Why haven't we heard of Tamika Huston?
 

I just received an e-mail regarding the search for Tamika Huston who has been missing from Spartanburg, SC for over 2 months. I hope that people will click on the link and see if they recognize her. You never know who comes across your path.

In the meantime, I'm disappointed that I haven't heard one thing about this in the media. I know of the pregnant woman that's still missing, but there are other people that are missed by their family and friends that deserve news coverage, too. I also recognize that if each and every missing person received national coverage, we might not hear all of the national news. But am I wrong for even thinking of pulling the "Race Card"? Honestly, the last case of an A-A receiving decent attention that I recall was the unfortunate disapperance and death of our Greek Sister (DST) Christine Moore (R.I.P.).

Such a pretty woman........I'll be in Orangeburg next weekend and will keep my eyes and ears open. I will keep her family in my prays:(

I saw this on our listserve today also. :(

I will too

Sorhors,

Thanks for sharing that information with us. I've never heard about this case at all and I will keep this family in my prayers as well.

Serioussigma22:cool:

Hell, I LIVE in SC and haven't heard this. :( Thanks for posting this.

How very very sad!!

I live an hour and a half away and have not heard about this. She's been missing since late May? Hell I saw ticker tape for Hacking 15 minutes after she was last seen.

Jojapeach, it is definitely a "RACE" thing.


:( :( :( :( :( :(

I live in Greenville, which is about 30 minutes from Spartanburg. When I saw this thread, I was like..."Who is Tamika Huston?" But then after reading, I remembered. That goes to show you how much coverage this story has gotten. This is a really sad situation and indeed needs more coverage.

I should not be 45 miles away and not recognize her name!!:(

I saw this story on BET News. It is sad, and BET raised the issue of race as well.

Who is Soror Christine Moore?I have never heard of her or her ordeal. Can someone please enlighten me. A link to info about her would be nice as well. I ran a search and got nothing.

It's a difficult search
 

There's a radio show that comes on Sunday mornings on 98.7 KISS FM in New York called "Open Line". The show deals with issues that effect the AA community. Yesterday, Tomika's aunt called to discuss her missing neice. The aunt HERSELF deals with PR and media, and she is still having a difficult time getting her neice's story out to the main stream. The only luck she's had so far was BET and someone from "America's Most Wanted", who is keeping tabs on the story and will most likely make an episode about Tomika. Ironicly, she was able to do this b/c her cousin used to date someone who worked for the TV show.

This is definitely about race. HC the Amber Alert wasn't put into action??

Sadly, the further away we get from the day she was reported missing, the less likely they will find her alive. :( :(

They mentioned Tamika on Tom Joyner this morning. BlackAmericaWeb.com now has information about her. Tom also commented on how she had been missing since May and her pit bull had ate its puppies. :(

*update*
 

Evidence suggests foul play in Huston disappearance
Posted Friday, February 18, 2005 - 11:48 pm


By Patricia Newman
STAFF WRITER
pnewman@greenvillenews.com
Police investigating the case of a missing Spartanburg woman say they are looking at several possible suspects after new evidence suggests foul play may have been involved in the disappearance of the 24-year-old.

Spartanburg public safety Capt. Randy Hardy said Friday that forensic evidence found in January has been linked to Tamika Huston, missing since last June.

Hardy declined to say what type of evidence was found, but said as a result, Huston's case is now considered a result of foul play rather than a standard missing person case.

"We've got several people we are looking at as far as suspects," he said. "There are some areas that we may start to look for Tamika as time goes on. But we will continue to look for Tamika."

Hardy said the new evidence changes the focus of the investigation.

"As we started looking into the disappearance of Tamika, there were several suspicious occurrences that came into play," he said. "Her car was found. She had not gotten in touch with any of her relatives and she left behind a dog she loved dearly. All of these things were suspicious in nature, but nothing suggested foul play."

Rebkah Howard, Tamika's aunt, said "the family still clings to the hope that she may be out there. This new evidence frustrates those hopes. It sort of brings to focus that she may not be with us."

She said the family believes someone knows something about what happened to her niece.

"We hope that their conscience would bring them forward to let police know what they know," she said.

Family members reported Huston missing on June 14, 2004.

Her 1991 black Honda CRX was later found abandoned at an apartment complex.

Hardy said they had determined she was last seen about two to three weeks before she was reported missing.

Thanks for the update!

Serioussigma22:cool:

Why do we care about Natalee, Laci, Jennifer?
 

