Hello listeners, I'm your host Amara, and this is Black Girl Gone, a true crime podcast.

On this episode of Black Girl Gone, we tell the story of Latoya Figueroa, a 24-year-old woman who

disappeared from Philadelphia in July 2005. At the time Latoya disappeared, she was five months pregnant

and the mother of a seven-year-old. A month after Latoya disappeared, her body was found

a lot in the suburb of the city. At the time, Latoya's story was pretty much unknown by the public.

This is Latoya's story. Have you ever heard the term missing white woman syndrome?

It's a term used to describe the way in which the media, particularly TV media, disproportionately

covers the cases involving missing young white women from upper middle class communities.

We all know that black women and women of color don't get fair coverage from the mainstream media.

They sometimes come from communities that are low-income, but even when they don't,

they still don't get the same coverage. And all black and brown people don't come from poor

communities. We live in every community, and no matter where we come from or what the story is,

the mainstream media does not care. Latoya's story became a victim of missing white woman syndrome

in many ways. In 2005, if you were not living in Philly or the surrounding suburbs,

you probably did not hear about the disappearance of Latoya figure row up when it happened.

For those who don't know already, I'm from Philly. And in 2005, I was getting ready to graduate from

high school. I was old enough to understand that the world was cruel, but still not even enough to

think that there was good in everybody. I was living a world apart from Latoya, the mom,

and the waitress. Latoya figure row grew up in West Philly. Now, many of my listeners are not

from Philadelphia, so you might not know what West Philly is like, or should I say was like,

because most of the city, the gentrifiers have moved in and are quickly changing the landscape of

that neighborhood. But West Philly in the 90s was pre-gentrification, and this area, like many

...