Unspeakable Acts

by Sarah Weinman

  But Lieutenant Roberts must have not gotten the memo. An NBC29 article from December 1 read, “At this point, police do not suspect foul play.” And on December 7, Roberts responded to Sage’s family’s public pleas that the department request help from the Virginia State Police or the FBI by saying that the city would refrain from seeking investigative assistance unless it was deemed necessary, which in this case, he said, it was not. In another article from December 2014, in the C-VILLE Weekly, Mooney said police were still treating Smith’s disappearance as a missing persons case, not a criminal investigation.

  “I don’t know why I would have said that,” Mooney said. “Maybe it was for a strategy.”

  Leading up to the third anniversary of Sage’s disappearance, in 2015, the police department held a press conference to announce that the CPD no longer believed McFadden was responsible for abducting Sage.

  “He didn’t have the means to get rid of anybody,” Mooney said. “He didn’t have a car, he was living in a suite with other people, it’s very unlikely that he would have done that. And he stayed in town until his picture popped up on Facebook. He was here for almost three days after [Sage] went missing.”

  It seems then that all of the information that led investigators to believe Sage had been abducted and that McFadden was responsible, Mooney acknowledged, was available to police investigators within the first days of Sage’s investigation. Yet the public was allowed to believe otherwise.

  “What happened?” Miss Cookie asked. “How did this go so wrong?”

  Mooney doesn’t see it that way. When asked what the protocol is for a missing person, Mooney answered, “There’s no standard there. The facts kind of dictate your actions.”

  Detective Stayments agreed, adding that the CPD receives a missing persons case nearly every other day. Charlottesville is a hub for Virginia youth from around the state in the midst of juvenile detention proceedings.

  “Juveniles run away from these community detention homes all the time,” Stayments said. “A lot of times those kids show up within a few hours, they just wanted to leave the home for a while and do whatever they wanted to do and then come back.”

  Many of these cases involve young people who are black and poor. Is it possible that since Sage is also black and poor, detectives assumed Sage was one of these itinerant youths? Mooney says no. But Natalie Wilson, cofounder of the Maryland-based Black and Missing Foundation, who worked with the Smith family, said police more often classify minority children as runaways rather than victims of crimes, and that the reverse is true for white children.

  Aubrey said that when detectives finally interviewed him, they brought up a time the year prior where Sage and Aubrey had left Charlottesville for several days to go to the beach, but Aubrey said they had been clear with their family where they went. Aubrey said that police asked, “Well, wouldn’t Sage run away again if she had done it before?”

  Furthermore, the detectives had a history with the Smith family. Detective Stayments was the officer who responded to the call about the fight the night before Sage disappeared and took Jamel Smith’s statement against Sage.

  “I had run-ins with Detective Mooney because I wasn’t no angel in the streets,” Dean Smith said.

  “Yeah, I know Dean,” Mooney confirmed.

  The Charlottesville Police Department is no stranger to racial controversy. From 2003 to 2004, as part of a rape investigation, Mooney and other officers stopped black men on the street, showed up to their homes and workplaces, and demanded cheek swabs; all told, officers collected swabs from 190 black men. There was widespread outrage, and one man filed a 2004 lawsuit against the CPD that specifically named Detective Mooney for assault and battery and racial discrimination.

  Then there are the facts that Sage is trans and had moved within the queer community. In official police documents, the person the police are looking for has always been “Dashad Laquinn Smith,” Sage’s birth name. Sometimes “Sage Smith” is added in quotes or referred to as an alias. Mooney and Stayments have said they understand what it means to be trans, yet in all email and phone correspondence with Splinter they have used “he” and “his” as well as “Dashad.” In police affidavits and statements to media, Mooney repeatedly refers to the fact that McFadden had gay sex as his “alternative lifestyle.”

  One night in the winter of 2013, Sage’s father, Dean, and his partner, Latasha Gardner, said they got a call from Detective Stayments. Stayments had gone to Charlottesville High School with Dean, and the two families knew each other a little bit.

