Speaker 7: into the daycare centers, we fingerprint children, We educate the
Speaker 7: parents on what to do.
Speaker 8: A lot of parents don't know to.
Speaker 7: Call the police, and then you know, you got the
Speaker 7: street code out there too, don't deal with the police.
Speaker 7: So we try to deal with some of that by
Speaker 7: fostering relationship with the police, showing people that hey, look
Speaker 7: the police are not all what you think it is.
Speaker 8: Ninety eight percent of them are good people do down here.
Speaker 8: They trying to do their job.
Speaker 6: So Henderson says, the case of Relasia Rudd is a
Speaker 6: prime example of what can happen when communities like this
Speaker 6: remain relatively closed off. Over the last nine years, there's
Speaker 6: been a little movement on the case, but Henderson is
Speaker 6: convinced someone knows something. By reminding people about Relitia, he
Speaker 6: says he's hoping to prevent cases like hers in the future.
Speaker 7: This is an age regression photo of what Relitia Rudd
Speaker 7: would look like today.
Speaker 8: That's her age regression photo is what they think she
Speaker 8: would look like. I think at age fifteen.
Speaker 7: And as I said when I talked to the media,
Speaker 7: a murder, suicide, and deception attached to a child, eight
Speaker 7: year old child name, that's totally unacceptable. Murder, lies, and suicide.
Speaker 7: That's the worst you can get for child seven. Relasia
Speaker 7: Rudd that totally dependent on us, to totally dependent on
Speaker 7: people around her.
Speaker 8: You know, kids are totally dependent on us. They have
Speaker 8: no other choice but to trust the people that they're
Speaker 8: under their care.
Speaker 6: One of the people we met at the outreach event
Speaker 6: for Relasia Rudd was MPD Commander Pamela Wheeler Taylor. She
Speaker 6: was there helping Handerson handout flyers and after the event
Speaker 6: we had a number of questions about how her unit
Speaker 6: investigates these types of cases. Commander Wheeler Taylor agreed to
Speaker 6: sit down with us. Hello everyone, I am Commander Pamela
Speaker 6: Wheeler Taylor of the DC Metropolitan Police Department. I'm the
Speaker 6: commander of the Youth and Family Services Division. I've been
Speaker 6: a member of the Metropolitan Police Department for approximately thirty
Speaker 6: one years, and my experience runs the gamut from patrol
Speaker 6: to internal affairs to human resources, and now, like I said,
Speaker 6: I actually happened to have been appointed to the rank
Speaker 6: of commander in January of twenty twenty one. So obviously
Speaker 6: the case that we're focusing on was fifty years ago,
Speaker 6: and we were surprised at how sort of blase law
Speaker 6: enforcement was when these children went missing. So I wondered,
Speaker 6: if you would first walk us through today what happens
Speaker 6: if I call you and say my child was supposed
Speaker 6: to be home at three, she's not home.
Speaker 9: What happens?
Speaker 8: Typically?
Speaker 9: What happens, and in cases such as that, the response
Speaker 9: of the very first responding officers of utmost importance. That's
Speaker 9: where you gather the most critical information. Things that are
Speaker 9: set and the heat of the moment are things that
Speaker 9: have to be memorialized because they could actually, you know,
Speaker 9: bring about successful closure at the end. Little things that
Speaker 9: you feel might not be important. Something as simple as
Speaker 9: my kids said they were going to visit their friend
Speaker 9: and I told them that they couldn't go, Or something
Speaker 9: as simple as maybe you've taken the kid to a
Speaker 9: location the kid may say, you know, you know, i'd
Speaker 9: awfully I want to visit that again. You may not
Speaker 9: think because it's in the back of your mind that
Speaker 9: you've never taken the kid to that place, or you're
Speaker 9: not going to take the kid again. But it's something
Speaker 9: you have to listen to. Things that are spontaneously uttered.
Speaker 9: You know they have a valuable evidence. At what point, then,
Speaker 9: do you know, does the case become more serious? At
Speaker 9: what point does does an.
Speaker 6: Officer feel that there is a need to that it's
Speaker 6: no longer to become aware. Could this kid have gone
Speaker 6: as opposed to maybe something untoward happened to this kid.
