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.