True Crime with Kendall Rae - The Suspicious Disappearance of Sage Smith...

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Sage Smith was a transgender teen who went missing one day in 2012, and due to her being LGBTQ and a person of color, didn’t receive the same media attention as other missing teens in the area. And because of this, her case wasn’t escalated or taken as seriously as it should have been. Charlottesville Police Department: [phone] Donate to NCMEC through my campaign!  https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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Yes, you energy! Energy for everything! Captain Banner now to learn more! Hey guys! Welcome back to my channel! So today I'm going to be telling you about the case of Sage Smith, which I truly think needs more eyes on it. She's been missing since November of 2012, and her family is just desperate for answers at this point. So Sage Smith was born on December 13th, 1992, to Latasha Dennis and Dean Smith.

Sage is transgender and she was born as the shod Smith, and I just want to let you know now if you leave any rude comments about her gender identity. That is the quickest way to get banned from my channel. So please don't do that. Keep it respectful. Thanks. And Sage had a very rough and turbulent upbringing. Not long after she was born her parents ended up getting a divorce, which is always difficult no matter how young you are when it happened. Just being in a divorced family is always a challenge. And not only that, her father ended up going to prison on a drug charge, and this was very hard for her as well.

I was very unsure of what pronouns to use for this video because Sage had identified as female, and she was going by the name Sage, but most of her friends and family call her a he and call her by the name Deshad which I don't think that is them trying to be disrespectful in any way they you know said she was more gender fluid and would sort of change day to day but she had announced on Facebook that she was a girl she actually posted I am a

girl and changed her name on there to Sage. So I am going to be respecting what I think she would have wanted. It's difficult because she's not here to speak on what she would want right now, but because she was referring to herself with the pronouns she, her, I'm gonna do the same in this video. Eventually her father did get out of prison and her parents ended up getting remarried after this. And now Sage had new step siblings in her family as well. And like I said, it was very difficult for Sage when she was growing up.

She lived in a very low income area outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, and her parents were struggling to make ends meet her whole life. And her life was super, super unstable. She was constantly being bounced around and didn't have a stable household. A lot of the time she lived with her grandma, who was named Lolita, but also went by the name Cookie. This is her father's mother, and she was wonderful to Sage. She probably was the

most stable, you know, adult figure in her life. But at one point, Sage was in foster care, and that was very, very hard on her. So Sage was in foster care and that was very very hard on her. So Sage was in her teenage years when she first told her parents and her grandmother that she was gay and she had really mixed reactions from her family. Cookie was super super supportive of her and told her you know I already kind of knew and I will love you no matter what. And this was very comforting and reassuring to Sage. Dean absolutely did not accept this. He was very confused and he ended up seeing some very hurtful things to Sage and it had a huge effect on their relationship and an effect on the whole family. Now keep in mind that Sage had come out in the earlier 2000s

before gay marriage was even legalized and before there was as much public understanding and support of the trans community and the LGBTQ plus community. Sage was really bullied and there are plenty of people that are still bullied for their gender identity to this day. But Sage had a very rough time. There was one instance where Sage was playing football and I'm not sure if she was already out as trans yet or if she was just gay but a bunch of the guys on the team ended up peeing on her jersey which is just disgusting. I don't understand.

And this was really, really hard on her. It is depressing to be bullied. And not having her father support was really difficult on her as well. However, her father ended up coming around. And I really liked something that he said in his interview on Disappeared on ID Discovery. He said that he was afraid in a way because you fear what you do not understand. And I feel that is so true for so many people that their hate and their judgment comes from fear and from not understanding. And it's really amazing to see that Sage's dad came to that

realization thankfully before anything happened to Sage and they were able to fix their relationship and became really close. Scan it up just having the attitude, this is my child, I love them no matter what and it's really awesome to hear that. At the end of the day he was proud of Sage. Sage was their first child to graduate high school. First one in the family, actually. And this was really impressive considering her home life was so turbulent. And she was also being bullied and dealing with the issues of not being accepted at first by her father. Her life was not easy. Yet she still worked hard and graduated high school and was very

proud of herself for that. After she graduated high school, she started Cosmetology School, and this is something that Sage was very into and really excited about. And while she was in Cosmetology school, she worked at a salon, and she was kind of an assistant type person. You know, she would clean up after clients, make sure everything was straightened orderly, sweep a pair, stuff like that. And then as a side gig, she was doing braids for people out of her house. So things were going pretty good for Sage, and in March of 2012, she got to move into her own apartment with the assistance of the foster care system. She lived with two roommates who were named Shakira and Aubrey, and they were also transgender

women who were in the process of transitioning. So they really supported each other and understood, you know, what each other was going through. So at this point, Sage had not come out to the public that she was transgender, like she hadn't put it on Facebook or anything. The people who are really close to her in her life and saw her on a regular basis new, but, you know, old friends and people who knew her as a shot didn't know. It's Jeep 4x4 season. Make your next adventure epic with Jeep Wrangler 4xE.