Is there gender and racial profiling in missing persons coverage?
Why some stories, like Tamika Huston's, are never told.

By Josh Mankiewicz
Correspondent
Dateline NBC
Updated: 7:54 p.m. ET Aug. 5, 2005

Missing American girls are often the lead story: The networks and the cable news channels can't seem to get enough of Laci, of Chandra, of Lori, of Jennifer, of Elizabeth, of Natalee.

Their disappearances have brought heartbreak and anguish to their families. But if all you did was watch the TV news in this country, you might think that these are the only people who are missing — or that their fate in particular is incredibly important. News channels tell the story of their disappearances not once, but again and again.

But in a country of almost 300 million, many other Americans are missing too.

Tamika Huston, bright and beautiful with an angel's voice, is one of the other missing Americans.

Tamika Huston's untold story
Aunt Rebkah Howard calls Huston "an amazing young woman."

"She's very bubbly, very bright," says Howard. "She has an amazing singing voice."

Huston's dream of becoming a singer led her to try out for the TV show "American Idol." She didn't make the cut, but the experience seemed to inspire her to set her sights beyond the life she was living in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

"I think she really realized, 'It's time for me to like figure out what I really want to do with the rest of my life,'" says her aunt.

And then, one day in late May of 2004, Huston vanishes. At 24, Tamika had quit her waitressing job and was going out on interviews. Since she was living alone, it took a couple of weeks for her family to notice they hadn't heard from her in awhile.

"I spent Saturday and Sunday trying to find her," says Howard. By Monday morning, Howard called police in Spartanburg and told them something was terribly wrong.

Police went to Tamika's home. She wasn't there and there was no sign of a struggle. And yet, what police did find was reason for her family to worry even more: Huston's abandoned dog.

"Her dog, Macy, who Tamika treated like her child, was there and had given birth to a litter of puppies," says Howard. "It had obviously been left alone for some time in distress. So, at that point, I knew, without question, that something had gone horribly wrong," says Howard.

And the police's report got worse. Inside Tamika's home, police found her driver's license, her cell phone, and some uncashed paychecks. It didn't appear that Huston had just gone on vacation.

Six days later, officers found Tamika's car on the other side of town. Inside the car, they found a set of keys that led them to apartments that seemingly had no connection to the missing woman.

Spartanburg Police Lieutenant Steve Lamb, who led the investigation, says he walked around that apartment complex asking if anybody had seen Huston.

Police were at work and so was Rebkah Howard, a public-relations executive in Miami.

PR blitz in Spartanburg
Howard did what she does best: She drafted press releases and started making phone calls.

In Spartanburg, her public relations skills paid off. The local media picked up on Tamika's story pretty quickly.

But Howard knew she had to spread the word outside Spartanburg. "Tamika could be anywhere from California to New York," she says. "I had no idea, so I wanted to cast as wide a net as I could possibly cast."

Broadcast networks initially don't respond
So Howard starting calling the broadcast networks. But nothing happened.

"I couldn't understand why I wasn't even getting, you know, 'Thank you very much, but we're not interested in this story at this time,'" says Howard.

Howard says no one responded: Not at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, or MSNBC.

It was crushing news for Howard. Her family had done everything they could think of from prayer vigils and a $30,000 reward to Web sites devoted to news about Huston. And this was a family with some connections — an uncle works for U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, while Howard’s husband is former NFL star Desmond Howard (a Heisman trophy winner and later Superbowl MVP).

But those connections didn't help enough and this family found the disinterest in Tamika's story frustrating. To them, Tamika's story was so similar to those of other women like Chandra Levy and Lori Hacking.

"Lori Hacking went missing about three weeks after my niece did and her family was getting round-the-clock coverage on that case," recalls Howard. "And I had just spent the preceding three weeks trying to get the attention of those same reporters, of those same programs, of those same networks, to pay attention to what I was saying about Tamika. I was flabbergasted."

But Howard wouldn't take no for an answer: Seeing the steady drumbeat of the Laci Peterson coverage, she says she called the "Today" show directly and got nowhere. The same was true at "Good Morning America," at the "Early Show" on CBS, at "20/20" and "Dateline."

"I never got past — I was directed to send an e-mail, which I did," says Howard. But nobody ever messaged her back.

