Untold Stories: Black and Missing

She was supposed to be gone an hour, just meeting a friend in the apartment complex parking lot. More than 10 years later, Tyarra Williams' family is still waiting for her to walk through the door. When someone goes missing, the pain of not knowing, the what if's, and the I should have's never go away. The pain, grief and pursuit of hope are exhausting. In this Untold Stories: Black and Missing we catch up with the detective assigned to turn fresh eyes on the search for Tyarra Williams and we talk with Toni Jacobs, a mother who is living the pain of having a missing child. She speaks up to let other families know they are not alone.

A final security camera image and a digital trail leading to a dead end. We dive into the disappearance of 15-year-old Sophie Reeder, exposing what went wrong in the critical early days of the investigation and how systemic gaps keep her family searching nine years later.

Akia Eggleston was excited to welcome her second child, a son. She was eight months pregnant, and her family was waiting for her at her baby shower, only she never showed. Her family never stopped looking for her. And continued to pressure investigators and the media to find her. What investigators uncovered was a story of deception, abuse and murder.

Jesse Len Foulks had four strikes against him. He's black. He's a man. He has a mental health disorder, and he is missing. His story, like many others, highlights a troubling intersection between mental illness and missing person cases. The Black and Missing Foundation has increasingly observed that mental health issues are a significant factor in why people go missing, and why these cases often fall through the cracks. In this episode, our panel of experts discusses the challenges, and how we can all play a role in helping bring these individuals home.

When Rashawn Williams went missing it took four days for his case to be investigated even though he was reported missing an hour after he wandered away from his caregivers. The 31-year-old has down syndrome and is nonverbal. Still no alert was ever issued. Rashawn was lucky he survived six days without food and water and was reunited with his family. (Listen to Rashawn's story here) That miracle inspired his family to push the state of Maryland to create a law enacting purple alerts which protect people with cognitive impairments that often are not covered by other alerts. Our experts weigh-in on why there should be a national purple alert law.

"Untold Stories: Black and Missing" is a podcast that tells the stories of missing people of color—how our cases fell through the cracks, and how we can raise awareness to bring them back home or provide answers for families desperately searching for their missing loved ones. In Season 2, we delve into the issues that cause so many of our loved ones to go missing, including domestic violence, cognitive impairment, human trafficking and mental illness. We will also speak with experts about how we can best protect our families, and what we can all do to #HelpUsFindUs.

Tanesha Howard last spoke to her daughter, Joniah Walker, right before 11 am on June 23, 2022. The 15-year-old was walking their dog while the two talked. The apartment complex cameras captured the moment on video. A while later those same cameras caught Joniah rushing from the building. That was the last anyone has seen of her. Where was she going in such a hurry? Who was she meeting? Do you know where Joniah Walker is?

Wayne and Stacy Flagg were doing everything they could think of to keep their 14-year-old daughter safe from online predators. Their daughter did not have a cell phone. They monitored her online activity and limited her time on the computer. Still, on May 15, 2021, Kyla told her dad she loved him then left the house to meet a man she met while gaming online. That started what Wayne and Stacy say was the worst 39 days of their lives. What they did not know was the man had spent time grooming Kyla, telling her a fairy tale and making promises he did not keep. Kyla's story is part of a two-part series on sex trafficking. This is information parents need to know.