You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin
Dilley and I'm Bill Thomas, and we are joined today by Derreka and Natalie
Wilson, founders of the Black and Missing Foundation, here to talk to us
a little bit about their foundation and the excellent work that they're doing. Dereka
and Natalie, thank you for joining us today. Hi, thank you for
having us having us. Forgive us if we sound like super excited chipmunks.
We had met you at Crime Con and so enjoyed our brief conversation there,
and then of course we had a chance to learn more about the foundation and
the great work you're doing. So we're both over the moon excited that you
had time to join us today and we're excited to be here. Yes,
thank you, and it's good to see you all again. I'll talk to
you again. Yeah, let's go ahead and start off a little bit by
you telling us about your educational and professional background and what you do in addition
to the work that you do with Black and Missing. Natalie, I'll start
with you and then we'll kick it over to Dereka. Okay, I'm Natalie
Wilson, co founder of the Black and Missing Foundation. My educational background is
undergrad I graduated from Howard University into da Strick of Columbia with a BA in
psychology and a minor in communications. And I also have a Masters in communications
from Trinity University, and most recently, I attended Harvard Business School and got
a certificate in Strategic Planning for nonprofit and love the work that I do and
everything that I do is really in line with communications. I do have a
boutique public relations agency that helps other nonprofit get awareness or exposure for their cause.
Very cool, Dereka, can you tell us a little bit about your
end of things? Absolutely? So. My name is Dereka Wilson. I
am the co founder of the Black and Missy Foundation, the other half of
the Dynamic Duo as we call ourselves. My background is law enforcement. I
graduated from the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy and went on to pursue my
career in law enforcement. I have over two decades of law enforcement experience and
recently I left my government job and I actually started doing national security and public
trust investigations for the federal government. So I do that with my other business,
which is RLD Limited Group, and it focuses on background investigations and law
enforcement consulting. And I'm also an author. I wrote my first children's book
last January and published it and it's called Finda's Here, and it aligns with
what I do about keeping our community safe. So that's a little bit about
me. Oh, I love this. I had no idea about your book.
That's fantastic. Thank you. Where can we find it if we want
to help your book sales? All things it's available on Amazon and it's called
Findace Era is the children's book, and it really highlights the dangers of online
predators and trafficking. So it's a great tool for parents to have those uncomfortable
conversations with their children about the dangers that are out there. Oh that's phenomenal
because we've actually had episodes where we've talked about the dangers to young children and
even teenagers online and covered some cases involving online predators. Especially our young kids.
We really need to make sure that they're aware of the fact that it's
a great, big, wonderful world out there, but you've got to be
careful and just because someone presents in a certain way doesn't mean they're being honest
about who they are what their intentions are. Absolutely, and just last year,
I actually received my certification as a certified Human Trafficking investigator, So again
it aligns with the work with my law enforcement background as well as the work
that we do with the foundation, and the two of you are assist there's
in law. When we met at Crime Kind, I was saying off the
air, I thought you were sisters, but you're actually sisters by marriage personally
and professionally. It sounds like your lives have blended a bit. Yes,
your sisters in law. Yes, married to her brother. And I always
say this, and I'm going to put it on record. He is the
luckiest man on earth. I don't doubt it. So tell us a little
bit about your organization, the Black and Missing Foundation. I give us a
little bit of an overview about its main goals. What are the objectives that
you'd like to you'd like to accomplish with your foundation. Let me give you
a little bit of background as to why we started it organization. The inspiration
behind it is a young lady by the name of Tamika Houston who went missing,
and we read how her family really struggled to get media coverage, particularly
national media coverage surrounding her disappearance. And Tamika's aunt, Rebecca, she's in
media relations and she couldn't get her colleagues to not even show her niece on
the national programs. Lorie Hackin disappeared weeks after Tamika, and she dominated the
news cycle. And Rebecca reached out to those same reporters, same networks,
same programs, and she was met with silence. So it was really disheartening
to us, and we wanted to do some research to see if this was
an issue affecting our communities, because we definitely didn't see people that looked like
us making the news, whether it's local or national, the news headlines or
coverage. And at the time, we found that thirty percent of all persons
missing were of color, primarily black males, and we decided why not us,
We need to do something about it, especially right after that Natalie Holloway
disappeared and I'm sure that when I said her name, you all know her
face, you know her story. So we wanted to use our professions and
media relations and exposure is so important for these cases. Derika's in law enforcement
and helping these families navigate the process with the police department is so important.