No one is claiming that every missing-persons story should get a place on the news — there are almost 50,000 people in the FBI's database of missing persons cases. But consider this: most of those missing adults are men. Almost 30 percent of those abducted or kidnapped are black.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Co...singPeople.gif
So why is it that we in the news media, seem to focus so much on stories that involve victims who are young, attractive, female, and white?

"Tamika's young, she's attractive, middle class," says her aunt. "The only thing that she's isn't is white. You know, I don't know what else it could be."

Before one can dismiss that criticism, there are numbers gathered by Media Analyst Andrew Tyndall, who regularly monitors network news: In the year Tamika's relatives were begging for airtime, the morning news broadcasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS aired a combined 941 minutes on the Laci Peterson story, 135 minutes on Lori Hacking (killed by her husband in Salt Lake City), and 98 minutes of coverage on Audrey Seiler (a University of Wisconsin student who faked her own abduction).

Read the rest here....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8667821
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Co...ton.vsmall.jpg

I have "peeps" in Orangeburg.

I saw this on Dateline
 

The story addressed the fact that women of color do not get the same coverage when they are missing as white women. The president of NBC news was on there and he kinda beat around the bush and said that he didn't think that it was racist on purpose. Whatever.

They said an arrest had been made in the case and that blood had been found in an apartment that matched Tamika's DNA. The dude had run off and the apartment had been cleaned by management, which no doubt removed a LOT of evidence.

Man Charged In Disappearance Of Tamika Huston
 

Man Charged In Disappearance Of Tamika Huston
Woman Reported Missing In June 2004


http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/ne...68/detail.html

POSTED: 2:24 pm EDT August 12, 2005
UPDATED: 4:20 pm EDT August 12, 2005

SPARTANBURG -- New information in the case of a Spartanburg woman who disappeared last year has come to light Friday afternoon.

Spartanburg Public Safety Director Tony Fisher said that Christopher Lemont Hampton has been charged with murder. Fisher said recently uncovered forensic evidence indicated that Hampton was responsible for killing Huston.

Huston, 24, went missing in June 2004. Her car was found abandoned at an apartment complex a week later.

In March, Spartanburg Public Safety officials said that they had identified a "person of interest" in the case. At the time, investigators said the man, a former bank robber, was related to a Spartanburg apartment building where authorities found traces of Huston's blood in January.

Investigators said a set of keys found in Huston's car led them to the apartment building.

Fisher said that Hampton and Huston were friends at some point, but could not say if they had been dating.

Huston's case has received national attention from "America's Most Wanted" and "Dateline".

Folks,

It's really amazing how the media can spend so much time on running a story about a missing child or female if she has the right color.

I also saw a recent episode on one of the current news program that pointed out this serious injustice in America. Yes, they did talk about the lack of cover for Ms. Tamika Huston. I'm glad that we are finally beginning to hear information about this young woman.

Serioussigma22:cool:

Sad answers to Tamika's disappearance

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Co...51009.300w.jpg

More details on the fate of the missing woman whose family demanded that her story be told
By Josh Mankiewicz
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 3:08 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2005

She was here for just a moment... and then, at only 24, Tamika Huston was gone. She simply vanished.

Left behind are both her family’s anguish and the words of the man who admits killing her.

This collision of two lives came to a terrible end in late May of 2004. Tamika had quit her waitressing job and was looking for something better


She loved to sing, and even tried out for the TV show “American Idol,” and though that didn’t work out, Tamika had decided to set her sights beyond the life she was living in Spartanburg, South Carolina. But she lived alone and it was several days before anyone realized they hadn’t heard from Tamika in awhile.

Rebkah Howard, Tamika's aunt: She wouldn’t just disappear. She knows without question that our entire family would be just, you know, devastated at not being able to find her. And I don’t think that she would ever put us through that.

Rebkah Howard sounded the alarm that sent police to Tamika’s home, where they found her dog, her cell phone, some uncashed paychecks, but no Tamika.

Howard: It was basically a year-long search for her. Very little clues— it was just heartbreaking.

But while other missing women were featured prominently on national newscasts, Tamika’s story was not. That was despite the best efforts of her aunt Rebkah Howard, a Miami-based public relations executive. And so Tamika’s case came to be a kind of emblem of what was missing from the national news media, and it sparked a discussion of the role race plays in deciding which news stories to cover, and which to ignore.

When we first brought you the story of Tamika Huston, we told you police had a suspect in her disappearance. But at the time, investigators had no body and no proof that a crime had been committed, and so police asked us not to reveal the identity of the suspect, and we agreed. Now, that investigation is nearing an end, and tonight, we can name the person charged in the murder of Tamika Huston.