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Talk to your local CABOTA dealer today to schedule a demo. Go to CABOTAUSA.com for full disclaimer. Visit GoCABUSA.com for full disclaimer. Visit GoCabota.com. So it wasn't until November 9, 2012 that she actually came out on Facebook to everyone and said, I am a girl and also changed her name to Sage Smith. And not only that, she officially changed her gender on Facebook to female. Sage was really happy about living in her own apartment and she was really living it up.

She and her roommates and her friends were going out all the time. She was described as someone who was very social, very energetic and charismatic and just fun. She was a Sagittarius, so this does not surprise me. Her favorite thing to do was to go dancing. Sage loved to dance, not like professionally or anything, but she just loved to dance. And she actually has videos on her YouTube channel of her dancing, which is so awesome. I love when there is little clips uploaded by victims

before they pass so that the family has some memory of them, you know, a video clip. It's so much more like meaningful than a picture. So I think it's cool that they have those videos of her just having fun. So at first things were going really well. However, eventually Sage and her roommates really started struggling to pay their rent because they were struggling to find jobs. The jobs that her roommates were getting were minimum wage

because if they applied for anything else, they were often discriminated against because they were trans. And yes, it was legal for these businesses to discriminate against them. Discrimination against people for their gender identity or even their race is very prevalent in today's society. It's a very real struggle

that I'm sure a lot of people out there can relate to. So to make a little extra money, they had to get creative. And they started throwing these parties. They would throw parties and then they would charge people to go to them or they would charge people to come to their house and throw a party for them. However, they knew that as three transgender women that they could be targeted and that they had to be extremely careful. So they all looked out for each other when they

were doing this if they were going to like some random guys house. And in addition to this, Sage also started posting ads on Craigslist. She would list them under the casual encounter section. Now this can be very, very dangerous, especially as someone who's transgender, but for anyone. It's really dangerous to kind of do that under the table and go to people's houses. And this actually was a problem for Sage one time. She had a client who she had a sexual encounter with who was actually married and was not openly gay.

His wife ended up finding out about it and freaked out and then the guy ended up coming after Sage. He physically assaulted her and Sage ended up filing a police report and the guy was charged luckily. But this is something that happens to transgender women all the time. So a little over a week after Sage had come out publicly on Facebook. She and her friends were celebrating one of her roommates birthday Shakira at their apartment. Now this whole part is pretty confusing but

basically this random woman came to the party and said that she wanted to have a fight with Sage over some guy and they all start fighting. And it's got so out of hand that it moved outside and people were literally pulling up as backup and the fight got completely out of control. Police were called. It was just crazy. And it seemed like all these people were focusing on attacking Sage. Even though apparently they weren't even coming for Sage.

I think there was some type of confusion about who they were mad at, but somehow sage got in the middle of it all. Some guy named Jamal ended up filing a report against sage for damaging his car. However, no one was arrested and the place didn't do anything. So sage ended up getting mad at her friend Shakira because she thought that Shakira should have stood up for her more. It's kind of confusing what exactly happened between them, but they got in a fight and Shakira ended up leaving and went back home or to a friend's house left the apartment, so it was just Aubrey and Sage. They said some really hurtful things to each other and things that Shakira

regressed this day, and I'm sure Sage would too. So then she thinks calm down and the next day rolls around. This was the anniversary date of when her father got out of jail. So Sage woke up and called him in the morning. She congratulated him and she also asked if she could borrow some money. It's not exactly clear what the money was for. Some people say that it was because she wanted to get braids because she had a date that night.

Other people said that she wanted a TV for the apartment, but Sage did have a date that night and she got ready for her date as normal, told her roommate Aubrey that she was going on a date with a guy and left. Now the problem is, is she didn't tell Aubrey who she was meeting with. She just said a guy. So Sage leaves for her date and Aubrey ends up taking a nap

and when she wakes up, it's hours later and all the lights are still off in her apartment and Sage was not back yet. So she grabs her phone, calls Sage to check on her and Sage did not answer her phone. Now this was extremely weird because Sage was known for always having her phone with her and always keeping it charged.

Literally would carry a charger around with her. So this was very unusual. So she called Sage's grandmother and she said that if she doesn't come back by the morning, then call the police. So the next day rolls around and Sage is still nowhere to be found. Aubrey calls their other roommate Shakira, who is, you know, mad at Sage at the time and not at the apartment and tells her that Sage hadn't come home. And even though they were fighting, of course she was extremely concerned right away. So they called the police and he missing person's report was filed. So at first Sage's mom didn't even tell the rest of the family like her step

siblings that Sage was missing because she didn't want to scare them. So they ended up finding out about it from a Facebook post which is crazy. But but as soon as they all found out that she's missing, everyone was very very concerned. Especially because as soon as they all found out that she's missing, everyone was very, very concerned, especially because they started to think about the fact that she could have been targeted for her gender identity. And they just knew that something had to be really wrong because Sage would never just leave and Thanksgiving was actually the next day. And they knew that Sage was very excited for the holiday and would never miss a family holiday. She was very close for the holiday and would never miss a family holiday.

