In 2023, we told you about Ruthey Smith, a 19-year-old mother who disappeared from Los Angeles on March 2, 2022. Four years later, Ruthey is still missing—and her family is still fighting to bring her home.

In this update and rewind, we revisit Ruthey’s original story, examine what has been publicly verified since our first report, and separate confirmed facts from the rumors that can derail a search. Authorities have treated Ruthey’s disappearance as a suspected human-trafficking case, but there is still no verified public confirmation that she has been found. Claims placing Ruthey in Las Vegas remain unconfirmed.

Ruthey may also use the names Grayson or Winter. Please listen, share, and help keep her name visible until she is safely home.

Juliana Umba Nzita was reported missing on April 28, 2026. Ten days later, the sixteen-year-old was found dead in Charlotte. Police classified her death as suicide, but her story leaves behind painful questions about urgency, visibility, and what happens when a missing Black girl is not treated like a crisis soon enough.

In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, Samantha Paul tells Juliana’s story with care, dignity, and one clear demand: Black girls deserve to be noticed while they are still here.

Vontisha “Sway” Williams was a mother, grandmother, and business owner trying to rebuild her life after unimaginable loss. She had only been in her new home for two weeks when gunfire tore through it in the middle of the night. Her younger daughter survived. Sway did not. In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, Samantha Paul tells the story behind the headline and brings listeners back to the woman at the center of it all: a loving, dependable, hardworking Black woman whose family is still fighting for answers. This is not just a story about violence. It is a story about grief, survival, silence, and the fight for justice for Vontisha “Sway” Williams.

In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, we examine the death of twenty-eight-year-old Perdisha “Para” Champion and the questions her family says still remain about what happened inside Virtua Mount Holly Hospital in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Through a direct interview with Para’s mother, Sophia Shannon, this episode follows the final hours before her daughter’s death and the anguish that followed. Sophia says she watched Para experience severe medical distress during a night that should have ended in care, not loss.

What emerges is not only a mother’s grief, but a family’s demand for answers. Sophia does not speak like someone searching for closure. She speaks like a mother who believes her daughter was failed. As this episode traces the timeline she shared, it also steps into a larger and more painful conversation about medical accountability, delayed response, unequal treatment, and the mistrust many Black families already carry into hospital spaces. This is the story of Perdisha “Para” Champion, the mother who refuses to let her name disappear, and the questions that still refuse to go away.

If you want a shorter version for platforms with tighter space, use this: In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, host Samantha Paul examines the death of twenty-eight-year-old Perdisha “Para” Champion and the questions her family says remain about what happened inside Virtua Mount Holly Hospital in New Jersey. Based on a direct interview with Para’s mother, Sophia Shannon, this episode explores Para’s final hours, a family’s demand for answers, and the larger issues of medical accountability and Black medical mistrust.

Related reading: Death Apnea, a No Tears For Black Girls: Case Files novel by J.C. Reedburg, explores medical racism, hospital erasure, and what happens when Black women are treated as disposable inside systems that were supposed to protect them.

Hannah “Khadija” Toby-Dean was 25 years old. A Navy veteran. A Muslim woman. A rapper known as Hannah Bandz. On June 13, 2025, she told a family member she was afraid for her safety. Less than ten hours later, her mother got the call that Hannah was dead. Then came the details that made the case even harder to ignore: a disabled GPS tracker, an empty suitcase, and credit cards hidden under a spare tire.

In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored, Samantha Paul walks through the documented timeline, the family’s account, and the questions the Greenville Police Department still has not answered.

This is Black true crime rooted in Black women stories the system too often leaves behind.

If this episode stayed with you, continue the journey with Death Apnea by J.C. Reedburg, a haunting No Tears For Black Girls: Case Files novel about institutional erasure, Black bodies, and the systems that look the other way.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSP5845P

#JUSTICEFORHANNAH #JUSTICEFORHANNAHBANDZ
#greenvillenc #GreenvillePoliceDepartment

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, Samantha Paul examines the death of Hannah “Khadija” Toby-Dean, a 25-year-old Navy veteran, Muslim woman, and rapper known as Hannah Bandz. Using the family’s documented timeline and publicly available context, this episode walks through Hannah’s final days, the unanswered questions surrounding her death, and the disturbing details that continue to raise concern.

Topics discussed include Hannah’s final calls to family, the delayed and limited public answers in the case, the returned vehicle with a disabled GPS tracker, the empty suitcase, and the credit cards found hidden beneath the spare tire. The episode also examines the broader pattern of how Black women’s stories are too often minimized, delayed, or ignored.

This case remains open.

