What Laci, Chandra and Gabby all had in common — and Susana Torres didn’t
Two things about the media were absolutely guaranteed in the tragic Gabby Petito story: That we would cover the heck out of it, and that we would then beat ourselves up for covering the heck out of it.
An attractive, 22-year-old woman goes missing on a road trip with her macho fiancé. He returns home without her, then also disappears. Her remains are recovered, and five weeks after she vanished, he still is nowhere to be found.
The Gabby Petito-Brian Laundrie mystery stirs the imagination. Everything about it screams for media attention.
Whether news agencies merely meet demand or are responsible for creating it is a fair question. Today I’m more interested in the second phase, the self-flagellation that comes as we recognize that people of color who go missing don’t get near the same attention in our pages and newscasts.
“Missing white woman syndrome” — PBS anchor Gwen Ifill came up with that insightfully apt term in 2004, two years after Laci Peterson vanished, and three after Chandra Levy did. Because both were from Modesto, our city plays an outsized role in this phenomenon.
The so-called paper of record — a role we assumed in both cases — typically covers murder-mysteries from start to finish regardless of attention from national and cable news. But both stories about Chandra and Laci spun out of control, drawing hordes of journalists from near and far and spawning books, documentaries and even made-for-TV movies.
And there is no denying the reality of missing white woman syndrome.
“I can roll off the names of Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy, Natalee Holloway, Caylee Anthony, Gabby Petito, and not one person can roll off a missing Black or brown male or female that has garnered mainstream media (attention),” Derrica Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, told a Wisconsin TV news crew recently.
It’s great when media attention galvanizes resolve to find missing people, the organization said in a statement. But the disparity in treatment between victims’ race “has led to many families still looking for answers and struggling to get the awareness they deserve to bring their loved ones home.”
That’s sobering.
Modesto case study
Consider Susana Torres, a 29-year-old Modesto Latina who vanished in April.
The restraining order she obtained against her estranged husband proved useless against the handgun he might have held when forcing her into a car outside a south Modesto mini-mart; surveillance video footage is blurry, but Javier Chavez clearly had something in his hand.
Authorities believe he fled to Mexico, and are working diplomatic channels to extradite him, if he can be found. What happened to her, no one knows despite 10 official searches on 30 warrants, some featuring a helicopter, drones, K9’s, and search and rescue teams.
Susana’s friends and family staged a street rally a few days after she went missing, moving to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in a public plea for help. “I want my mom back!!” read a poster held up by Susana’s 8-year-old son in a heart-breaking photo captured by Bee reporter Lydia Gerike.
She wrote four detailed, disturbing reports in the days following Susana’s disappearance, and again at the three-week mark, and again at the three-month mark. Bee reporter Andrea Briseno added a moving, lengthy piece on intimate partner violence. All Sacramento TV news stations produced at least one report.
“Media coverage can sometimes be helpful in motivating the public to pay attention and share information they may have to help resolve such cases,” Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager told me in an email.
Unequal treatment — because of race?
But we’re nearing six months of this mystery. Chavez — whose on-the-lam status is no different from Laundrie’s — goes virtually unnoticed, while the manhunt for Laundrie remains in hyperdrive.
Petito’s family, recognizing the inequity, formed a foundation in hopes of helping find other missing people, including those of color, who did not receive the same treatment.
If that rings a bell, you might be recalling the Laci & Conner Search and Rescue Fund, or the Carole Sund-Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation. Both sought the same purpose before running their course; the first was established by Laci’s loved ones, and the second, by survivors of the so-called Yosemite sightseer victims, three women murdered in 1999 whose high-profile FBI search was based in Modesto.
Meanwhile, hand-wringing by media over its latest case of missing white woman syndrome has been in high gear. Mea culpa commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, several TV stations and more. A popular anchor in the Bay Area with KTVU, a Fox affiliate, insisted on mentioning coverage disparity on air; he was prevented, then suspended.
We reflect and self-examine in the media because we know that meaningful change, especially in matters of race, rarely comes without uncomfortable scrutiny. No problem gets fixed without acknowledging there is a problem.
And the fact that no one can find Susana Torres — a beloved daughter, niece and mother, and one of us — is a huge problem.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
