By Perly Viasmensky
The disappearance and later discovery of the body of Gabby Petito has impacted every single person in the nation, even those who never had children and can feel the pain and suffering of this 22-year-old
girl’s family.
The despicable, disgraceful words of MSNBC member Joy Reid prove one more time that hateful racism is very much alive in our country — not due to something that took place over 200 years ago but instigated today by people with a complex over something that is nobody’s fault.
Joy Reid expressed her opinion about the Petito girl’s case: “The way this story has captivated the nation has many wondering: Why not the same media attention when people of color go missing? Well, the answer actually has a name, ‘Missing White woman syndrome.’”
Ms. Reid, as part of the media, maybe—just maybe—can pay attention to some cases that never attracted the attention of the media that she belongs to.
On March 29, 2006, Jessica Edith Louise Foster, a 21-year-old beautiful woman, blonde Canadian girl disappeared from Las Vegas, Nevada without a trace. She disappeared from a home located at 1009
Cornerstone Place in North Las Vegas where she was living with her “supposed” fiancé. Jessie (as she is known by family and friends) was once hospitalized with a broken jaw because of a brutal beating from
that “fiancé.” When Jessie disappeared, there was no media coverage, the North Las Vegas Police Department, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and even the FBI didn’t organize a search for Jessie.
Nobody cared that her mother, Glendene Grant, had a knife stabbed in her heart, which she still carries deep in her chest 15 years later.
Authorities spoke to the supposed fiancé, but they never investigated him, they never searched the house from where she disappeared, looking for traces of blood or anything else. There was never a “MISSING WHITE WOMAN SYNDROME.”
There was no Grand Jury Hearing, no investigation, nothing. Ahh, but there was something else, the supposed fiancé is a Black man who was her pimp. Since authorities never wanted to touch him, should
we call that case “The lucky Black pimp syndrome?”
On August 29, 2020, a young 22-year-old woman of Las Vegas was reported missing by her family. She was of the newly-discovered race of Brown people (I don’t remember learning of that particular race).
This beautiful girl of Mexican descent disappeared after a night out with a friend of her family. Her name was Lesly Palacio.
There was a police investigation. Lesly’s family posted on social media that she was last seen near the Longhorn Casino on August 28.
There was also a Grand Jury hearing when her body was found in the Valley of Fire Park, a public recreation and nature preservation area in Clark County near Overton. Nevada.
Lesly didn’t come home after going out with Erick Rangel-Ibarra. Erick Rangel-Ibarra’s father, Jose Rangel, helped her son to get rid of the body, and then father and son left the country for Mexico.
Lesly’s family has described going to Rangel’s home a couple of days after the young woman’s disappearance and observed Rangel’s mother and sisters loading a truck with furniture while wearing rubber gloves.
According to a detective with Metro Police, his testimony to the Grand Jury revealed that two men are observed on a video dragging a body out of the home and loading it into the truck.
Rangel’s father came back from Mexico, leaving his son in the Aztec land that has no deportation regardless of the crime committed.
Jose Rangel, an accessory and accomplice to murder, was sent to a two-year vacation at the State Prison, while his son continues living his life without worries and concerns in Mexico, maybe thinking how to kill another young woman.
Joy Reid should keep her political racism to herself and realize that she is also a mother—White, Black, or in between, for a mother that loses a child, there is no space for racism in her heart.
Some cases have lots of media coverage; some others, none, whatsoever. Just one thing is sure: Joy Reid, as a well-known member of the media, needs to think before giving voice to her deplorable and untrue comments.
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Perly Viasmensky is the General Manager of the Las Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper. To contact Perly Viasmensky, email her at pviasmensky@lasvegastribune.co
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