It was awful. Dissatisfied with the HVAC system in our home I turned to NextDoor, the online neighborhood forum that can provide useful references. I somehow seem to have opted out of its daily or weekly digests but located my login only to be greeted with a missing person notice, a couple of blocks away.
It was awful. Jasmin Cigarroa never came down from her apartment last week when a friend texted her for a planned night out. A community search was organized and a poster was taped to our lobby door.
I’d never before witnessed a true crime scenario unfold on social media. Dozens of over-the-backyard-fence conversations were transcribed in real time: disappearance hypotheses, prayers In Jesus [sic] All Powerful Name, Australian Cattle Dogs offered for tracking, psychics maligned and defended, witness testimony, Facebook postings, automobile make and model, suspect whereabouts, recovered evidence. Amid all this was the moving expression of “I just met your family in the driveway and if you ever need anything, I’m here for you.”
And this, posted by Cigarroa’s brother Francisco “Pancho”:
Unfortunately Jasmin was found dead we just got the news
Jasmin’s husband was arrested on investigation of first-degree murder. Pancho told the local CBS station, “I want what happened to my sister to be a movement for any other women that are in the situation she was.”
Movement
An existing movement an ocean away was sparked yet again by the murder of Sarah Everard on March 3. Like Jasmin Cigarroa, Everard’s remains were located miles from where she’d last been seen. Her accused killer is a London Metropolitan Police officer.
A candlelight vigil was held on Friday for Cigarroa in our neighborhood; no arrests that I know of. On Saturday a “Reclaim the Streets” vigil in London was conveniently clamped down upon by the Met squad, claiming a public health threat due to C-19 restrictions.
It was aweful. This week we watched sister stories: the disappearance of Syrian dissident Razan Zaitouneh, how Albanian women are disposed of by their patriarchy, how a DRC woman was “conscripted,” and how women took to the streets on International Women’s Day to demand their very existence.