And if you fast forward to now and close to fifteen years and May,
we would be doing this fifteen years. We keep going because these families need
us, and the numbers continue to grow. Today forty percent of all persons
missing are of color. And what we're trying to do is to change the
narrative because we want our missing to be household names too. And bringing my
pr background again, I wanted to use my close to two decades of experience
to really be the publicist for these families to help them get that national media
coverage because it's so important. Want It alerts the community that someone is missing,
but it also puts pressure on law enforcement to add resources to the case,
and we see with media coverage it's a game changer. I remember a
case where we took the family on the view and within fourteen minutes of the
show airing, we received a tip that led us directly to that missing child.
Media coverage is vital. Exposure is so important with these cases. You've
given us some really startling statistics already, just and I know that only scratches
the surface. Can you talk a little bit about crime rates and solve rates,
particularly for people of color? That statistic forty percent of all missing persons
are of color just floored me. Talk a little bit about solve rates if
you can. What I would say is that number one time is of the
essence and one of the hurdles that the families face on a day to day
basis in the black and brow community. Oftentimes, as now we've stated,
their cases are met with silence, with law enforcement not really taking those cases
seriously not taking the police report, and if they decide to take the police
report, classifying our youth as runaways, we all know that runaways are not
receiving the Amber alert, and quite frankly, there's no sense of urgency and
finding them. And when it comes to adultse they like to and law and
I'm speaking to law enforcement, but law enforcement like to associate their disappearance with
some sort of criminal activity, and it really dehumanized and desensitized the fact that
these are valuable members of our community. So when these cases come to us
again, time is of the essence, and we approach each case the saying,
we have to get this information out there instantly, regardless of how long
that individual has been missing. Once we learn of it, time is of
the essence, and we start circulating those flyers on our social media platforms,
encouraging the families to circulate the flyers that we create. And let me just
take a step back. The reason we create flyers on behalf of these families
is because they are taking matters into their own hands when law enforcement is failing
them. So on the flyers that they're creating, they're putting their personal information
on there. So in addition to dealing with the fact that their loved one
is missing. Now they're having to deal with those scam and ranks and calls
because their number is interface to with the general public and everyone doesn't have great
intentions, so we deal with that often. But what we can say is
that since our inception, nearly fifteen years in the making, we have helped
reunite brain closure to nearly four hundred families across this country. Not all cases
have that wonderful ending, but there is a sense of and we don't even
like to utilize the terminology closure, but there is some valuable information that the
family now has. But I would say that our cases, even half and
half of those that were able to find reunite and help families get those resources.
And then sadly, there are so many families out there that don't have
that same fate. And I just want to add one of the things that
we see that really impacts recovery. And I hate to say this, but
it's really a sad fact that the media and law enforcement they take some cases
less seriously than others. Right, So the perception is if you are black
or brown, you're involved with some type of criminal activity. You live in
a certain zip code, you don't have the education or the wherewithal. It's
really disheartening. And what we are doing is changing the narrative that these are
missing. Mothers and fathers, grandparents are our children, and they're very valuable
members of our community, and we need to hold the media and law enforcement
accountable as well as our community. We know that our community plays a major
role in all of this, and we all look at the news and we
know that there's an inherent russ with law enforcement and the community. But we
look like our community and we have platforms available. If someone has a tip,
well they want to report their loved one missing, they can do so
on our platform. Do you find that your involvement, then it seems like
it's very multifacited. In other words, I think even just involving black and
missing and your team with a case might help the families understand what steps they
need to take to get the word out. As you were talking about how
critical the timing is, particularly in the early stages of a missing person's case,
I was also wondering if law enforcement have a tendency to step up their
game and media people the same because a professional organization like yourselves have stepped in
this advocate or it's almost like a coaching role or acting as their pr people.
