User:Fences and windows/Disappearance of Sage Smith

Sage Smith is an African-American trans woman who disappeared aged 19 from Charlottesville, Virginia in November 2012. She is one of several young women who have disappeared or been murdered along U.S. Route 29 in Virginia. In December 2016, police reclassified Smith's disappearance as a homicide investigation. The lack of attention and resources for Smith's disappearance compared with that devoted to the subsequent murder of Hannah Graham has been criticised and cited as an example of Missing white woman syndrome.

Background
Smith was raised by her grandmother in affordable housing in Garrett Square, Charlottesville. They then moved to Fifeville, where a neighbor she befriended was trans and Smith initially came out as gay. She graduated high school and studied cosmetics. She had been living with her grandmother, but moved out to live with two friends into a flat paid for by foster care, reconciled with her father Dean, and came out to friends and family as trans shortly before she disappeared.

Disappearance
Smith disappeared on West Main Street in Charlottesville sometime around 7pm two days before Thanksgiving. She had planned to meet Erik McFadden, who she was having a sexual relationship with, at the Amtrak Train Station and was last seen at a bus stop at 6.40pm. When she did not come home the next day, her friends called the police that afternoon.

Investigation
Three police detectives took up the case and officers did a grid search and looked for footage from local businesses. Smith may have been seen at a restaurant by the station, but there was no CCTV and no witnesses saw her at the station itself.

After three days they obtained phone records that showed an unknown number calling at 6:36pm, which a family acquaintance identified as McFadden's number after it was shared on Facebook. The family felt the investigation was happening too slowly and themselves accessed her social media accounts to investigate. McFadden left Charlottesville shortly after Smith disappeared, following her father posting his picture on social media, and police have not interviewed McFadden in person. He suddenly left his job and girlfriend, who reported him as missing to police, and he told officers on the phone that he was in New York. He told his girlfriend by email that he briefly met Smith but other people arrived and he left. In December, police searched the area with cadaver dogs, police divers searched a pond, and the Henrico landfill site was searched by a forensics team. The following January, police contacted the FBI and in May the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They obtained a warrant to search Smith's phone and McFadden's laptop in March.

Police said in 2015 that they believed from phone records that she did not meet with McFadden and said he was not a suspect because he lacked the means to abduct Smith and dispose of her body. The decision in November 2016 to reclassify the case as suspected homicide was not based on specific information. The family believe the investigation was delayed due to racial bias and reports also noted how police referred to Smith by her birth name and gender.

Her grandmother Lolita “Cookie” Smith has tried to keep the case in public attention, including campaigning for a memorial bench.