Speaker 9: Okay, so generally what happens And let me back up
Speaker 9: a bit and maybe just explain to you what a
Speaker 9: missing person definition is in the District of Columbia. Missing
Speaker 9: person is anyone adult or child that is missing from
Speaker 9: their lawful place of abode within the District of Columbia,
Speaker 9: and they they're missing as unusual, highly unusual, or for
Speaker 9: their patterns or things that they normally their routine, things
Speaker 9: of that nature. Or the missing person could be missing
Speaker 9: from another jurisdiction close to the district, but there's reasonably
Speaker 9: there's incredible knowledge that the individual was lasting in the
Speaker 9: District of Columbia. So again, the reporting person initial responder
Speaker 9: are critical and determining the soircumstances surrounding the missing person's disappearance.
Speaker 9: The first step again is to interview the reporting person.
Speaker 9: Try to gather as much information as you possibly can,
Speaker 9: as far as demographics available, friends, a clothing description. What
Speaker 9: is definitely invaluable to us is a recent photo. If
Speaker 9: you have a recent photo of the individual, it's very
Speaker 9: valuable in the issues of a missing person's flyer, which
Speaker 9: we distribute in every case. So, I mean, obviously you
Speaker 9: were not around in the nineteen sevent well, you were
Speaker 9: in a police officer and not a police officer, but
Speaker 9: your career spans three decades, yes it does. So this
Speaker 9: is another thing that keeps coming up to us is
Speaker 9: how differently, even based on our very small knowledge of
Speaker 9: police procedure, how differently cases were handled back then as
Speaker 9: to now. And I'm wondering if you could give us
Speaker 9: a kind of a concept of how not just technology
Speaker 9: but resources have changed even since when you first started, mean,
Speaker 9: how much better equipped our office to do this kind
Speaker 9: of work. Absolutely, absolutely, And just like in anything in life,
Speaker 9: of course, technology brings about improvements and things we have
Speaker 9: the ability to be able to now actually track cell phones.
Speaker 9: These cell phones are invaluable and you'll see that every
Speaker 9: juvenile has a cell phone in his or her hand.
Speaker 9: Once the missing person's detectives get on the scene, the
Speaker 9: first thing we are able to do is be able
Speaker 9: to track that cell phone. And like I said, how
Speaker 9: quickly can that very quickly? Very quickly. It's a matter
Speaker 9: of us forwarding an emergency disclosure request social media. Also,
Speaker 9: we can develop an IP address for where that phone
Speaker 9: is actually pinging that has proven invaluable or not. That's
Speaker 9: something that we definitely did not have. It gives us
Speaker 9: a leg up on a possible location of the individual
Speaker 9: if we're lucky enough to have a case where a
Speaker 9: cell phone is involved. So definitely technology, even with fingerprinting,
Speaker 9: even with you know, like I said, just being able
Speaker 9: to transmit a photo, transmit a photo through a cell phone.
Speaker 9: The expediency of the inform that we receive gives us
Speaker 9: a leg up on our search for the individual. And
Speaker 9: there's more cameras around, definitely CCTV cameras. Again, like I said,
Speaker 9: just social media in and of itself just invaluable. What
Speaker 9: about the importance of just community members who live in
Speaker 9: that neighborhood, who see these kids perhaps every day. How
Speaker 9: important are they in the whole investigation of a child's disappearance.
Speaker 9: Very valuable, And that's one of the first things. As
Speaker 9: the first responding unit, we go around and we call
Speaker 9: it door knocks, good old fashioned boots on the ground
Speaker 9: door knocks. You're knocking on neighbors doors, and a lot
Speaker 9: of times the neighbors have information, well, yes, I saw
Speaker 9: a little Johnny head that way, or yes, little Johnny
Speaker 9: hangs with my friend, you know, and they hang at
Speaker 9: the park up the street. The community is at the
Speaker 9: root of the missing person's investigations. Getting their collaboration and
Speaker 9: cooperation with us is invaluable. They are actually paramount insolving
Speaker 9: the cases, which requires that they trust the police. Trust
Speaker 9: is it absolutely is something that we cannot do our
Speaker 9: job without. You have to have to trust to the community.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think people maybe underestimate this particular piece
Speaker 9: because we were out getting gathering tape in a couple
Speaker 9: of neighborhoods yesterday and people had their eyes on us,
Speaker 9: like they were over a dozen people watching us. Especially Yeah,
Speaker 9: because people know what's specific to their area, to their neighborhood.
