Vanished Voices, The Overlooked

This episode contains significant updates from three cases Vanished Voices has covered. Anna Marie Scott from Nevada, Phylicia Barnes from North Carolina and Baltimore, and Sara Nicole Graham from North Carolina. You can find links to the coverage on the updates here . Every morning, Shantieya Smith slung her seven-year-old daughter's backpack over her shoulder and walked her to school. Family cal...

Ricarda Tillman-Lockett was 22 years old, a mother, and an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. She had left an abusive marriage, moved into a shelter, and made a plan to start over. On February 19th, 2007, she left work in Memphis, got into her estranged husband's car, and vanished. Her purse, her wallet, and her cell phone were left behind. Her son was waiting at the babysitter's....

On the evening of April 15, 2004, fifteen-year-old Silene "Erica" Eaddy walked away from her home on Fountain Lake Road in Columbia, South Carolina. Her neighbor called out to her. She didn't stop. Two days later, firefighters responding to a brush fire in lower Richland County found her body in the brush off Pincushion Road. She had been savagely beaten. And the medical examiner would d...

In June of 2012, fourteen-year-old Brittany Robinson kissed her mother goodbye, said "Love you, mom. See you later," and left for a weekend visit with the father she barely knew. She never came home. What followed was a decade of silence, a father who fled across state lines under an alias, a custodial interference charge that put him behind bars for just four years, and finally — in 202...

On the day before Thanksgiving 2020, Mary Ellen Johnson-Davis was walking down a road she knew well, on land her people had called home for centuries. She sent a text that said she was almost to the church. She never arrived. Mary was 39 years old, a member of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington State, and a woman who had already survived more than most people will ever face — a childhood fractured b...

Her family made dozens of calls. They sent emails to tribal leaders. They found her covered in blood in her own apartment. They did everything they were supposed to do. And none of it was enough. In January 2020, Ashlea Aldrich — a 29-year-old member of the Omaha Tribe and mother of two — was found in a cornfield on the reservation in Macy, Nebraska. The official story says she wandered off and di...

On the morning of June 23, 2021, 24-year-old geologist Daniel Robinson left his worksite near a remote well in Buckeye, Arizona, and was never seen again. Three weeks later, his Jeep Renegade was found overturned in a desert ravine — with his clothes, phone, wallet, and keys scattered nearby. But Daniel was gone. What investigators found only deepened the mystery. All airbags had deployed. More th...

In August 2021, Bessie Marie Walker — a 27-year-old Western Mono mother of three — vanished from the Big Sandy Rancheria in Auberry, California. For eighteen days, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office chased tips across the county. They searched a dozen locations. They logged nearly a thousand hours. They never found her. Her family did. Twenty-five yards from her mother's front door. Her cause of d...

On the evening of November 20th, 2012 — the night before Thanksgiving — 19-year-old Sage Smith stepped out of her Charlottesville, Virginia apartment to meet someone for a date. She woke up her roommate just long enough to say she'd be back later. She had plans for the holiday. She had a surprise visit lined up for her stepsisters. For the first time in her life, things were falling into place — h...

Pepita Madalyn Redhair was 27 years old, a member of the Navajo Nation, a skateboarder, a cook, a student at the University of New Mexico, and a daughter who called her mother every single day. On March 24, 2020, Anita King dropped her daughter off at the home she shared with her boyfriend in Albuquerque, New Mexico — 140 miles from their home in Crownpoint. It was the last time she saw her. And t...

Benita Desiree Long was 40 years old, a member of the Yakama Nation, and actively working toward sobriety when she was dropped off at the El Corral Motel in Toppenish, Washington, on March 26, 2022. She made one phone call to her sister afterward. Then silence. For three years, her family searched, organized vigils, and called a police department that never called back. What they didn't know — wha...

On the morning of April 20th, 2011, workers near the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River spotted something in the water. It was Phylicia. In Part Two of our Phylicia Barnes episode, we cover the discovery of her body, the homicide ruling, and the man investigators believed was responsible. We walk through three separate trials spanning nearly a decade — a conviction, an overturn, a mistrial, a...

She was sixteen years old. A straight-A honor student from Monroe, North Carolina, with a scholarship ahead of her and a whole life waiting. On December 28th, 2010, Phylicia Simone Barnes was last seen in her half-sister's apartment in Baltimore — and never seen again. In Part One of this two-part episode, we introduce you to Phylicia — who she was, where she came from, and the family that loved h...