His name is Christopher Hampton, a young man who’d been in and out of jail, he apparently began seeing Tamika just a short time before she disappeared. That is why her family members didn’t know his name, and couldn’t point investigators in his direction.

Spartanburg police lieutenant Steve Lamb had heard from Tamika’s friend that she had recently started seeing a guy named Chris. But detectives had no last name.

Spartan Police Lieutenant Steve Lamb: They had only been dating a short period of time, less than a month. In this case, we were fortunate, in the next case, we may not be. But if there is a lead, or a possibility, we try to follow it, and try to find the truth.

An answer to the question of what happened to Tamika would take investigators down a twisting path. A few days after their investigation began, they found her car and in it, a key that didn’t fit either the car or Tamika’s home. Through a local locksmith, Spartanburg police traced it to an apartment complex, and eventually to the lock on the door of an apartment that, at the time Tamika vanished, had been rented by Christopher Hampton.

Now, add to good police work a piece of good luck: Lt. Lamb went looking for Hampton and found him in the federal lock-up on a parole violation.

Lamb: Christopher Hampton was already in jail, and was going to be in jail until around August. Instead of rushing in this case and going in, signing warrants on him for murder, we had time to prepare, time to build, and time to make a strong case against him.

Inside Hampton’s former apartment, on the carpet, was a bloodstain. Tests matched it to Tamika’s DNA.

County prosecutor Trey Gowdy: [A case] Being solved and being prosecutable are two different things.

What became significant after the blood evidence was found was the laughably inconsistent stories that the defendant told as to how that stain got there.


First, Hampton told police the stain was tabasco sauce, then said someone had vandalized his place, dumping ketchup and mayonnaise on the carpet. He even volunteered that he’d rented a carpet steamer to clean it up. Even stranger, Hampton made many of these claims in letters he sent to investigators from inside federal detention, long before he was charged in Tamika’s disappearance.

Gowdy: He attempted to exonerate himself. That is unusual for folks who are not connected with crimes to write a letter and say, “Hey, by the way, I just wanted you to know I had nothing to do with this crime.”

On the day Hampton was to be released from federal custody on his parole violation, Lt. Lamb felt he had enough. Christopher Hampton was arrested and charged with the murder of Tamika Huston.


Hampton led police to Tamika’s remains, in a remote, wooded area where he had buried her. He confessed to killing Tamika, but said it was an accident— something he said during a jailhouse interview with Alexander Morrison, a local newspaper reporter.

According to Hampton, he and Tamika had an argument while he was ironing his work uniform.

Hampton: I just got mad. I just, just threw an iron... It happened so fast, I looked, I can’t believe it. I was, I just walked out of the room.

He says that when he returned, Tamika was dead.

Reporter: If you could tell her family anything right now, what would that be?

Hampton: To be forgiven. I didn’t mean for it to happen.

But Hampton’s actions after Tamika’s death raise more questions. By his own admission, he hid Tamika’s body in his closet. Police also say that very night, Hampton had sex with another girl— just a few feet away from the woman he had just killed.

Howard: So, he has intercourse with the young woman who was actually 15 years old at the time, while Tamika is stuffed in a comforter in his closet. It was just a heinous crime. It was literally our worst fears realized.

Tamika’s aunt Rebkah Howard doesn’t buy Hampton’s story of an accident.

Howard: He said in that interview to the newspaper that he wasn’t a monster. I mean, if that’s not the actions of a monster, I don’t know what is. We have no idea how long Tamika was alive. We don’t know if she died instantly. We don’t know if she died over the course of the night in his home while he left there on the floor bleeding out, or when he stuffed her in the closet. We’ll never know. We’ll never know.

Christopher Hampton has pled not guilty. He goes on trial in April.

Tamika Huston’s funeral is scheduled for November 5th. Until then, this secluded place where police found her remains is the only memorial for a woman whose family demanded that her story be told... no matter what the ending.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

Another life taken
 

Thank you NinjaPoodle for this update- I was wondering about the outcome of this case. My heart goes out to her family and all those who loved her.

They really kept it on the low when she was found. Spartanburg is in the Upstate and I didn't know they had found her until the funeral.:(

Thank god they found out who did it, before it happened to someone else. My heart goes out to her family. But she may now rest in peace.

This has got to be one of the most sickest/saddest stories of a young black woman that I have ever heard. May her family have peace.

