221: We're Terribly Sorry for this Terrible Episode

If you’re looking for a light-hearted episode that’ll leave you feeling warm and tingly, this ain’t it. Brandi starts us off with the story of a toddler whose body was discovered in the woods of Kansas City. For years, the unidentified girl was known as “Precious Doe.” Police said they were dedicated to the case, but it took outside intervention and relentless advocacy by the girl’s great grandfather for her to be identified. Then Kristin tells us about the infuriating fight for justice following the murder of Jennifer Laude. Jennifer was a trans Filipina woman who was killed by an American Marine named Joseph Scott Pemberton. Jennifer’s murder didn’t just outrage LGBT+ advocates – it outraged anyone who was sick of American servicepeople getting special treatment in the Philippines.  Kristin (the tattooed one who is engaged to David) ends this episode with a bang. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary “Call Her Ganda” “How the Killing of a Trans Filipina Woman Ignited an International Incident” by Meredith Talusan for Vice  “Philippines Events of 2018,” Human Rights Watch “9 of Rodrigo Duterte’s Most Controversial Quotes,” by Megan Trimble for US News and World Report “Revisiting the Jennifer Laude murder case,” by CNN Philippines Staff for CNN In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “‘Precious Doe’ — Toddler Erica Green Was Killed By Her Parents In 2001” by Erika Marie, ourblackgirls.com “Solved: The brutal murder of Erica Green” by Mary Hallberg, maryhallberg.com “Mystery child’s slaying still haunts, stirs resolve” by Christine Vendel, The Kansas City Star “Precious Doe Case: Lessons learned” by Christin Vendel, The Kansas City Star “Mother, stepfather charges in ‘Precious Doe’ killing” CNN “Precious Doe Born In Prison” CBS News “Missouri: Letters were sent by ‘Precious Doe’ killer to wife” The Joplin Globe “Mom at ‘Precious Doe’ trial says she waited for girl to die’ The Associated Press “Activist Continues Work for ‘Forgotten’ Missing Persons” by Bryan Robinson, ABC News “State of Missouri, Respondent, v. Harrell L. Johnson” findlaw.com “Murder of Erica Green” wikipedia.org