Finding Tamika: Podcast on disappearance, killing of Black Spartanburg woman, addresses disparities

Rebkah Howard clung to hope in the months after her 24-year-old niece Tamika Huston of Spartanburg went missing in May 2004. 

"It was a very difficult time, the hardest 15 months of my life – certainly for her mother," Howard said. "It's really hard to explain what we went through."

Tamika, who was described by friends as a loving young woman who always saw the best in people and put others before herself, was found dead in August 2005 after Christopher Hampton admitted burying her remains, later digging them up and decapitating the body.

Hampton, 25, pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in April 2006.

Early struggles for attention

What was most frustrating to Howard in the early months of her niece's disappearance was the struggle to get national media outlets to cover Tamika's disappearance, when few missing Black women got media coverage compared with young white women.

She said much of that disparity today still exists, which is what motivated her to develop a 10-part podcast series called "Finding Tamika." The first episode will air on Audible Thursday, March 3.

What to know:Audible podcast focuses on disappearance, death of Spartanburg's Tamika Huston

Howard said few people today can identify a missing Black person. Yet during last year, one would be hard-pressed not to have heard of Gabby Petito, a young white woman who was killed by her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, while traveling on a van-life journey across the United States together. 

That case drew nonstop national media attention in part because of the couple's social media activity, police body camera video footage, 9-1-1 emergency dispatch call recordings and eyewitness accounts.

"I watched so many cases of missing women before Tamika went missing, like Laci Peterson and Chandra Levy, who received 'round-the-clock coverage by cable networks," said Howard, who lives in Florida as a non-practicing attorney and freelance publicist. Tamika was the first child of her oldest sister, Gabriella Simenehe. "My first instinct was to reach out to national media. It fell on deaf ears for months."

Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she disappeared in late 2002, and the case was highly publicized. Her husband, Scott Peterson, was later convicted of first-degree murder for her death and second-degree murder for the death of their unborn child.

Chandra Levy was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., when she disappeared in 2001. A year later her remains were found. The case drew longtime attention from national news outlets.

Howard said her luck changed when she contacted journalist Tiffany Cross at "America's Most Wanted." Cross, who hosts "The Cross Connection" Saturday mornings on MSNBC, was a young producer at "America's Most Wanted" at the time.

"I couldn't get her bosses to pay attention to this case, but it resonated with Tamika," Howard said. "She said (Tamika Huston) looks like me. So she told her producer, let me go to Spartanburg."

Tamika's case was featured on "America's Most Wanted," "Dateline NBC" and in USA Today, and the clues soon led investigators to Hampton, who then confessed to the killing.

"That media attention really helps," Howard said. "When families of missing people are seeking coverage for loved ones, it's not because they're seeking attention, but it brings clues and tips to the police and puts police under pressure."

Inspiration from Tamika's case 

Natalie Wilson, a public relations specialist in New York,  co-founded the Black and Missing Foundation in 2008 after being inspired by Tamika's story and the lack of media attention it received. 

"At the time of Tamika's case, we had no magnitude of the issue and how lopsided the media coverage was," Wilson said. "Thirty percent of persons missing were of color, yet only received 7% of media coverage. Now how disheartening is that?"

Jailhouse interview:Tamika Huston's killer: No more secrets

Wilson said the mission of her foundation is to bring awareness to the plight of missing persons of color through public awareness campaigns. She said more than 240,000 persons of color are reported missing every year.

"Our job is to be the firefighters and spread the information, but we can only do that through exposure and making sure people know what's going on," she said. "All of us together can bring change to these injustices."

To report or search for a missing person, go to bamfi.org.

'Black and Missing':Media, police pay less attention to missing Black people. HBO's new doc wants to change that.

Podcast addresses disparities

That has been the thrust of Howard's drive to help create a podcast – to spread true-crime drama "that also sheds a light on how disproportionate media coverage continues to negatively affect women of color like Tamika today," Howard said.

Howard said the podcast company Audible expressed the most interest in her project, and last year began production. An audio licensing deal was reached with award-winning actor and comedian Kevin Hart and multimedia mogul Lenard "Charlamagne Tha God" McKelvey, who are the executive producers.

Produced and co-written by activist and actor Erika Alexander, Finding Tamika tells Tamika's story through the voices of her family and other principal figures, including former 7th Circuit Solicitor and former Congressman Trey Gowdy of Spartanburg and Investigator Steve Lamb of the Spartanburg Public Safety Department.

It will be released Thursday, March 3, and can be found here. 

Contact Bob Montgomery at bob.montgomery@shj.com. Please support our coverage of Spartanburg County with a digital subscription. AND TODAY, take advantage of our unbeatable President's Day sale: $22 for 2 years of a digital subscription!