From BlackVoices.com

A promising lead about the whereabouts of Phoenix Coldon turned out to be a cruel hoax, causing the missing Missouri woman’s family additional pain, their entire life savings and their home.

“Unfortunately, we will now be losing our family home,” the missing woman’s mother, Goldia Coldon, told The Huffington Post. “We have tried to explain the situation to our mortgage company but they don’t care.”

A tip that led the family to Texas came from a man who claimed to know Coldon’s whereabouts and provided her family with very convincing details, Goldia Coldon said. The family already had invested much of their money to search for Phoenix, she said, but spent the remainder of their savings on private investigators to follow up on the lead. It was not until after the family’s money was gone that the man who provided the tip admitted he fabricated the story, Coldon said.

For the complete details, visit BlackVoices.com.

When white women go missing, it’s a cause for national concern. The nation learns their names and vital information about their lives before they disappeared.

When a black woman goes missing, usually the local news covers the story.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for thirty-five-year-old Shandell McLeod of Georgia. McLeod had been missing for five months before the media started covering her absence.

Find out what information they do have on McLeod and what her family has to say about the lack of media coverage at theGrio.com.

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North Carolina student Phylicia Barnes was found dead in April, her body recovered naked in the Susquehanna River. She had been visiting her family in Baltimore and later went missing for fours months. It was a nightmare for not only the straight A student’s kin, but all who had hoped and prayed that she would make a safe return home. The 16-year-old’s case was one of the few missing person’s cases for a young woman of color that actually garnered attention from national programs such as “Good Morning America” and more.

Now, according to the Charlotte Observer, the FBI’s child exploitation task force is investigating to see if Barnes was somehow a victim of sexual exploitation and child pornography. They are hoping to gain access to Barnes’ email and Facebook accounts, as well as seven other email accounts that belong to different Baltimore men FBI believe could be involved. According to the Charlotte Observer, Phylicia Barnes’ father Russell said he believed this new direction in the investigation has much to do with the fact that she was found nude, and that investigators told him they believe people interviewed who had seen her last had not been so honest and forthcoming with information. He said the following:

“Other people have been lying and they’re trying to figure it all out,” he said. “They’re doing everything they can to find out who killed Phylicia and that’s what we want them to do.”

The cause of Barnes’ death, other than being ruled a homicide, has not been offered up to the public in the hopes that it will help police track down her killer. We are extremely hopeful that any new modes of investigating will help bring justice to this brilliant child and her family. Keep them in your prayers and let’s not forget. Check out the Charlotte Observer for more information on this story.