If this episode moved you, please share it, leave a five-star review, and help keep Hannah’s name in rooms it has not reached yet.

Read next:
Death Apnea by J.C. Reedburg
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSP5845P

Follow and support:
No Tears For Black Girls: The Cases They Ignored
Justice for Hannah Bandz campaign on social media

In 1996 a South Carolina court convicted a man of promoting the prostitution of a child and sent him home with a suspended sentence. Over the next twenty-three years he filed flyers, built a DJ reputation, and accessed hundreds of Black girls and women across Florence County while law enforcement closed case after case, marked reports unfounded, and watched evidence walk in and out of their offices without making a single arrest that stuck. In 2011 a thirteen year old girl sat in a hospital and told a deputy she was afraid she had been exposed to HIV by a thirty-four year old man who paid her for sex. The case was marked unfounded. In 2018 a family member put a phone with evidence directly into a deputy's hands. The case was administratively closed. That same year six SD cards were found in a sock in his bedroom drawer while two underage girls were inside his home. He was charged with marijuana possession. He went home. His name was Jason Roger Pope. On his own Facebook page he wrote that he had six hundred and ninety-three bodies. All Black females. This is Black true crime. This is a Black women story. This is what institutional indifference looks like when it has twenty-three years to run. No Tears For Black Girls is the podcast that refuses to let these cases become footnotes. This episode is not comfortable. But it is necessary.

SHOW NOTES

Episode: He Posted 693 Bodies on Facebook. Florence County Closed the Case Six Times.

This week on No Tears For Black Girls, host Samantha Paul covers the documented case of Jason Roger Pope, a Florence, South Carolina DJ and promoter who used social media, party flyers, and local social capital to access and exploit hundreds of Black girls and women over nearly three decades while law enforcement repeatedly had evidence in hand and failed to act.

This episode covers the full timeline from Pope's first conviction in 1996 through his 2023 guilty plea on thirteen charges including five counts of sex trafficking of a minor. It examines the documented failures of the Florence County Sheriff's Office, the public health silence that followed his arrest, and the gap between the thirteen charges he was convicted on and the six hundred and ninety-three encounters he publicly claimed. It also examines why no hate crime charge and no HIV criminalization charge was ever filed despite evidence supporting both.

This is Black true crime told through the lens of institutional accountability. This is a Black women story that national media covered in a paragraph while the Black press and community advocates kept it alive for years. No Tears For Black Girls exists because these stories deserve more than a paragraph.

Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of sexual abuse of minors, human trafficking, deliberate HIV exposure, and systemic law enforcement failure.

Stream the music:Search No Tears For Black Girls Soundtrack wherever you stream music to find Flowers For The Living, the latest EP performed by Jayda Truth. Written for the women still here. For the ones still carrying weight the world pretended not to see.Direct link in show notes.

Read the book:Death Apnea by J.C. Reedburg, part of the No Tears For Black Girls Case Files series, is available now on Amazon. Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read it at no additional cost. Print copies available for those who want to hold this story in their hands.

👉 www.amazon.com

You can also search No Tears For Black Girls by J.C. Reedburg on Amazon to find the full catalog.

Support the show:If this episode moved something in you leave a five star review wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every review helps the algorithm push these stories to the people who need them most.

Find us everywhere:Search No Tears For Black Girls on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is No Tears For Black Girls. Stay loved. Stay safe. Let there be light.

Today on No Tears For Black Girls we are doing something we have never done before on this show.

We are reading to you. Death Apnea is a book written by J.C. Reedburg, part of the No Tears For Black Girls Case Files series, and it lives inside the same universe as this podcast. It is a story rooted in real documented patterns of Black women disappearing into hospital systems without proper family notification, bodies stored for months while families search, and organs removed without consent. It is built on the same foundation this show was built on. Black women stories that the world moves past too quickly. Black true crime that never makes the national headlines. Patterns that have been happening for four hundred years and just keep changing their clothes.

Chapter Six is called The Tower Card. It is New Year's Eve in New Orleans. A woman named Nettie Moreau wakes up in the front seat of a gold Chevy Impala. She makes coffee with a half frozen water bottle. She brushes her teeth into a paper cup. She dresses with the precision of someone who has learned to keep her dignity in conditions that were never designed to allow for it. She writes a letter to her daughter that she hopes nobody ever has to read. She lights a candle on her dashboard altar. She pulls a tarot card and it is the Tower. Again.

She has a heart condition she cannot afford to treat. She has prescriptions folded in her glovebox next to an expired insurance card. She has a dog named Goldie who loves her completely. She has a daughter at Dillard University on a full scholarship who does not know her mother is homeless. And she has one last night ahead of her in a city that stopped noticing her a long time ago.

