Community searching for missing woman
Family, friends still seeking answers
About 25 volunteers stood in a circle on his front lawn Tuesday evening, but Richard Harris (he/him) could only muster the composure to thank them before he broke down and retreated in tears, leaning against an SUV in his driveway.
The volunteers were there to help fan out across the North Linden neighborhood around Harris’ home, a few blocks southeast of Cremeans Park, to distribute missing-person flyers for Harris’ partner, a 33-year-old woman named Sacoya.
Sacoya, who is transgender, disappeared around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 31 in a 2009 Black Ford Fusion, which also has not been found. She is Black, 5-foot-5, about 145 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing black lemonade braids, a black and white summer dress and black and white Baby Phat sandals.
“She left here to go get some bottled water (at a store) and she never showed up,” said Harris, 52, his dogs barking nearby. “... I know she had a text message right before she left, and that’s all I know. And she left and never came back.
“This is something that she never does. This is unreal.”
Harris has called her cellphone repeatedly, but it appears to be turned off.
Since Sacoya’s disappearance, Harris, some family members and close friends have been searching, putting up flyers in gas stations, looking at security video, and working with the Columbus Division of Police seeking answers. But no answers have come.
“I mean, you see this everyday on the TV and on the milk cartons ..., but you never really realize the depths of this,” he said. “Because there ain’t never no closure until you find something.
“This is some of the worst shit you can possibly go through,” Harris said, choking up. “This is bad. Look, I got people in
my driveway trying to help. This is bad.”
The group effort Tuesday to circulate flyers was organized through social media by Black Queer & Intersectional Collective, or BQIC, a community organization that advocates for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Volunteers fanned out in teams of two to hand out flyers door-to-door and ask people on the street if they have seen her, an effort to get the word out to the Linden neighborhood about Sacoya’s disappearance.
“But Columbus is so big, there’s no telling,” Harris said, adding that she also could be in another city.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Harris, who like Sacoya works as a manager at a fast-food restaurant.
Harris has received reports of a sighting at a gas station, but said security cameras showed nothing. Then he got bizarre text messages demanding cash — $7,000 to get her back or $500 just to speak to her — which he said he turned over to Columbus missing persons detectives.
Police “brushed them off like it was a prank,” Harris said. He acknowledged that, “There’s some sick people in the world.”
Detectives are in frequent contact with him, Harris said. Some of their questions — How many tattoos does she have on her leg? What was she wearing? — led Harris to believe they may know more than they’re telling him.
“It don’t look good. I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” Harris said.
Columbus police Deputy Chief Tim Becker said a detective has been assigned to Sacoya’s case and they have uncovered no signs to this point that she is a victim of foul play.
Police, who identify Sacoya by her legal name of Devin M. Cooper though she stopped using, wasn’t added to the national missing person database until Sept. 22, said Charlie Stewart (they, them), an organizer with BQIC.
“It’s unfortunate that there were a lot of missteps taken, but that seems to be a repeated song for our community,” Stewart said. “...Black trans women are subjected to so much violence . ... Every second that she’s away from her home is being away from safety.
“It’s getting to a point now where the family is having little hope each day, and that’s really breaking my heart.”
Harris remains hopeful through his tears.
“You can’t do nothing but hope,” Harris said. “I mean, I’m not going to give up hope . ... She’s a loving person. I love her, I want her home. No matter whatever she’s going through, we can work through it.”
BQIC and members of the LGBTQ+ community locally have questioned on social media why Sacoya’s disappearance hasn’t received the same attention from police and the media as that of Gabby Petito, the white, blonde 22-yearold whose cross-country trip with her fiancé that was posted to Youtube ended with the discovery of her murdered remains in Bridger-teton National Forest, near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Petito’s disappearance occurred not long after law enforcement body cam video was released showing her engaged in what appeared to be a domestic dispute with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.
The National Crime Information Center says there were nearly 90,000 active missing persons across the United States in 2020. Some have criticized the extensive attention on Petito, while her family has issued a statement expressing hope that the attention on her death will bring more attention and action on other missing persons cases. bbush@dispatch.com @Reporterbush