Speaker 9: And people are cultish of their neighborhood I know. So
Speaker 9: don't believe just because things are not said, don't believe
Speaker 9: that you're not viewed it. Like you said, a prime
Speaker 9: example is of them being aware of their surroundings in
Speaker 9: their neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: So when we're talking about the requiring the trust of
Speaker 6: communities and how important that can be in locating, especially
Speaker 6: a missing child, does that mean it's maybe harder right
Speaker 6: now when trust of the police is in many areas
Speaker 6: as at a low.
Speaker 9: You know, I have not found that to be a
Speaker 9: deterrent when you're talking about a missing kid. Folks have
Speaker 9: a tendency to be able to look on the other
Speaker 9: side of things. They'll see that we're there for the good.
Speaker 9: So I have not in my personal experience, have not
Speaker 9: and I've never heard of any of my officers complain
Speaker 9: about the neighborhood not talking to have a tendency. Again,
Speaker 9: I don't know whether it's part of the code, you know,
Speaker 9: but anytime a senior or a juvenile is involved, I
Speaker 9: have not experienced any type of not wanting to get
Speaker 9: involved in the process. And I'm sure you're aware, and
Speaker 9: we keep hearing it over and over this impression that
Speaker 9: black communities are a lower priority for law enforcement than
Speaker 9: white communities are. And so what is your response to, say,
Speaker 9: black residents who believe that their crises their children are
Speaker 9: of lower priority. I'd have to stand on the laurels
Speaker 9: of police Chief Robert J. Cont In that we investigate
Speaker 9: all of our cases the same. We have a standardized procedure.
Speaker 9: There's no one case that is given a higher priority
Speaker 9: than another case. Now in the media you may see
Speaker 9: that which we don't have control over, but we investigate
Speaker 9: every last one of our cases the same. No one
Speaker 9: case has any priority over the other. So I would
Speaker 9: consistently tell the residents. I would explain to them, being transparent,
Speaker 9: this is what we do in every case, and I
Speaker 9: would give him a highlight of each investigative step that
Speaker 9: we've taken. So what advice do you give to somebody.
Speaker 9: Let's say that my son is expected home at four
Speaker 9: pm and it's five point thirty and I'm worried, Yes,
Speaker 9: what recommendation do you have for me short of that
Speaker 9: given in the district of Columbia. And that's a common
Speaker 9: misperception as well, that you'll hear folks say, well, he
Speaker 9: has to be missing for twenty four hours or there's
Speaker 9: a certain time period. There is no time period for
Speaker 9: you to be able to report your loved one missing.
Speaker 9: It's based more on what is unusual for that person's situation.
Speaker 9: If your kid is missing fifteen minutes and you know
Speaker 9: that that's unusual for your kid, you immediately pick up
Speaker 9: the phone and call the police. What we're seeing now
Speaker 9: is that that gap in time from disappearance to reporting
Speaker 9: actually puts us behind, especially in cases of elderly folks
Speaker 9: and with juveniles maybe under the age of twelve, actually
Speaker 9: puts us behind. So there's no time limit. As soon
Speaker 9: as you feel that something is unusual about your kid's disappearance,
Speaker 9: call the police. Back at the outreach event for a
Speaker 9: relationsiou Rudd a prayer was delivered by Shantis Cotton.
Speaker 10: We all have a destiny, we all have a purpose,
Speaker 10: and you just have to let the Lord continue to
Speaker 10: work in you all of the gifts and talents that
Speaker 10: He's placed on the inside of you for his glory.
Speaker 10: That you can get anywhere, you can be anywhere, You
Speaker 10: can do anything that you have been allowed to do,
Speaker 10: because God has purpose and a reason for you to
Speaker 10: be on this earth, and so I just encourage people
Speaker 10: just to know that God has a reason for them,
Speaker 10: and that He has allowed the account talents that He's
Speaker 10: placed on the inside of them to come into fruition
Speaker 10: and to manifestation, to use them wherever they are and
Speaker 10: to give them wherever they need to be in life,
Speaker 10: so they can make it. Yes, they can make it.