More than 30 years ago, a night out in Aberdeen, South Dakota ended in silence. On April 7, 1993, 42-year-old mother of three Monica Bercier-Wickre went out to a local bar called The Body Shop. It was a normal night—one she had no reason to believe would be her last. At some point that evening, Monica left with a couple she knew and a man she didn’t. She never made it home. Two months later, her b...

On the morning of June 15, 2013, 19-year-old Adrienne Celeste Salinas vanished just blocks from her Tempe, Arizona apartment. She had spent the night at a party with friends—surrounded by people, in a place she felt safe. But by the early morning hours, something had shifted. After leaving, returning, and then leaving again around 4:00 a.m., Adrienne walked out into the quiet streets of Tempe… and...

In June 2020, 22-year-old Katelyn Kelley vanished from the Menominee Indian Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin. She was seen near County Highway VV and Silver Canoe Road late at night. Hours later, she was reportedly at her apartment in nearby Shawano. Then—she disappeared. Her family knew something was wrong almost immediately. Katelyn wasn’t the kind of person to just stop answering calls or...

In May 2002, 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez vanished from San Francisco just days before giving birth to her second child. Her 5-year-old son, Alex, disappeared with her. Months later, Evelyn’s partial remains were found floating in the Bay, her unborn child never recovered. Her case remains unsolved. Her son is still missing. And hardly anyone knows their names. Just seven months later, another pre...

On January 7, 2016, nineteen-year-old Tyarra Williams stepped out of her apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina to visit a friend nearby. It was supposed to be a quick visit — just a short walk across the apartment complex. She told her boyfriend and brother she’d be back within an hour. She never returned. What should have been a routine walk home turned into a mystery that has haunted her famil...

On the night of June 15, 2018, 23-year-old Jermain Charlo — a young Indigenous mother and a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes — was seen in downtown Missoula, Montana near the Badlander bar.  Surveillance footage captured her in the alley just before midnight. She walked out of frame with her ex-boyfriend, Michael DeFrance. Jermain was never seen again. In this episode, we exa...

On March 15, 2019, 30-year-old Najah Ferrell left her home in Avon, Indiana in the dark of the early morning—heading to her third day of orientation at a new job that was supposed to help her build a better future for her kids. She had five children depending on her: two biological sons and three foster children she had welcomed into her home. But Najah never made it to work. And by the end of the...

In July 2019, 30-year-old mother of four Cecilia Huerta Gallegos vanished without a trace from her San Antonio home. Security cameras inside the house captured her entering the bedroom she shared with her husband, Reyes Gallegos — but never coming back out.  Hours later, those same cameras were shut off. When they came back on, Cecilia was gone, and Reyes was unloading a chainsaw, shovels, and tra...

On a frigid January night in 2014, 20-year-old Rocelyn Gabriel — Ojibway, bright, full of plans — vanished into the blizzard in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Hours later, she was found behind an industrial recycling depot, barely alive, wearing only a sweater.  Authorities called it death by exposure, hypothermia. But her family insists: Rocelyn didn’t end up there by accident. In this episode of...

On February 22, 2010, 18-year-old Jalesa Chantell Reynolds followed her normal routine in Scotland Neck, North Carolina. She attended class. She visited the local library. She logged into Facebook. Then she logged off — and never came home. Hours later, investigators would discover her Facebook account had been accessed again — this time from a private residence outside town on Cemetery Road. The...

On August 15, 2019, 39-year-old Cynthia Acevedo was seen walking near a cemetery in Laveen, Arizona, within the Gila River Indian Community. She never made it home. Two weeks later, when Cynthia’s mother reported her missing, investigators realized this was no ordinary disappearance. Cynthia was a devoted mother, daughter, and community member — someone who stayed in constant contact with her fami...

In January 2015, Rita Janelle Papakee was last seen at the Meskwaki casino in central Iowa. What should have been an ordinary night ended in silence. Days passed. Then weeks. And before urgency ever took hold, a mother, sister, and community member had vanished. Witnesses would later tell police they saw Rita walking in the cold and snow, visibly angry, when a dark pickup approached her. Others re...