AFTERTHOUGHTS: Tiesha Sargeant

Amara Cofer (0:07)

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Black Girl Gone Afterthoughts. I am your host Amara, and I am here with my husband and my co-host Jason.

Jason (0:15)

What's going on, y'all?

Amara Cofer (0:17)

So this week, we did an episode, or the episode was about an unsolved murder that happened 20 years ago. And it's a case that, I'm pretty sure a lot of people are not familiar with. It did not get a lot of attention outside of New York, and specifically like during that time. And it hasn't been something that a lot of people know about. But it's a very disturbing story. It's a very sad story.

And stories like Tiesha stand out to me always because it's a proof of how easily narratives can be formed around someone, or assumptions can be formed around someone. I felt the same way about last week's episode also because you hear about a woman being found murdered in a motel room, and you start to make a bunch of assumptions about her life and her lifestyle when she was into. And a lot of people probably didn't know that she was a mother, and that she was a victim of domestic violence, you know? So, you know, hearing Tiesha's story and hearing, oh, her boyfriend was selling marijuana out of the apartment, then a lot of people, I'm sure, started making a lot of assumptions about the crime, her case, her, without really knowing who she was. And that's why when I tell these stories about these women, I spend so much time telling you who they were, because that's such an important part of the story. Because even when their stories are covered, the news often fails to capture that part of who they were. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I just wanted to tell you guys that.

Jason (2:06)

You want to preface?

Amara Cofer (2:07)

Yeah.

Jason (2:09)

Okay, so we're talking about Brooklyn. Shout out to all the New Yorkers, man. Shout out to New York. Give us a recap of the story, and then we can go ahead and get to work.

Amara Cofer (2:23)

Yeah, so Tiesha was 26 years old, and she had graduated from Wesleyan University. She was working. She had a really good job that she loved, and she was living with her boyfriend in Brooklyn in 2006

And her boyfriend, at the time, was selling marijuana out of the apartment. On May 14th, which was Mother's Day, in the early morning hours of May 14th, her boyfriend said that intruders broke into their apartment and tied them up and subsequently shot and killed Tiesha. He was left unharmed. And a lot of suspicion fell on him and his account, but there was never anything proven that he had anything to do with it. And they never were able to find who shot and killed Tiesha.

They believed that it was possibly a robbery, that things were missing from the apartment, but why she was murdered was never... They never found out why she was murdered, and the person who did it has never been caught. And so 20 years later, her murder remains unsolved. And it's a story that people needed to know about. So, yeah.

Jason (3:45)

Yeah. You know, it's funny that you started this episode the way you did, because at the end of the day, you know, you see that Tiesha was smart, right? You see that she was driven. And, you know, when you look at where she came from, who her parents were, you know, a lot of those people come from the islands, stuff like that, of course. You know, their parents don't play no games, just like our parents, you know what I'm saying? The culture is different. And when it comes to them being driven, academics, they are, you know, they're aggressive in that manner.

You mentioned that she wrote something for Black Planet back in the day. And I know some of y'all are younger. So Black Planet was like social media before MySpace, before Facebook, before Snapchat.

Black Planet like pioneered all the social media. Black Planet came out like five years before MySpace was even there. So, you know, you got a mind that's like, you know, involved in, you know, those type of projects. And to make it seem like, you know, she just knew what was going on in that manner is, is, you know, you can't say that. You know what I mean? Like I'm from Philadelphia. I know dudes that was out of the house for years and they mom, you know what I'm saying? Their mom didn't know. You know what I'm saying? They don't, they don't, you know, so, you know, it's, you know, it's touch and go when it comes to assuming what somebody knows and what they're, what they're a part of. Yeah. You know what I mean?