Police say Victoria Garret, 15, was last seen Monday, June 4. (Image courtesy of WGN Chicago)
Chicago’s West Side community is on edge after yet another Black teen girl disappeared without a trace, making her the latest in a string of teens gone missing since last month.
According to WGN Chicago, 15-year-old Victoria Garret was last seen Monday, June 4 in the 4000 block of West Grenshaw Street. She’s described as an African-American female standing 5 ft, 4 in. tall and 160 pounds with brown eyes and dark hair. Chicago police say the teen was known to frequent the areas near 13th Street and Lawndale Avenue, as well as Chicago Avenue and Hamlin Avenue.
Since Garret’s disappearance, local activists have been working to raise awareness after four other young women went missing from the area.
Anna Stanislawczyk, who is white, was reported missing on March 16 and has not been heard from since. Weeks later on April 25, Sadaria Davis, 15, disappeared after leaving her East Garfield Park neighborhood. Her body was found in a vacant apartment May 11, but police haven’t released an official cause of death amid rumors she was dismembered. Locals claimed some of Davis’ organs were also missing.
Twenty-six-year-old Shantieya Smith was the next to vanish on May 26, News One reported. Garret would go missing just two weeks later.
“We started noticing that young women were disappearing and nobody was finding them,” Rev. Robin Hood told WGN Chicago. “Increasingly, the neighborhood began to talk about people that were missing. We know sometimes that people who are runaways or missing — they sometimes show up. But the fear that we have … is that these last four young ladies didn’t show up, and one of them is dead.”
“It’s terrifying,” Hood added. “It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out something is going on.”
Chicago PD said it hasn’t determined whether the four cases are related.
Anyone with any information on the missing girls’ whereabouts is asked to contact Chicago police at 312-744-8266.