  “He sat right there on that couch,” Dean said. “He dropped his handcuffs on that table. He said, ‘We dropped the ball. We weren’t prepared for something like this.’”

  Miss Cookie said she also received a home visit from Stayments around the same time. “He said his conscience was eating away at him,” she remembered. “And he just couldn’t sit by.”

  Detective Stayments doesn’t deny that he has been to both Miss Cookie’s and Dean’s homes on several occasions. “My heart went out to them, and I did talk to them,” Stayments said, “but I never said anything that would imply that our officers didn’t do everything they possibly could have done in this case.

  “I can tell you my detectives bust their ass on every case they get,” Mooney said. “The frustrating part is that instead of helping us find Sage, people want to argue about gender issues and things like that. I don’t think it should matter.”

  Still, Mooney admits that the police could only do so much in a city that was more inclined to sympathize with victims that look like them—and that sympathy controls resources and response.

  “When Hannah went missing, people were beating down the door to help,” he said. “In [Sage’s] case when you ask for help it wasn’t an easy process. It was like pulling teeth.”

  Police captain Gary Pleasants said that the Hannah Graham case and the Sage Smith case are different because in Hannah’s case, she and Matthew were seen together, plus Matthew had access to a car, but Erik McFadden didn’t. Still, it’s hard not to compare the demeanor of Charlottesville’s police chief Tim Longo while talking about Hannah versus Sage.

  When asked by a local activist if he had ever cried for Sage, Chief Longo admitted he had not. By explanation, Longo told a reporter from the local alt-weekly, “I think, I felt as if I were in the shoes of [Hannah’s] parents, as a dad having a 15-year-old girl who is growing up too quickly,” he said. “I’m a human being and I can’t always control how I react to things.”

  In early 2013, the Smith family requested an interview with Chief Longo because they felt their concerns weren’t being taken seriously by detectives. But they say it was nine months before Longo consented to sit down for a face-to-face meeting.

  “He just told us, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t think there’s going to be a good outcome,’” Miss Cookie recalled.

  Detective Mooney and now-former chief Longo have both expressed that they felt some hostility and antipolice sentiment coming from the Smith family in a way that hampered communications.

  “Miss Cookie very quickly came out publicly and blasted the police department before she met with anybody,” Mooney said. “That didn’t sit right with a lot of people.” Mooney specifically recalled an incident at a vigil for Sage held at Miss Cookie’s house in which those congregated chanted, “Fuck the police.”

  Another point of contended inequality is the difference in money spent on the two cases. All told, the police department spent $127,000 to find Sage Smith, the lion’s share of which was spent on the fruitless Henrico County landfill search.

  And then there is the reward money that the city of Charlottesville gave in Hannah’s case within a week of her disappearance. By comparison, in Sage’s case, on December 18, nearly a month after Sage went missing, an anonymous donor gave $10,000. The city contributed nothing until Miss Cookie inquired about the discrepancy. Charlottesville City Council member Kristin Szakos responded that the $10,000 had indeed
come from the city.

  This wasn’t true. The city council, who gave that information to Szakos, claim they genuinely thought the money for Sage had come from them. But as it turns out, it hadn’t. Confronted with their mistake in 2012 and their mistaken public statement in 2014, the City of Charlottesville rectified the error and donated $10,000 to Sage’s reward, two years after Sage went missing, bringing the total reward to $20,000.

  In November 2015, Mooney and Stayments took to the streets to distribute flyers to local businesses and along the corridor where Sage was last seen. Some of the businesses flat-out refused to let the detectives hang the posters, Mooney recalled. One reluctant business owner told Mooney, by way of explanation, “It’s kind of a downer, isn’t it?”

  “I know some of what the family’s experiencing because I see it, too. Racial problems. Gender issues,” Mooney said.