I can speak from the law enforcement perspective, they are the gatekeepers and
sadly, across this country, a missing persons isn't consider a priority and most
police departments they are evaluated based on how many homicides they can close, their
robbery burglary rates, and so when they look at missing persons, especially adults,
they feel these are adults they can come and go as they please.
So there really isn't a lot of resources dedicated to those unique view nits.
If they have a missing person's unit, there's oftentimes contacting these police departments across
the country. There may be one or two police officers that are assigned to
the missing person's area. A lot of them are very forthcoming and very open
about the limited resources that they have and the need for our organization to even
as them. They learn about us when we reach out to them, because
every case that comes into the Black and Missing Foundation we have to verify.
And I'll use as an example the other night, I was on the phone
with a police department and the detective I was transferred to the detective and he
was overwhelmed with the fact that here's someone that can further assist him because they
don't have all those resources at their fingertip to create a flyer for that missing
person to disseminate it. And so he asked, could you please share the
flyer that you all created and then I'm going to share that internally until we
can get our flyer up. So just being able to position ourselves as allies,
we are not trying to step on their toes. We want them to
see us as partners, and we want the families to understand that we know
how to bridge that gap with law enforcement. So again it is a benefit
for the families for us to be able to walk them through that process,
but also with law enfor were meant to see that here's an organization that has
law enforcement experience, so they know how to walk the walk and talk to
talk. So I think it's all about building those relationships. From a media
perspective, we have come a long way, but we do have some really
strong media partners with all of pretty much all of the national networks. We
have partnerships with reporters. There was a family that we were helping last year,
and I remember the family calling the local stations to get coverage for their
missing child and no one would cover it. But we were able to pick
up the phone and call that assignment desk editor and they were able to cover
that story. So again, we can't do this work by ourselves. And
that media exposure. It's powerful and it has proven to be very effective,
and we have to continue those partnerships with the gatekeepers. Unfortunately, they don't
look like us. Primarily the ones that are making the decision as to who
would get coverage middle aged white men, right, so they really connecting with
our stories. So we are also trying to have diversity in the newsroom.
We offer a fellowship and scholarship to our future generations so that they can add
their voice to it and have value and tell the stories that matter to our
community. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit about the HBO mini series
from twenty twenty one. How ultimately did that series come into being and what
were your goals with that series? Solidade O'Brien, she saw us. We
won an award in twenty seventeen with Black Girl's Rock when it was a Change
Maker's Award. She saw us, and she was really intrigued by the work
that we do and really around this issue, and she wanted to shed a
light on it and really to give a bird's eye view as to the challenges
that not only we face, but families face in getting media coverage and law
enforcement assistance when their loved one goes missing. And I think that it has
been well received. The docuseries won five awards, and it has really elevated
the organization and the work that we do because people, meaning institutions like law
enforcement, the media, and our community, they are reaching out to us
and they're saying, I didn't know this issue existed, how can I help?
So that's what we want to see. We want to see more people
our communities continue to work together to not only find these missing individuals, but
let's take a look at the systemic issues that are affecting these individuals why they're
going missing in the first place. You sex, trafficking, domestic violing,
mental health is these are issues that are plaguing our community and causing individuals to
go missing. If I could just add to what Natalie stated as well,
the DOCY series it really gave everyone that first I view into those issues.
Actually stated it was also a call to action to help implement change. So
we have been working with lawmakers. We're trying to get rid of that classification
runaway where everyone is considered missing. We're trying to we're fighting to get rid
of that twenty four hour waiting period because time is of the essence, and
we really challenge our community for their involvement and their respected city, state jurisdictions
to reach out to law enforcement and ask those uncomfortable questions. Do you classify
missing as runaway? Do you require families to wait twenty four hours if they
are a waiting period before detective is assigned to the cave, if there are
a waiting period before the cave get entered into mc C, which is the
National Crime Information Center. So these are so low hanging fruit that the community
members can also ask their respective police jurisdictions. But the documseries also created great
partnerships and relationships for us as well, as Natalie stated, with the media,
with law enforcement, even with Stanford University. We actually had a class
this past fall that talks about these issues and how we can have advocacy in
these groups helping to move the mission forward. To help us find us.
