What Happened To Taylor Casey?
Finding Taylor Casey: Advocates Believe Missing Black Woman’s Identity As Transgender Is Stalling Investigation
Source: facebook / facebook
UPDATED: 9:30 a.m. ET, July 12
On Thursday, the family of Taylor Casey gathered to commemorate her 42nd birthday, but instead of a joyous celebration, Taylor’s family are trying to get answers to her mysterious disappearance.
“The pain I felt 42 years ago while birthing you doesn’t compare to the pain I feel on today with you missing out of our lives,” Colette Seymore, Casey’s mother, said during a news conference with WLS.
“The pain, the hurt (and) the agony is practically killing me.”
According to CNN, during the news conference on Thursday, Channyn Lynne Parker, CEO of the Brave Space Alliance – a “Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ center” in Chicago, told reporters she believed Casey’s identity as a transgender Black woman is the reason her investigation is stalling.
“(We have) trans women whose lives are being discarded, who are being thought of as nothing but an afterthought. And again, here we are – having to apply pressure when it should come as second nature and instinct to do what you know to be right,” Parker said.
“We’re here to say right now, emphatically, resoundingly and loudly that we reject that. Black women matter (and) … Black trans women matter.”
Casey’s mother also noted that missing person flyers were not put up at the Royal Bahamas Police Force Department or the retreat center where Taylor Casey was seen.
“How are you looking for my child?” she said. “People have to see that somebody is missing and they never put up posters or anything.”
It’s almost been a month since Chicago native Taylor Casey went missing in the Bahamas, and police are adding resources to the investigation into her disappearance.
According to CNN, investigators in the Bahamas have enlisted the help of search dogs, marine teams and flight crews to help in the search for Casey.
Taylor Casey, 41, went missing on June 19 while attending the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island, Bahamas, which was confirmed by her family in a news release. On June 21, a missing person report was issued by the Bahamas Police Force and a poster was created to bring awareness to her disappearance.
On Monday, Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said that earlier in the search, a police dog found a scent from a tent and tracked it to the water, but the scent ended there. The next day the crew found Casey’s cell phone in the water and asked American authorities to help access the phone’s content.
Last week, Casey’s mother, Colette Seymore, traveled to Paradise Island and Nassau to meet with authorities to get answers about her daughter’s whereabouts, but returned home without her daughter.
“I had to return home without her,” Seymore said in a news release shared with CNN by a family representative. “This is every mother’s worst nightmare.”
The family is now asking the FBI to take over the investigation.
“I felt an urgent need to return because without U.S. government support, we may never find out what happened to my Taylor, said Seymore.
Emily Williams, a friend of Taylor Casey, joined Seymore on her trip to the Bahamas and said the family wasn’t happy with the answers they received about Casey’s disappearance.
“Let me make this clear to the U.S. media, the public, and our government officials: We are not satisfied with how this investigation has been handled thus far. And what we learned and observed during our time meeting with the authorities and Ashram leaders is disturbing and infuriating,” Williams said in the press release.
According to CNN, the State Department has declined to comment on Casey’s case but said they are aware of a U.S. citizen missing in Bahamas.
“We are deeply concerned for Taylor’s safety and well-being,” Seymore said in a press release, which was posted on a Facebook group dedicated to finding Taylor Casey. “We love Taylor and want her home.”
Casey has been practicing yoga for 15 years and traveled to the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat to gain knowledge and experience to share with her community in Chicago, according to her mother.
“I believe Taylor is in danger because she was eager to share her yoga retreat experience with others upon her return. Taylor would never disappear like this,” said Seymore in the press release.
The family is urging anyone who may have information about her whereabouts to please come forward as soon as possible. “Every lead is crucial in their efforts to locate her,” the release read.
Casey has been described as a light-skinned Black woman about 5-foot-10, weighs 145 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes.
The disappearance of Taylor Casey draws attention to the disturbing number of Black women who go missing every year.
In 2022, there were more than 97,000 cases of missing Black women reported in the United States alone, according to data from the National Crime Information Center. In the same year, Black women and girls made up approximately 18% of all missing persons cases while only being just 7% of the population.
Rosa Page, registered nurse and head of the Black Femicide Prevention Coalition, told U.S. News, that she believes the amount of missing Black women is a lot higher than the numbers suggest.
“There are no flyers, there is no information many times – even (for) the missing women and girls on my page,” she said.
As we’ve previously covered, missing Black women have also historically not gotten adequate media coverage when compared to other demographics.
“If Black people go missing at double their occurrence in the actual population, which happens to be the case, there should be double the stories. But in fact, it’s the opposite,” Kyle Pope, the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, told WTKR. “When you go missing, your case gets more or less coverage, and it correlates directly to race.”
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