This is such a sad story, I hope and pray that her family is able to find peace in the midst of this. :(

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I had kept an eye on the story, but I had no idea that the guy charged had put her body in a closet while he had sex with another girl...WTF!

Lord, forgive me for my judging heart right now...

This is absolutely devastating. I pray that Tamika's soul and her relatives minds are more at peace now that there is some truth out there about her "disappearance". I agree with her aunt that the complete truth may never come out, but it's sad that her own boyfriend was involved to such a horrific degree. :(

I'm disappointed that the local news media couldn't thoroughly update the public on what had received some national media coverage.

From_the_roots: God's gonna have to forgive a lot of us for judging in this situation. I don't think any of us can wrap our mind around her killer's actions/thought process.

But what do we do.....
 

I remember a time, not that long ago, that the AA community would be ALL over this. Protests, debates the media were sure to show up. It seems to me that what has happened that with all those protests and debates White America has become desensitized to our suffering and issues. Our stories arent news worthy. This is why BlacK America Web, Essence and BET(what it used to be) are very necessary. How else will we learn about what is going on?

You can see the evidence of White America's general desensitizaton to our issues here on GC. The tern the "Race Card" constantly being slung about. Our pointing out our continued suffering still in 2006 is a game to some. (Side Note: Maybe I need to get out more, but I find it highly irratating when the term "Race Card" is used when discussing AA issues. However Jewish Americans are quick to remind everyone of the Holocust. But.....it is never a "race card" thing for them. It isnt a race card thing for anyone except AA's).

My question becomes what do we do? I cant change any one, I can only change myself. I am going to make some very definative changes in my life and my community. I am going to sign up to work with the youth ministry at my church. I want our children to know about the past and let them know that they have to stay covered in the blood of Jesus. I think that I will be more vocal about thinks when the opportunity to educate arises. That is all I can think of for now. What about you? What do you do think can be doe on an individual level to make our issues known on a small level or a large level.

http://www.fox21.com/Global/story.as...19311&nav=2KPp


Spartanburg, SC
Christopher Hampton Pleas Guilty: Admits Killing Tamika Huston
April 6, 2006 06:10 AM PDT


When Tamika Huston disappeared back in May 2004, her family knew something had gone wrong. They passed out fliers and investigators with the Spartanburg Public Safety Department drained ponds and searched wooded areas for her. A TV crew from FOX's America's Most Wanted even profiled the case, but still no clues, not until investigators found a set of key in Tamika's abandoned car.

Those keys belonged to her ex-boyfriend, Christopher Hampton. "We were desperately looking for my daughter and he said nothing! He said nothing; that was just plain evil," said Gabriella Simenehe, Tamika's mother. Now clean-cut, dressed in a blue shirt and khakis, and bound with handcuffs, Hampton walks into a Sparatanburg courtroom a killer.

"Hampton spun around and hit her in the head with a hot iron. According to him,she fell to the ground. Hampton then rolled her up in a comforter and put her in the closet while he borrowed bleach from a neighbor," said Trey Gowdy, solicitor. While Tamika was stuffed in Hampton's closet dying, he drank a couple of beers and then had sex with a 15 year-old girl.

Later, he took off Tamika's clothes, put her in a car and buried her in a wooded area in Spartanburg County. Months later he went back to the grave and removed her head. "Taken my daughter's skull and some of her remains, placed them in a plastic bag then throwing it in a dumpster like it was his trash," commented Tamika's mother.

The details are overwhelming for Tamika's father, Anthony Huston. "Your honor, this has totally destroyed my life. I remember when my baby was a little baby," said Huston as he cried.

"Mr. Hampton, the sentence of the court is that you'd be committed to the state department of corrections for life," said Judge John Few. Her best friend, Zelda Teamer says she can't believe Tamika is gone. "I felt he wasn't compassionate in the courtroom. He act like it didn't even bother him and that's still traumatic to me." However, Prize Funk, Tamkia's uncle, says the family is satisfied with Hampton's punishment. "I don't hate him, I hate what he's done and I hate what he's caused, the pain he's caused," commented Funk.

Christopher Hampton will spend the rest of his life in prison. He'll have to serve every single day because he isn't eligible for parole.

^^^^
I didn't even know they've sentenced him. And this was over a week ago. And I live three hours away.

The media coverage on this was sad. But I'm happy that the family will have some kind of closure.

I hope with the coverage of the two young boys that were missing shows that "we" go missing too.