You mentioned something earlier which I think is so critical, which is that of
missing people are people of color, and yet I feel like it's only in
the last couple of years I've heard any kind of in depth discussion of the
idea of missing white woman syndrome and how certain types of cases. You mentioned
the Natalie Holloway case and the Gabby Petito and there's so many other examples of
this where the media just goes absolutely bonkers over certain cases, almost always involving
missing young white women. And that's a serious I don't want to diminish somebody
because they are an attractive young white woman, but this idea that there seems
to be like no balance in terms of the coverage or even the allocation of
law enforcement resources. Do you feel like there's any more concrete steps being taken
by all of these players to address the fact that we seem to be focusing
still on so many cases that involve people who are not of color. I
want to be positive here. White women's syndrome exists when Eiffel journalists called it
out. Most recently, we saw the Gabby Petito case, and she dominated
the news cycle, and even her father Sick. Coverage that they received was
unprecedented and it was overwhelming. But there are a sector of our societies that's
not getting that media coverage and that present that's what we're working to change.
When we first started the organization, according to the Urban Institute, only seven
percent of missing people of color got any type of media coverage at all,
and I don't think that number. Even though we have been working extremely hard
to change it, it has changed a bit, but we still have a
lot more work to do. We realize that when our girls are missing,
they're often adultified. They're seen as fast or promiscuous, not seen as victims,
and what we're trying to do is to change that narrative. They are
victims many times because we know that there are more young black girls that are
victims of sex trafficking, and the pimps and pedophiles are saying, you know
what, my penalty or punishment wouldn't be as harsh for making a young black
girls. So we really need to take a look at these laws. Going
back a bit to the docuseries, we have been invited to newsrooms, national
newsrooms across the country, and what we're realizing is there's no policy in place
as to how these decisions are made. So a family calls the news station,
how do they decide who gets that news coverage? There isn't any policy.
So we really have to do a better job, and we need to
step up to the plate. But again, we all have a responsibility to
do that, and we also need to hold our elected leaders responsible. We
need to go out there and vote because we need people in office that can
make sure that there are processes in place to protect those that are most vulnerable.
You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word
from our sponsors. We're back here mind over Murder speaking again at the media
for a moment. What are some action steps that the media could be really
more to the point, should be taking to solve the issue of underrepresentation and
poor coverage. One thing that we say is less is more so less of
one individual and more of everyone else, even the playing field. And again
our heart goes out to anyone who has a missing loved one and we don't
want to know them to feel as though that these individuals lives don't matter or
doesn't matter, But it does. But our missing their lives matter as well,
and again we need to have more diversity in the newsroom, people that
look like us, that are willing to say, you know what, this
story is important and we need to tell it. And again having those policies
and procedures in place where one person isn't making a decision based on on AD
dollars or ratings. This is missing person, a valuable member of our community
and their family their community want them home as well. I think it's a
significant challenge that needs to be brought up over and over again. And this
is where having you as allies with law enforcement and the media as well as
the families that are struggling with trying to locate a missing family member, it
has to be so helpful for you to be able to step in and facilitate
things. Even something I think, Natalie, you said something a moment ago
about the assignment editor at a particular media outlet. The average American family isn't
going to even know what an assignment editor does. Do you find that the
fact that you've been there and done that helps in these situations? Absolutely?
Our experience of my experience in media relations and working with reporters and knowing their
deadline and working with many of these reporters and know what beat they cover.
It's valuable because again I can reach out to them. I've created these relationships
and partnerships to help us navigate through this process. But I also coach families
as to how to work with the media. It's very overwhelming, it's challenging,
and many of them are afraid to have a camera in their face.
And then we also need to make sure that they come across a certain way,
because you want the audience to connect with that mother right whose child is
missing. When there's that connection, then they will meaning the audience will be
more prone to want to help that family. So it's definitely a difficult balance,
but it's something that we have been prepared for and we're glad to use
our experiences and our training to help these families navigate dereka. As a long
time law enforcement officer, you spent twenty years in law enforcement and now you're
consulting and working in other roles. I know there's no secret handshake or anything
like that, but you do speak the language of your fellow law enforcement officers.