Speaker 10: Yes they can. Thank you, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6: In learning about the cases that Henderson Long works on today,
Speaker 6: it was striking to me how many of the same
Speaker 6: barriers exist now that existed fifty years ago. Young Black
Speaker 6: girls are still at a higher risk of victimization, and
Speaker 6: their disappearances get little or no attention. Commander Wheeler Taylor
Speaker 6: says all cases are investigated the same, and she doesn't
Speaker 6: find a lack of trust in law enforcement to impact
Speaker 6: cases of missing youth, But she says Henderson helps break
Speaker 6: down the barrier between law enforcement and the black community. Today,
Speaker 6: we have so many resources for solving these kinds of cases,
Speaker 6: better technologies, social media, a much better understanding of DNA
Speaker 6: and forensic evidence. We've also got people like Henderson Long
Speaker 6: working in the community to try and make a difference.
Speaker 6: But the fact that Henderson's work is still so needed
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty three is a sign of failure on
Speaker 6: one level at least. There's a problem that has been
Speaker 6: with us since the nineteen seventies, and it's that police
Speaker 6: have still not earned the trust of black communities in
Speaker 6: many of these neighborhoods. And as we've learned painfully that piece,
Speaker 6: it's just crucial when you want to solve these cases.
Speaker 6: It's very likely that somebody in the community knows what
Speaker 6: happened or knows something significant, and for the Freeway phantom cases,
Speaker 6: their testimony may be all that we have left.
Speaker 2: I think when it comes to the physical evidence, what
Speaker 2: was left has been exhausted, so we probably will not
Speaker 2: be able to do anything with DNA not for the
Speaker 2: physical evidence.
Speaker 6: This is retired MPD Detective Romaine Jenkins.
Speaker 2: What I'm hoping is that by keeping the cases in
Speaker 2: the public's views that.
Speaker 3: Maybe somebody, you don't job somebody's.
Speaker 2: Memory that you know something that they never told anybody.
Speaker 2: They came across some hyping books, you know, that they
Speaker 2: found when it cleaned out an apartment, or one of
Speaker 2: their younger cousins brought some hyping books home, or some
Speaker 2: property that didn't belong to them, some properties that had
Speaker 2: the name Brenda Woodard on it. And this is what
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that somebody's memory will be jobs.
Speaker 6: Romaine says, that's why the work of Henderson Long is
Speaker 6: so important.
Speaker 2: Well, you always need someone who trusts the police. If
Speaker 2: you're going to be an investigator and you don't have
Speaker 2: someone who's going to give you information or what's going
Speaker 2: on in the community, then you're wasting your time. If
Speaker 2: you always have to pay for information. I think one
Speaker 2: time in my whole career did I ever pay for
Speaker 2: any You give me the information because you want to
Speaker 2: be a good citizen.
Speaker 3: You've given me the information because you know I'm not.
Speaker 2: Going to divulge your name to anybody, and I don't,
Speaker 2: and so you have got to have that trust.
Speaker 6: I asked Romaine how we can get people to come
Speaker 6: forward with information about the freeway phantom.
Speaker 2: What you have to do is keep these cases in
Speaker 2: front of the public. A lot of people don't know
Speaker 2: about these cases, and a lot of people who who
Speaker 2: lived here years ago when these cases happen, they are
Speaker 2: aware of them, but they thought they were closed. So
Speaker 2: you have to constantly remind the public that these cases
Speaker 2: are open.
Speaker 3: The person who did it was.
Speaker 2: Never apprehended, so we don't know what else that person
Speaker 2: could have done.
Speaker 6: Romaine says that with the emergence of the Internet and
Speaker 6: social media, there just might be new avenues for people
Speaker 6: to investigate the Freeway Phantom case further.
Speaker 2: You know, now that everything is computerized, I think if
Speaker 2: somebody does have some information, they could really put it
Speaker 2: on their.
Speaker 3: Internet if they don't want to be involved in it
Speaker 3: per se.
