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 — what no one told them until a journalist uncovered it in 2025 — was that Benita's name had never been entered into NamUs, the federal database built specifically to match missing people with unidentified remains.

In this episode, we tell Benita's story and investigate the systemic failure that left her invisible to the one tool designed to bring people home. We also examine the broader crisis on and around the Yakama Reservation, where Indigenous women go missing at four times the rate of white women and a local newspaper has had to crowdsource its own list of the vanished.

We have to ask, why are the people most likely to go missing, the least likely to be looked for

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

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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 dismissal, and a final acquittal. We talk about what that process cost the Barnes family. And we talk about the extraordinary legacy they built in Phylicia's name when the legal system gave them nothing else.

Closed is not the same as solved. And solved is not the same as just.

If you haven't listened to Part One yet — start there. This story deserves to be heard from the beginning.

If you have information about Phylicia's murder, contact Baltimore Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP. You can remain completely anonymous.

Resources:
— Black and Missing Foundation: blackandmissinginc.com
— Sovereign Bodies Institute: sovereignbodies.org
— National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: missingkids.org | 1-800-843-567

To see more about this case, as well as the full list of sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

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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 her fiercely. We walk through the days after her disappearance, the massive search that consumed Baltimore, and the devastating silence from a national media that couldn't find the time for a missing Black girl.

One hundred and thirteen days passed.

What happened next changed everything.

Part Two drops next Wednesday.

If you have information about Phylicia's murder, contact Baltimore Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP. You can remain completely anonymous.

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

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