  Fellow queer people of color in Virginia and nationwide have stepped forward to raise awareness for Sage at rallies, conferences, and city council meetings as well as through fund-raising campaigns—groups like the Black and Missing Foundation, the Lavender Kitchen Sink Collective, and the Richmond chapter of Southerners on New Ground. CeCe McDonald visited Charlottesville to do an event in honor of Sage. “Just know that it could have been you,” she said in a video from the event. “Put yourself in the shoes of this family. Think about what you would do if it was your child . . . We are all equal, we are all valid, and we need to show support and get active.”

  SINCE SAGE WENT MISSING, MISS COOKIE’S BODY HAS SIMPLY shut down. Her heart is quite literally broken—she’s been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and during her triple bypass surgery, doctors had to take a vein from her leg and put it in her chest to keep her alive. She’s also struggled with breast cancer and congestive heart failure. Oxygen tanks line the kitchen walls of her apartment. Sitting outside on the sidewalk in a wheelchair, neighbors smile and greet her. (Her health problems persisted; she died in May 2019.)

  One question that still plagues Miss Cookie is why the detectives didn’t get a warrant for McFadden’s arrest. Such warrants would have allowed CPD to track him across state lines and get access to other national resources, as was done in Hannah Graham’s case.

  “I probably could have gone out and gotten a warrant for Erik McFadden but we didn’t have enough to prosecute him,” Mooney said. “Down the line, a judge could determine that we didn’t have probable cause and then throw out the results of a search or interrogation. I didn’t want to jeopardize the case.”

  For better or worse, law enforcement spent the early days of Sage’s disappearance investigating McFadden, and only McFadden.

  But Sage’s father wishes other leads had been explored, too. “In my gut, it’s the friends,” he said. “I think [Aubrey] had something to do with it. They all disappeared.” (Aubrey denies this, claiming he was home.)

  When Dean went over to Sage’s apartment on Wednesday, all of Sage’s wigs were gone. He believes Aubrey took many of them, though Aubrey vehemently denies that, too. Another of Sage’s friends was wearing a locket on a chain that had belonged to Sage. When asked, the friend said, “My boyfriend gave it to me.”

  Aubrey was caught on video on Wednesday, November 21, at a gas station, using Sage’s EBT card.

  “Your friend is missing and you’re using her food stamp card?” Dean Smith said in disbelief. “No.”

  Was Aubrey indeed home at the time of Sage’s disappearance? Maybe, but no one can verify it. Aubrey’s phone was indeed pinging off a cell tower near the Harris Street apartment, but Mooney said in a small town like Charlottesville where cell towers are far apart this isn’t necessarily conclusive.

  As a possible motive, Dean suggests jealousy. “[Sage] had her own crib, she had family support, she didn’t want for anything. To see your friend thriving and you’re not. When they went out, Sage would get all the attention.”

  Shakira reiterates her concerns about the fight and Jamel Smith. After Jamel Smith tweeted that he’d been “disrespected” on November 19, the night before Sage went missing, he didn’t post anything for a month, even though he had been tweeting almost daily up to that point. Later, on May 11, 2013, he retweeted, “I can’t stand a nigga that wants to be a woman. I want a man who’s a man, not a man who’s a woman.”

  “It’s a scenario we considered,” said Mooney, who acknowledges that Jamel Smith didn’t have an alibi. Where is Jamel Smith now?

  “Is it Richmond or is it Florida? I can’t remember,” Mooney said. “One of them’s in Florida. But without evidence, we couldn’t really investigate.”

  CHARLOTTESVILLE HAS A NEW POLICE CHIEF NOW. HIS name is Al Thomas Jr., and he’s the first black man to ever hold the position in Charlottesville. (At the time of this printing, there is now a new police chief, RaShall Brackney; Chief Thomas resigned after only a year and a half on the job.) Chief Thomas met with the Smith family in August 2016, and initially seemed attentive to their concerns.

  But future inquiries from Miss Cookie went unanswered. Then, in late March, Miss Cookie read online that the case had been reclassified as a homicide. (Neither Chief Thomas nor the departmental spokesperson could comment on the reasoning behind this change.) A petition to Chief Thomas was started to urge him to ensure the CPD continues to aggressively investigate Sage’s case and communicate openly with Miss Cookie. When that failed, Miss Cookie and her community supporters staged a protest outside CPD headquarters.

