For two years, they have heard nothing. Friends and family of Charlottesville resident Sage Smith have received no closure since her disappearance, 729 long days ago.
It is impossible not to think about this case in comparison to Hannah Graham’s disappearance. Hannah, whose death has been officially declared a homicide, was missing for about a month before her body was discovered. Hannah’s case was reported by local and national media, and even ABC’s World News Tonight. Sage Smith’s case has not received nearly that level of press attention.
The reward for information about Sage’s disappearance was recently increased to $20,000, to match the reward offered in Hannah’s case, so there is at least the recognition that the rewards should be equal. But there is still the question of whether law enforcement has devoted the same amount of time and resources to both cases, and why the media widely disseminated one but not the other.
This is not to say Hannah Graham’s case did not deserve the community response and resources it received. But why the disparity? We cannot help asking the question: would Sage Smith still be missing if she were a white cis-gendered University student?
Of course, we must consider other factors before we conclude this is a case of demographic marginalization. It could be that Hannah’s disappearance occurred at a time when there is heightened concern about the prevalence of violence against women in general, and about the community’s and law enforcement’s responses to it. Arguably, the climate has changed even in the course of recent years. Morgan Harrington, who disappeared in 2009, was missing for three months before her body was discovered accidentally. And there were limited developments in her case until recently.
There are also other factors which vary with each individual case. There may be different amounts of information available to conduct an investigation. But Hannah Graham’s case is similar to Sage Smith’s case in one respect — there was a person of interest who was sought, and in the former case he was found and in the latter case his whereabouts remain unknown. Jesse Matthew was apprehended even after fleeing to Texas because the story and his photo were so widely circulated. Is it possible that Erik McFadden has been able to fly under the radar for so long because the national media did not pick up the case?
We can look beyond this one comparison to inform our conclusions. A 2010 study found black missing children get a disproportionately low amount of media coverage compared to white missing children. This is an indication of a kind of institutionalized prejudice, and we may be seeing an individual example of that in Sage’s case.
Sage’s family and friends have held on to hope for two years that she will return. Such resolve is a reflection of their admirable strength, fighting through unimaginable pain. Hannah was missing for one month. Can we imagine our community feeling the anxiety and uncertainty felt during that month for two whole years? Sage’s friends and family deserve to have the closure we have received — that is a form of justice which has not yet been realized.
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