This chapter will stay with you.

After the reading we will tell you what happens next and how to get the full book completely free today on Amazon Kindle. If you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription this book is free for you indefinitely. Paperback and digital editions are both available now.

This is No Tears For Black Girls. Black true crime. Black women stories. Told with care, with truth, and without apology.

SHOW NOTES:

Today's episode features a full reading of Chapter Six, The Tower Card, from Death Apnea by J.C. Reedburg.

Part of the No Tears For Black Girls Case Files series.

Get the book free right now:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSP5845P

Free to download on Amazon Kindle today March 25th 2026. Free indefinitely for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Paperback and digital editions available at the link above.

Death Apnea is a fictional story rooted in real and documented cases of Black women being processed through hospital systems without proper family notification. The real cases referenced in this book include baby Samaria Sauls, Tanya Walker, the Sacramento Dignity Health bodies, and the Alabama inmate organ removal cases. These are not conspiracy theories. These are court filings, news reports, and family testimonies.

The No Tears For Black Girls universe includes thirteen published books, a podcast with 150 plus episodes, and an ongoing mission to tell Black women stories that mainstream media covers too briefly and moves on from too quickly.

Search No Tears For Black Girls on Amazon to find all books in the series.

If this episode brought anything up for you please reach out. Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.

New episodes of No Tears For Black Girls drop every Tuesday. Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss a story. Leave a five star review if this episode moved you. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. The more people who listen the more Black women stories we can tell and the more families we make sure are never forgotten.

Follow us everywhere under No Tears For Black Girls.

She was fifteen years old when her stepfather assaulted her. She reported it. She gave up his illegal guns. She documented his death threats in a police report. And the Clark County District Attorney's office let him walk out of custody three days later.

Eleven days after that, Leonard Woods stabbed Josie Kate Jones sixteen times in a Walgreens parking lot while her daughter watched.

In this episode of No Tears For Black Girls, we tell the story of Divina Leal, a Las Vegas woman whose life became a masterclass in surviving the unsurvivable. Her story is not just about one murder. It is about what happens when a domestic violence system fails a Black woman who did everything right, reported everything, documented everything, and still could not outrun the consequences of a paperwork error made by a public official who is still in office today.

We trace Divina's full story from a childhood built on love and chaos in equal measure, through the assault, through the murder of her mother Josie Kate Jones, through the compounded grief of losses that kept arriving before the last one finished breaking her, all the way to Indianapolis in 2024, where the man she had finally allowed herself to love again was shot and killed in what his family believes was a case of mistaken identity. His murder remains unsolved.

This is black true crime told the way it should be told. With full humanity. With accountability. Without apology. No Tears For Black Girls exists to cover black women stories that mainstream media picks up too late, covers too briefly, and moves on from too quickly. Divina Leal's story is one they never covered at all.

This is not a cold case. This is an open wound. And we are not moving on.

SHOW NOTES:

Episode: She Watched Him Kill Her Mother. The DA Let Him Out First.

Josie Kate Jones. Age 41. Murdered August 5th, 2015 in the parking lot of a Walgreens at Tropicana Avenue and Decatur Boulevard in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stabbed sixteen times by her former partner Leonard Ray Woods in front of her fifteen-year-old daughter.

Leonard Ray Woods was arrested on July 18th, 2015 following the sexual assault of Divina Leal and the discovery of illegal firearms in the home. He was released from custody approximately three days later by the Clark County District Attorney's office. Public reporting cited a paperwork error. He was rearrested following the murder of Josie Kate Jones on August 5th, 2015.

In March 2019, a Las Vegas jury convicted Leonard Ray Woods of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, invasion of privacy, gross lewdness, and illegal firearms possession. Deliberations lasted less than twenty minutes. He was sentenced to life without parole.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has held office since 2012 and as of early 2026 is running for a fourth term unopposed.

Charles Lovelady Jr. Age 28. Shot and killed October 12th, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Co-owner of Chuck's Coney Island restaurant. Community leader and businessman. His family believes his murder was a case of mistaken identity involving an identical vehicle.

His murder remains unsolved.

If you have information about the murder of Charles Lovelady Jr., contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477. A substantial reward has been offered by his family.

If this episode brought anything up for you, text HOME to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

New episodes of No Tears For Black Girls drop every Tuesday. Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss a story. Leave a five-star review if this episode moved you. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. The more people who listen the more black women stories we can tell and the more families we make sure are never forgotten.

Follow us everywhere under No Tears For Black Girls.