  In mid-April, Miss Cookie finally sat down with the new police leadership team. They informed her that Sage’s case had been assigned to a new detective, Regine Wright-Settle, that she was working solely on Sage’s case and had undergone training in homicide and cold cases to prepare for it. She is also approaching the case with new eyes, reinterviewing witnesses rather than relying on Mooney’s and Stayments’s notes.

  When Miss Cookie asked why it had taken four years for Sage’s case to be classified as a homicide, the new investigation team blamed the old, saying they could not speak to frustrations with actions in the past nor disclose details of what specifically the new detective was doing due to the case being an ongoing criminal investigation. CPD leadership agreed that it was suspicious that Erik McFadden continues to be missing and that his family in Maryland has not filed a missing persons report.

  “So y’all gonna bring the FBI in or what?” Miss Cookie asked. “What is being done to find this man?”

  A captain told her that Sage’s case now being classified as a homicide gives them the ability to bring in the FBI “if and when” they are needed.

  But the family and police leadership still struggle to work together. Lieutenant Joseph Hatter asserted that it was necessary for CPD to continue to refer to Sage by her birth name in order to get the best information from the public, and Chief Thomas said that in the eyes of science, the department was still looking for a male (Sage’s birth mother agrees). Plans for the Charlottesville Police Department to undergo transgender sensitivity training may be in the works, but nothing is definitive yet.

  At a recent vigil, Miss Cookie appeared in a wheelchair, wearing a huge faux-fur coat, a loan from a supporter to block out the freezing wind in Lee Park.

  “We need some closure,” she said in front of the small crowd, who stand holding balloons marbled pink and purple. “What makes one life more valuable than another? That’s how it makes our family feel, that we don’t matter.”

  Dean Smith was there, too. His face and beard were buried into the collar of his North Face jacket, and he was stamping his feet to shake off the cold. His voice was clear and loud. “I miss my child,” he said. “I’ll be sitting at home eating and I stop eating and think, is my child eating? I don’t sleep. Never cut my phone off. I haven’t changed my number. I usually change it every couple of years. Sage was taken from me just as we were getting to know each other. I’ll never get to truly know my child.”

  The CUE Center for Missing Persons was there to support th
e family. They even had a bench made in Sage’s honor. Miss Cookie asked the city if she could place the bench in a city park and plant a tree in Sage’s memory.

  “They told us, ‘Sure,’” Miss Cookie said, “but that it would cost us $1,000.”

  Originally published by Splinter News, July 2017

  Acknowledgments

  Unspeakable Acts was several years in the making, and it would never have come into being without the tireless efforts of my editor, Zack Wagman, a true partner in crime (projects, that is!). Deepest thanks to my agent, David Patterson, as well as Aemilia Phillips, Hannah Schwartz, Ross Harris, and everyone at SKLA; to my wonderful publisher, Ecco, and especially Dominique Lear, Norma Barksdale, Miriam Parker, Martin Wilson, Meghan Deans, Sonya Cheuse, Rachel Kaplan, and Ashlyn Edwards; to Sara Wood for the brilliant cover; to the HarperCollins sales force and library marketing team for championing my work to larger audiences; to the booksellers, particularly independent stores, who share in my passion and excitement for crime stories; to Patrick Radden Keefe, for the insightful introduction; to all the talented and dynamic contributors included in this anthology; and to family, friends, and writers who provided untold support as I put together this project.

  Other Notable Crime Stories:

  What to Read, Listen To, and Watch

  ESSAYS AND FEATURES

  “Remembering the Murder You Didn’t Commit” by Rachel Aviv (New Yorker, June 19, 2017)

  “The Indispensable Guide to Early American Murder” by Casey Cep (NewYorker.com, June 2016)

  “The Girl Detectives” by Marin Cogan (Topic, August 31, 2017; originally appeared in Pop-Up Magazine)

  “The Mystery of Leslie Arnold” by Henry Cordes (Omaha World-Herald, September 3–5, 2017)