Speaker 2: Back then, we just didn't have The only thing we
Speaker 2: had was the newspaper and the TV and the newspaper,
Speaker 2: which was at the time the biggest circulating one I
Speaker 2: think was the Washington Post. You know, now we have
Speaker 2: more and there's so many different sites, and it takes
Speaker 2: longer to investigate things now because I think back then
Speaker 2: they had over a thousand people who were suspects in
Speaker 2: the case. They investigated every last one of them, but
Speaker 2: they could not come to a favorable conclusion.
Speaker 6: Romaine also says law enforcement is much more capable in
Speaker 6: today's world than they might have been fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: If you talk to THATBI they said at one time
Speaker 2: they thought there was more than one hundred serial killings
Speaker 2: operating within the United States. I think what's happening today,
Speaker 2: it's being highlighted more. These cases were happening back in
Speaker 2: the early seventies, but there was so much else going
Speaker 2: on and they were not equipped. They didn't even use
Speaker 2: the term serial murder cases back in the early seventies.
Speaker 3: You know, we call them pattern cases.
Speaker 2: Well, we gave them a name by what was the
Speaker 2: outstanding thing that the suspect did. Because of the fact
Speaker 2: that nowadays you can put a it's name in a
Speaker 2: computer and god knows, you can find out everything, all
Speaker 2: about his family tree and everything.
Speaker 3: So everything is it's there.
Speaker 2: But it's important that the police recognized that whoever did
Speaker 2: a particular case is going to do it again.
Speaker 3: It's not a one time thing.
Speaker 2: That's why the name Freeway Phantom came in because somebody
Speaker 2: asked in a press conference, somebody on the Metropolitan Police Department,
Speaker 2: do you think it's more than one person involved in
Speaker 2: and the person said, well, we think it's probably more.
Speaker 3: Than one person.
Speaker 2: When the water case happened, that's when the note is sound,
Speaker 2: and the note lets you know it was just one purpose.
Speaker 6: It was clear to us during our investigation of the
Speaker 6: Freeway phantom. The police response at the time was impacted
Speaker 6: to at least some degree by racial bias. I asked
Speaker 6: Ramaine how much she worries about that when it comes
Speaker 6: to similar cases today, it.
Speaker 2: Might still be a problem somewhat, but it can be
Speaker 2: hidden nowadays because everybody is looking at the police. Everybody
Speaker 2: has a camera, they have a microphone, They're paying attention
Speaker 2: to what is going on, and so you really don't
Speaker 2: have not that all the prejudice and racism has dissipated.
Speaker 3: It's still there, but it's not highlighted.
Speaker 2: And back then what you saw a lot of the
Speaker 2: times officers brought their personal grievances and opinions to the
Speaker 2: office when they investigated the case. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I read reports in these cases where some officers wrote
Speaker 2: up that these young girls who were tight shorts. Not
Speaker 2: one of these girls had on a pair of tight shorts,
Speaker 2: and if she did, what does that have to do
Speaker 2: with anything?
Speaker 3: And that really upset me.
Speaker 2: Because they're blaming these girls for their own abductions.
Speaker 3: And rates strangulations.
Speaker 2: You know, but this is how they felt. This is
Speaker 2: a memo that they put out there. You know that
Speaker 2: they wore type.
Speaker 6: Jeans Romayne still hopes that the Freeway Phantom cases can
Speaker 6: be solved, but she says more people need to know
Speaker 6: about these cases and somebody needs to step up.
Speaker 2: If I had the power, I would love to see
Speaker 2: that these cases were resolved, either by someone telling the
Speaker 2: police or calling the police, calling the newspapers. In fact,
Speaker 2: get on the internet and say it. Everybody hides information
Speaker 2: on the internet. But you know, at least in part
Speaker 2: the information that you have that might be crucial. And
Speaker 2: maybe you might think it didn't mean anything, but you know,
Speaker 2: if you keep it to yourself, we'll never know. Also
Speaker 2: that these cases are always kept alive in some manner
Speaker 2: with PG County Police and with the Metropolitan Police Department,
Speaker 2: and with thatbi that the files and the evidence to
Speaker 2: not be destroyed, that it be kept forever and ever.