Does it come up fairly early in the conversation if you're talking to let's
say, a law enforcement person you might not have spoken with before. Do
you drop the fact that you were a cop for twenty years into the conversation
early on? Oh? Absolutely, that's something that needs to be established up
front because it's that credibility, the fact that I have served, and it
just really helps bridge the gap for the families. Even the questions that we
ask the family our intake form it mirrors what the police should be asking for.
So when we do reach out, we have all of that critical eyer
for me at our fingertips. It gives them a sense of comfort as well,
knowing that this person knows, like we can understand some of the struggles
that they go through if they don't have the resources, and some of them
are quite welcoming. Now, I'm not going to be naive at the fact
that fun is on board, because of course law enforcement tends to be territorial,
but I will say that over the years, we have built those relationships
and our name and our reputation really speaks to who we are. And at
the end of the day, it's not about us, it's about helping these
families. We want to end this nightmare for the family, So it's us
all coming together law enforcement, the media, and the community, and we
just want to be able to provide them with additional resources and tools to help
close this case. Because what I will say with law enforcement is well,
with the minority community, there is a lack trusts and as Natalie mentioned earlier,
we look like the community that we're serving because there is that lack of
trust. Oftentimes we received tips, and when we receive those tips, we
share that information with law enforcements so they can further follow up. So again
that's how those relationships built. And as the case that Natalie mentioned earlier in
the show, when we took that family on the view and fourteen minutes later
that missing child who was missing for five months was found, that tip came
into the Black and Missing Foundation. It didn't go to the police department.
We alerted the police department and shared all of that information. So it really
shows the value of our organization and how our community sees us. That territorial
issue that you mentioned, though, I mean, is law enforcement willing to
accept the fact that there may be a higher trust level among community members might
have valuable information that they'd be more comfortable to dealing with. The Black and
Missing Foundation than they would with their local law enforcement agency. What I will
say about that law enforcement being territorial. We can look at cases of missing
individuals and they could be missing from one particular state, and there's reason to
believe that they may be in another state. And you have agencies, federal
agencies such as the FBI or the US Marshal Service who's ready and willing to
assist and have a greater reach. Only if that local jurisdiction will pick up
the phone and ask for that mutual aid. That becomes a tuggle war with
law enforcement on that local level as well as the federal level. To me,
it looks like they're trying to figure out whose guns are bigger. But
at the end of the day, it's the family that are really struggling here.
So I think with our organization because we are unarmed. Of course it
is a nonprofit, but they although I had that law enforcement background, they
don't have to sit here and see if my gun is but it is.
It's really connected on that humility and humanity versus that authoritative approach that law enforcement
tends to take. One of the cases that we've covered on the podcast and
are committed to continuing to cover is the case of Sage Smith out of Charlottesville
here in Virginia, who is a black transgender woman who disappeared in twenty twelve
in Charlottesville and got very little attention, paid, coverage, police resources.
You set her against Hannah Graham, a white UVA freshman who disappeared two years
later and had everything poured into her resources before her search, and we see
a really stark difference in the way that the disappearances were handled by the police
department. In addition to being a black woman, of course, you've got
Sage Smith being a transgender woman. What are some of the issues that you
guys see when you add in the issue of gender and sexuality into the mix
with the cases that you're working with. We remember Sage's case very clearly.
I remember working with and talking to his grandmother, her grandmother, and I
apologize with transit transgenders we're learning as well, whether it's he or she,
But I remember talking to Sage's grandmother and she just wanted answers before she died,
and I was that was one we two run into challenges with cases like
that. The LGBTQ community, their numbers as it pertains to missing persons arts
much and we don't believe that anyone is really keeping tabs as to the true
number of LGBTQ members of our community that are missing like Sage, and we
do have to do a better job in protecting them. I feel strongly in
the Sage Smith case. I actually still feel, and Kristin and I have
covered Sage's case recently, we feel that is a solvable case. And there
is a suspect who's a boyfriend of Sage Smith's who went into the wind right
after Sage's disappearance. He's never come back to Charlottesville as far as we can
tell, but I believe if he's still alive, and I think he is,
I think he can be found again. This comes down to time,
attention, and resources, as we've seen in my sister's case, the Colonial
Parkway murders, and any number of other cases that Kristin and I have covered
on the podcast. I still think Sagees case could be solved, but they've
got to put some resources into finding this former boyfriend. I certainly agree.
