Black Girl Gone: A True Crime Podcast

In this Afterthoughts conversation, we talk through what stayed with us after telling Carmen Sanders’ story. We reflect on the details that mattered most, the warning signs that were easy to miss in real time, and how proximity and familiarity played a role in what happened.

This isn’t a rehash of the case. It’s a space to sit with the unanswered emotional weight, the choices Carmen was preparing to make, and the larger questions her story raises about access, trust, and safety especially when danger doesn’t come from the outside.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In January 2010, Carmen Sanders, a twenty-two-year-old woman living in Ridgeland, Mississippi, was murdered inside her apartment. The investigation moved quickly, resulting in an arrest, formal charges, and a guilty plea that led to a life sentence.

Carmen’s story is told through the life she was living before her death a young woman balancing work, school, and plans to move forward and the circumstances that allowed violence to occur in a space that appeared ordinary and familiar.

This Episode Was Sponsored By BetterHelp

Go To BetterHelp.com/girlgone for 10% off
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 4, 1998, eight-year-old Shy’Kemmia Pate disappeared from her neighborhood in Unadilla, Georgia. She was last seen on a quiet Friday night, just steps from her home, as summer came to an end. By the time an official search began, the most critical hours were already gone.

What followed was an investigation shaped by delays, limited timelines, and years of unanswered questions. Despite extensive searches, multiple persons of interest, and renewed attention decades later, Shy’Kemmia was never found.

Her disappearance remains one of Unadilla’s most troubling unsolved cases a story defined not by what is known, but by what has never been explained.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR

BILT

Visit JoinBilt.com/girlgone

Shopify

Visit Shopify.com/girlgone
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In January of 2022, 17-year-old Zion Foster left her home in Eastpointe, Michigan, and never returned.

What began as a desperate search for a missing teenager slowly became something else entirely. As police worked to retrace Zion’s final movements, her family pushed for answers, and a troubling timeline began to take shape — one built on phone data, surveillance footage, and statements that didn’t add up.

Support Our Sponsors

Shopify

Visit Shopify.com/girlgone

Hello Fresh

Visit HelloFresh.com/girlgone10fm
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between the fall of 2012 and the summer of 2013, three women disappeared from Cleveland under very different circumstances. Shetisha Sheeley, Angela Deskins, and Shirellda Terry were not reported missing in the same way, and their cases were never linked while they were still alive. It wasn’t until July of 2013 — when three bodies were discovered within blocks of each other in East Cleveland — that investigators realized these were not isolated cases, but part of the same story.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR

Earnin

Download the Earnin App in the App Store or Google Play
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices