A recent Black News Weekly episode has reignited national conversations about the troubling data suggesting unsolved murders among Black people are at a higher rate than of other races.
During the show, featured on REVOLT, journalist Mara S. Campo summarized the brutal murders of Zi’Ariel Robinson-Oliver, 9, A’Miyah Hughes, 8, and Te’Mari Robinson-Oliver, 5, three sisters who went missing and were later found dead at a pond in Cass County, Texas last year.
Investigators initially ruled that they died as a result of drowning but the show’s producers found that they may have died as a result of molestation. Eight months after their deaths, authorities say the case is under investigation, but the children’s mother, Shammaonique Wickerson, told Campo that she hadn’t heard from police about their deaths since August.
“She claimed she has heard nothing since,” the report reads. “Wickerson also said police have never interviewed her cousin, Parris Propps, who was watching the children on the night they went missing. Propps has a long criminal history that includes drug possession and weapon charges, and he hasn’t spoken to anyone about what happened. Wickerson also has three surviving children, and one of them told police she saw her sisters go in the woods with Propps.”
It has led many to question why detectives have dragged their feet to solve the crime.
“When you get to Cass County, you don’t think you’re in 2023; you would think more of the ‘80s,” Quanell X, a New Black Panther Nation leader told REVOLT. “It’s almost shocking when you see some of the homes where our people are living. You would not believe it’s 2023. I wouldn’t say Cass County is so much a sundown town; it’s by 3 o’clock, get the hell out of town.”
The report comes just weeks after Shine My Crown reported that Federal prosecutors would not prosecute anyone in connection to the murder of Shanquella Robinson, who died while vacationing in Mexico last October, the US Attorneys’ Offices for the Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina said.
The 25-year-old native was staying at a luxury residence in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur when she was pronounced dead while with friends. No suspects were arrested or charged.
“Based on the results of the autopsy and after a careful deliberation and review of the investigative materials by both U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, federal prosecutors informed Ms. Robinson’s family today that the available evidence does not support a federal prosecution,” the attorney’s offices said in a news release.
At a news conference, Robinson’s family’s attorney, Sue-Ann Robinson said that her family was “deeply disappointed” with the decision, but are “not deterred” and will continue to take legal action in pursuit to find her killer.