I think that sometime it even requires a different set of eyes, new lens
on the case. How many times have you written an email or a paper
and it reads exactly the way you want it to until you press sent and
you realize you have a type of It's the same way with a case.
You are, especially those that are really invested. You are looking at this
evidence, You're looking at all of this information, and it's really you're trying
to put a puzzle together. But sometimes you need someone else to come in.
And even with law enforcement, that is the way law enforcement approaches,
that's how they approach things within the police department. With even cases, Once
that officer writes a case, the report, it goes to someone else to
review it, and depending on the circumstances of the case, you may have
a third reviewer, a second or third reviewer. So I think when you
have cases such as is before you even get submitted, when there's an open,
active investigation, sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes to take
a look and see if there's any holes in it. And even if you
saw the docuseries the case of Derek Butler whose sister Pamela was missing, right,
he utilized that media relationship, the relationship that he had with reporters,
and he kept them abreast of what was going on. They kept Pamela's case
in the forefront, and it forced law enforcement to add resources to the case,
and as Dereka mentioned, getting that fresh set of eyes, they had
a new detective assigned and the end result is they were able to solve two
murders because of the fresh set of eyes. So it goes back again to
keeping cases like this in the forefront. I am sure the community believes that
Sages case has been solved or some type of resolution, and it hasn't because
there's been no media attraction, no awareness, continued awareness around it. So
we're not naive to believe that every case will get coverage year round. But
sometimes you have to be creative. What can you do to keep this case
in the forefront so that there can be answers for the families. One of
the local cases here that is a major concern is missing four year old Cody
Bigsby, and he's about to hit the year mark here in January thirty,
so so important to keep that case in the media. There have been times
when I have looked in the newspaper or checked all the local media listings to
see has there been an update on Cody, and you don't get them nearly
as often as I feel like they should be gotten. What are some steps
that we as podcasters and really just anybody in the community can do to keep
this is like Cody's in the media, keep highlighting it around the anniversary,
reach out to the detective to say, hey, do you have an update
on this case. I would like to use my voice, my power,
my platform to keep the community aware as to the outcome of this case.
And once you do that, you will see I've seen it time and time
again with our media partners. When we have a family on the show and
they reach out to law enforcement for an update, they start working on the
case again. So again, it's just keeping these cases in the forefront,
whether it's an anniversary of vigil, a balloon, release, a small bit
of information, anything that can keep it in the forefront so that these individuals
will be remembered and the community will know that this individual still has not returned
home and the bags because they just announced a vigil and there seems to be
some renewed energy. Sadly, I don't think this case is going to end
well, but I do think, and I don't want to be mentioned resisting
the idea of closure. We also talk about that on the podcast quite a
bit. I'm just completely uncomfortable as the brother of a murder victim. There
is no closure. I only say that to us all the time. There's
no such thing as closure. You may have answers, but no closure.
Right. Sometimes people will talk about justice, and I think justice seems awfully
far off on the horizon as well, and answers is about as comfortable as
I can so. Sadly, I'm not terribly optimistic in the Cody Biggs case,
but I think that the fact that we do have the one year anniversary
coming up, Kristen, I think does afford the community and opportunity to really
redouble its efforts to getting the word out. There's a possibility that Cody could
be somewhere, and one way or another, we need to find out.
I certainly agree with that. I also think, in addition to reaching out
to law enforcement and inquiring about their efforts, also inquiring about the Amber alert.