Speaker 2: And maybe you can't do anything with the evidence. But
Speaker 2: you know, maybe somebody who's in their seventies. I figured,
Speaker 2: if the Phantom were alive today, he probably did his
Speaker 2: late sixties or early seventies. Maybe he wants to relieve
Speaker 2: his conscients of what he had done. You don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, And also always keep in touch with the
Speaker 2: families because a lot of times people in part inflammation
Speaker 2: in them and they said, when the police don't really care,
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to go. You know, even in
Speaker 2: the Fantom cases, we had people who were interviewed the
Speaker 2: knight the cases happened, and two years later they gave
Speaker 2: up information that they didn't inationially give which was good inflammation.
Speaker 2: It's a matter of always communicating with people.
Speaker 6: We're also doing our part in this fight. As a reminder,
Speaker 6: Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia are matching the one hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty thousand dollars reward offered by the Metropolitan Police Department.
Speaker 6: This brings the total reward for information leading to the
Speaker 6: arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for
Speaker 6: these murders to three hundred thousand dollars. If you have
Speaker 6: information that may lead to the identification of the Freeway Phantom,
Speaker 6: it's time to speak up. Tips can be provided to
Speaker 6: MPD or Tenderfoot TV at tips at tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 6: For the family members of these victims, any hope of
Speaker 6: discovering the truth is complicated because it's hard to say
Speaker 6: how they might feel about new details that could emerge.
Speaker 6: Closure doesn't come easily when you've had a loved one
Speaker 6: taken away by violence. Here again is Evander Spink's older
Speaker 6: sister of Carol Spinx.
Speaker 4: I mean, for the most part, my family is still together,
Speaker 4: but it's still put a wedge in our family amongst
Speaker 4: us Like me, I hold guilt because I felt like
Speaker 4: I didn't do what I was supposed to do, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure my older sister does even to this day,
Speaker 4: I know I'm a lot more stronger than they are,
Speaker 4: my younger siblings. I knew more and I learned more
Speaker 4: because I wanted to know more and i wanted to
Speaker 4: understand it. And I've always been trying to figure out
Speaker 4: a way to get the hurt off of me. So
Speaker 4: it made me stronger and more tougher and a harder
Speaker 4: person because I wanted to know. And you can't be
Speaker 4: a chicken and you can't be timid if you want
Speaker 4: to know something, because you're going to have to take
Speaker 4: some hard knocks to get that information. And that's what
Speaker 4: this is. He's a hard knox. I told Yeah Yea
Speaker 4: today that she came to me other night, two nights ago,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't in spirit, it wasn't in body form,
Speaker 4: and it's like out the peripheral view, I could see
Speaker 4: her in her coffin, but not in her coughing dead,
Speaker 4: but maybe just laying there. And people were talking about
Speaker 4: her and as if she wasn't in the room.
Speaker 2: Or.
Speaker 5: I can I explain this.
Speaker 4: They were talking about her as if she wasn't in
Speaker 4: a room, but talking to her. And I was responding
Speaker 4: because I remember saying this one thing. Wait a minute,
Speaker 4: I want to interject on that right there. I said, No,
Speaker 4: she wasn't like that at all. She was quiet, and
Speaker 4: I kind of was looking at her out my side
Speaker 4: eye and she was bybye, Carol.
Speaker 9: She was just there.
Speaker 4: And this just happened a couple days ago, and I
Speaker 4: was saying, I was telling, yayyay, how good I felt
Speaker 4: that I could. I always called her a visit. When
Speaker 4: my family visited me, I always say.
Speaker 8: I had a visit.
Speaker 6: Here's what Bertha Crockett, the sister of Brenda Crockett, told
Speaker 6: us about how she thinks about herself.
Speaker 11: There are other family members that lost their sisters and
Speaker 11: they became officers and detectives because they wanted to put
Speaker 11: the cuffs on the man that killed their family member.
Speaker 11: But we've had no closure, no resolution, so I mean,
Speaker 11: I've done so many podcasts and live TV and so
Speaker 11: it's just I don't know. The gentleman that could have
Speaker 11: done this has to be old, old now or even deceased.
Speaker 11: And that's said, but I don't know, you know, vengeance's minds,
Speaker 11: I would repay, said the Lord. So that's all you
Speaker 11: have to live by when you really can't see judgment
Speaker 11: after all these years, I don't know if it's important anymore.
