The world is not a fair or just place, and I say that as a privileged white woman. The sobering reality is that minorities are treated differently in the United States, and that vile prejudice spreads into everything. Disproportionately, Black women and girls are subjected to more violence, trafficking, and neglect. Oftentimes it is too late by the time incidents are reported for law enforcement to even do anything about it.
According to the US Department of Justice, that demographic makes up a significant portion of the missing person cases in the country and yet, they are the most neglected by media and law enforcement.
“The National Crime Information Center, in 2022, of the 271,493 girls and women reported missing, 97,924, or over 36 percent, were Black, despite the fact that Black women and girls comprised only 14 percent of the U.S. female population at the time,” the justice department stated.
Sadly, one recent situation makes those statistics feel all the more real. On March 1, 2026, that Phillip Donaldson was walking his dog and happened to walk through a Cleveland park when his pup began sniffing something in a dirt mound by a playground, the New York Post reported.
“It was like a pile of dirt, and she stopped to sniff, and I usually just walk and she catch up with me, and she was taking too long,” he told News 5 Cleveland. “So I went back and looked, and it was a suitcase that was half-buried, and I pulled it up and looked in it, and it was a head. Somebody’s head in it.”
Donaldson immediately reported his discovery to authorities, and police later confirmed his tip led them to uncovering the bodies of two unidentified young Black girls.
“At this time, we don’t know how long the juveniles had been at this location. It was some time,’’ Cleveland Police Chief Dorothy Todd said Tuesday, per the Post. Authorities believe one of the girls was between 8 1/2 and 13 years old and the other ranging from 10 1/2 to 14.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office still has to determine the girls’ cause of death. Todd also told News 5 Cleveland that no local children in the area who match their descriptions have been reported missing.
“This is a traumatic event for our officers, for the community. This is just such a tragic incident, but we are trying to develop any leads we can. That’s why we are also asking for the community’s help,” Todd shared, per 19 News. “We know that this didn’t just happen. We still have to develop exactly when this happened. We don’t have any indication this is a clear threat to public safety.”
I hope those two little girls and their families get the justice they so very much deserve.