This Amber alert has been out for so long the criteria needs to be
updated. Cody never received an Amber alert, so Cody is really not known
outside of the Virginia Richmond Hampton, Newport News area, not on that national
level. Because again, he could absolutely anywhere, but we don't know unless
we try. We're hoping for the best outcome for Cody, but at this
point we have to not just think outside the box. We need to remove
the box. Cody could be in Florida, he can be in California,
if he can be in Atlanta, the world around us is not aware of
Cody's disappearance a four year old. That's very powerful because you're right now,
Kristen is in the Williamsburg area, so she sees some of the media coverage
around he's disappearance. But that wasn't even close to a national story. No,
not at all, and it really should have been. And that is
definitely something that we are committed to continuing to put forward through our platform.
Is we do not have nearly the size platform that you all do, but
we definitely want to make sure that Cody Cody's name continues to be out there
because you're right thinking, we don't. You're right, we don't know where
he could be and I'm still hoping that there may be a happy ending there
for that little boy too. I wanted to ask you a question, draw
a little bit of a line here. I don't want to make it sound
like I'm hinting at something in Cody's case. One of the things I was
thinking about. For these cases that stretch on longer, it certainly feels to
us that sometimes you begin to at least consider the possibility that we may be
talking about a murder in some of these examples and not a person that's gone
missing. As the months or years stretch on, do you find that you're
role as advocates and supporters, if you will, of the family members,
does it begin to change in those examples. We never want families to give
up on hope, and we're not giving up on them as well, because
we have seen miracles happen. I think the world has seen miracles happen when
you think about the Elizabeth Smart, the J. C. Dugard, and
the list goes on and on. But these families see that, and these
families have seen well, we've had cases of individuals that have been missing for
quite some time and we're able to reunite them with their families. So we
build our organization solely on hope because we're not going to give up, and
we're not going to allow them to give up. And we want these families
to know that they have an ally with us and we are doing everything that
we can to help find their missing loved one. So we hold their hands
in many times, many instances, cry with them. We provide them the
resources that they need to uplift themselves and to hold on because, as dere
Con mentioned, we have seen miracles happen where individuals were missing for ten years
and they were able to escape or be found. So we again lead with
hope and empowerment. But the takeaway here is we can't do this work by
ourselves. Someone knows something, and if it's your family member that's missing,
you would want the community to get involved and to just hold on to hope
that they would be one day reunited with their loved one. Well at least
have answers. So how can people who want to support your organization and the
good work that you're doing, how can we help you? What can we
be doing to make sure that you have the funding that you need and the
publicity and the coverage and everything else you need. What can we do to
help? How can we be your allies? There are a number of ways.
I'll start with social media. We need our community, whether or not
you are a person of color to be our digital milk carton. So if
you see a profile you may not know the missing individuals, share it with
your network. We just need one person to come forward with information to help
find them. Since the HBO docuseries and the pandemic, our caseload has increased
tremendously and we need resources. We need funding to help these families, whether
it's with flyers, printing flyers, it's very expensive print designing and printing flyers,
financial support. Many times these families can't go to work because they're looking
for their missing loved one. They need financial support and sadly, sometimes when
the individual is found, they're found is ceased and they need help with burial
services. Around the holidays, we provide toys and financial support for families with
little ones since we want them to have a good holiday as well or Christmas.
So just providing support and rallying around these families they need help. As
a community, again, it doesn't matter matter if you're black or why,
your race, your ethnicity. We can all do something because this is a
pandemic that has been affecting our nation. It's not just the black community.
So we'll include links to the Black and Missing Foundation in our show notes and
we'll show people how they can donate and show support for the good work that
you're doing, as well as some of your social media links. Everything is
available at the Black and Missing Foundation dot org website as well, so you
can go to be amfi dot rg. That's a very short url, the
amfi dot org perfect and the docuseries is still available on HBO correct. It's
streaming on HBO Max. Yes, excellent, and we will please check it
out and let us know your thoughts. We will link to that as well.
We'd like to thank Natalie and Dereka Wilson for the outstanding work they're doing
with the Black and Missing Foundation and for taking the time to talk with us
today on mind Over Murder. We urge you to support this organization and we
look forward to future conversations with them. That's going to do it for this
episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for joining us, and
we'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero
and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.
Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media. You can
follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also follow our
page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can follow
Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas. Five six. Thank you for listening
to mind Over Murder.