Speaker 11: I just know that if you do wrong, wrong would
Speaker 11: come back on you. It's God's choice and chance in time.
Speaker 11: So you know, if you think you're doing something and
Speaker 11: getting away with it, you're not. It's not if I
Speaker 11: don't ever see what occurred as a resolution or you know,
Speaker 11: as closure. I know that God has me and anything
Speaker 11: around me, So when people do stuff, they have to
Speaker 11: recognize that you're not going to get away with it.
Speaker 11: So if you think you have, I think God has
Speaker 11: had something in store for them or whatever the case
Speaker 11: may be, in their future, their present, their past. So
Speaker 11: if I don't see I've never I haven't seen closure
Speaker 11: in fifty years, so I can't say, you know, I
Speaker 11: have to worry about it. And now I just hope
Speaker 11: that that what's deserved is deserved, because I don't want
Speaker 11: to sound bad, but I feel like if you take
Speaker 11: a life, you shouldn't have a life. If you do wrong,
Speaker 11: wrong should not be granted for you to be out
Speaker 11: here doing wrong forever. And it's not that you know
Speaker 11: somebody had to come back and take it out on
Speaker 11: your Purposely. Stuff just happens by circumstance, So you just
Speaker 11: have to be good in everything you do. So no,
Speaker 11: I'm not sitting here worrying about whether that person is
Speaker 11: still around or whatever. I just know that God has
Speaker 11: had me and I'm just grateful that I'm still here.
Speaker 6: After Diane Williams was killed, her sister, Patricia Williams, went
Speaker 6: on to become a police officer.
Speaker 12: I did not become a police officer because my sister's death.
Speaker 12: I became a police officer because I was taking a
Speaker 12: class in investigations and it was during one of those
Speaker 12: classes that the professor put up at the Metrono Police
Speaker 12: Department would be having a test at Beloosunior High School.
Speaker 12: That's the high school that I went to. I decided
Speaker 12: to go and take the test, and almost arrest is history.
Speaker 12: I wounded up joining the police department. After Romayne Jenkins retired,
Speaker 12: there was another detective, Jim Trainer, that I was in
Speaker 12: a training academy with, and he had gotten or was
Speaker 12: starting to pick up with the Freeway Phantom investigations from
Speaker 12: where Romaine Jenkins had left off. One day, we just
Speaker 12: so happened to see each other, you know, years after
Speaker 12: we had gotten up their training academy, and he mentioned
Speaker 12: that to me, and so we started talking about the
Speaker 12: free Fist and he was telling me what he's going
Speaker 12: to do, and they had gotten a grant. He was
Speaker 12: able to get someone to assist him with reenacting every
Speaker 12: single case, and I was fortunate enough to write with
Speaker 12: them on one of the reenactments that they were doing.
Speaker 12: It felt like I was back, like in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 12: I felt like I was there at the time that
Speaker 12: it happened, and it really touched me just to be
Speaker 12: a part of that and to kind of like see
Speaker 12: what happened and what these girls may have felt like
Speaker 12: or felt when this was going on. It put me
Speaker 12: in a whole new different light as to this whole
Speaker 12: investigation because I was sort of like a part of
Speaker 12: it all the other times I was not a part
Speaker 12: of the investigation. I remember Romayne Jenkins telling me Pat,
Speaker 12: I don't want to show you anything involving your sister.
Speaker 12: It's too hard to look at. You can't unsee this,
Speaker 12: and I respected that. So even though we would talk
Speaker 12: about it, I never saw any reports on investigations, any
Speaker 12: photographs involving the investigations, any of that. It was always
Speaker 12: just dialogue, talking back and forth about this, and then
Speaker 12: they would always guard me against telling me or let
Speaker 12: me see anything that would upset me. There is no
Speaker 12: closure I have. Of course, I'm a lot older. There's
Speaker 12: some things that I don't even remember. I don't know
Speaker 12: if that's selective amnesia or what. But they'll never be
Speaker 12: any closure. But I have also accepted that Diane's and
Speaker 12: the other Preway Phantom victims murder will never be found.
Speaker 12: I've already accepted it, and I believe in God, and
Speaker 12: I believe that this individual has to or individuals have
Speaker 12: an accounting, and maybe not in this life, but they will.
Speaker 12: And I've pretty much left that now in their hands
Speaker 12: God's hands. Excuse me to deal with them, because I
Speaker 12: don't believe we will ever know.
Speaker 3: And I can't.
Speaker 12: I can't live a life of you know, hating somebody
Speaker 12: or spending all all my time worrying about when are
Speaker 12: they going to catch somebody? What are they doing? You know,
Speaker 12: because in Diane's case, I honestly believe that everything has
Speaker 12: been done. They can be done with the exception of
Speaker 12: our confession. And even if somebody confessed to do it,
Speaker 12: they'd have to prove it, because it's been so long,
Speaker 12: you'd have to they would have to have some kind
Speaker 12: of evidence to.
Speaker 3: Prove that they did it.
Speaker 12: After fifty years, I'm believe that that individual is no
Speaker 12: longer with us either.
Speaker 6: Throughout this podcast, there were a number of goals we
Speaker 6: were trying to accomplish. First and foremost, we just wanted
Speaker 6: to tell the stories of these young girls and make
Speaker 6: their names heard and again. The six confirmed victims are
Speaker 6: Carol Spinks, Darlinia Johnson, Brenda Crockett, Ninamosha Yates, Brenda Woodard,
Speaker 6: and Diane Williams. There was also Tara Bryant, a seven
Speaker 6: unconfirmed victim, and Angela Barnes, who was briefly on the
Speaker 6: official list of victims. What cannot get lost here is
Speaker 6: that these young girls were innocent, beloved members of their families,
Speaker 6: and their community, and the impact their murders had on
Speaker 6: their loved ones was severe. It was tragic and in
Speaker 6: some cases insurmountable. It is our hope that they do
Speaker 6: find some manner of peace. It's also our mission that
Speaker 6: they someday received the justice they deserve, and that brings
Speaker 6: us to the next goal of this podcast. We hope
Speaker 6: to discover the identity of the Freeway phantom, and we
Speaker 6: truly believe it's possible, but we cannot do that alone.
Speaker 6: What we've done here is lay out the facts, give
Speaker 6: you as much information as we could find, and now
Speaker 6: we need the community to step up and share whatever
Speaker 6: tips they might have. That may be the only way
Speaker 6: that this fifty year old case gets resolved, and it
Speaker 6: just might be the own only way that these young
Speaker 6: girls finally receive justice. Our last goal with this podcast
Speaker 6: has been to raise awareness of an even bigger, more
Speaker 6: persistent issue, not just in Washington, d C. But all
Speaker 6: throughout this country. Missing children from black and marginalized communities
Speaker 6: rarely get the attention they need. It's past time that
Speaker 6: we prioritize cases like Militia Rudd, both in terms of
Speaker 6: media attention and police resources. Only then can we start
Speaker 6: to save these lives and ensure that what happened to Carol, Darlinia,
Speaker 6: Brenda Ninamosha, Brenda Woodard, Diane and Tara never happens again.
Speaker 6: I'm Celeste Hedley. This has been Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 1: Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: and Black bar Mitzvah. Our host is Selese Hilly. The
Speaker 1: show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright and Celes Hiley.
Speaker 1: Executive producers on behalf of iHeart Radio include Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers
Speaker 1: on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
Speaker 1: with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on
Speaker 1: behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay Ellis and
Speaker 1: Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Foods. Lead researcher is Jamie Albright.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Mister Soul two one six, original music by
Speaker 1: Makeup and Vanity Set special thanks to a teammate, Uta
Speaker 1: Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia as well as Black Bar Mitzvah, have increased
Speaker 1: the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction
Speaker 1: of the person or persons responsible for their freeway phantom.
Speaker 1: The previous reward of up to one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan Police Department has been matched.
Speaker 1: A new total reward of up to three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars is now being offered. If you have any information
Speaker 1: relating to these unsolved crimes, contact the Metropolitan Police Department
Speaker 1: at area code two zero two seven two seven nine
Speaker 1: zero ninety nine. For more information, please visit freeway dashfanom
Speaker 1: dot com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.