She was very close with her family and she actually had plans to come and surprise them. Her mom tried texting her phone several times but there was no response. So Sage's family was able to guess some of her passwords and get into some of her accounts and they were able to put together a little bit of a timeline.

So at 515 Sage sent a text message to an unknown number saying, when are you leaving? At 520 pm, the person responds and says, I already did. I'm at the hamden in. Then at 640, Sage ended up leaving her apartment. At 608, the unknown person says, where are you at? At 612, Sage says, I'm standing here. Where are you? Then from 618 to 637, Sage talks on the phone with a friend who's from northern Virginia. And while she's on the phone with her friend, the unknown person sent a text saying, Hey, I'm here. Where are you? I'm waiting for you. I'm giving you five more minutes. And then the final text was at 627, which is 10 minutes before Sage gets off the phone with her friend.

And the text says, buy, you stood me up. So then at 635 Sage is still on the phone with her friend and the text says, buy, you stood me up. So then at 6.35 Sage is still on the phone with her friend and she sees her step sister on fourth street. Her sister's name is Chiara and they just happened to run into each other so they chat for a little bit. And then a few minutes after this, Sage is seen walking down Main Street towards the Amtrak station and that is the last time that she was seen. So obviously the next step is to figure out who that number belongs to.

So Sage's father, Dean, ended up posting the phone number to Facebook and asked if anyone knew whose phone number it was and said this is who Sage was talking to before she disappeared. And interestingly enough, another transgender woman in the community came forward and said that the number belonged to a man named Eric McFadden. So police start doing some digging and they realized that sage and Eric had been talking for a while before sage went missing. They found out that sage and him were sexually involved and that he was paying sage to not tell anyone because he was not open about his sexuality. In fact, he actually had a girlfriend and he wanted to make sure she and everyone else had no idea. So police decided to check the cameras around the area that Sage went missing to see if they could spot her

an Eric. However, the cameras were not actually recording, of course. They were just a live stream, you know, for a security guard to view in the moment, but you can't go back and see any of it, which is pretty useless. And at this point, the family is trying to get support from the community, and that means you need media coverage. However, no media was covering Sage's disappearance. She would even call the news station like every day and ask when they are going to talk about Sage, and they would always tell her, you know, soon, soon, but they would never actually do it.

And we all know that the most important time to talk about someone if they're missing is right after they go missing. That first 24 to 48 hours is so crucial and there was no coverage on Sage at all. She tried to rally up some support from a local pastor and a church and they like kind of got a group together but she said it was just like barely any people.

And it's really hard when people don't even know about the case because it's not being shown on TV or written about in the media anywhere. Her family and friends, her roommates especially, are just worried sick about her. They just want to know what happened and where she is. Then on November 24th, police got word of another missing person and this is only a few days after Sage had gone missing. It was Eric's girlfriend Esther calling the police actually and she reported Eric missing. She said that Eric was supposed to be staying at her apartment over Thanksgiving while she

was gone visiting her family but when she came back he's nowhere to be found and she hasn't heard from him since. And this is when police told her that they were already looking for Eric as a possible suspect in the disappearance of Sage Smith. And his girlfriend was absolutely shocked. They went to her apartment and interviewed her a little more and checked if he was there, he wasn't, and she truly had no idea where he went. But the next night, Eric ended up calling his girlfriend and said that he was in DC and asked her if he could have some money.

And she was like, dude, I don't know what happened, but the police are looking for you and you should probably call them. A few days later, the police went back to Eric's apartment and grabbed his laptop and also found a receipt that was dated from November 22nd, a few days after Sage was missing. They also ended up pulling the footage from CVS,

so it showed that Eric was in town two days after Sage went missing. And police ended up saying that this made him less suspicious because it showed that he was still in town two days after Sage disappeared and they think that if he was going to leave because of her disappearance that he would have left right away which maybe but I mean I don't know I think it's weird because criminals do things in different ways. There's not one handbook of like how things are done and he very well could have stayed. It's possible he wasn't planning to leave until his phone number was outed,

which made everyone on Facebook start talking about how he was gay, and that really upset him because he was trying to keep the secret, and you know, you got to feel for anyone who's outed before they're ready. That was probably really traumatizing, and that could upset him because he was trying to keep the secret and you know you got to feel for anyone who's outed before they're ready that was probably really traumatizing and that could be why he left town. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway.

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whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at $12.99 per month. So finally, on Tuesday, November 27, Eric himself ends up calling the police station. He said he was supposed to meet up with Sage at the Amtrak station on the night of the 20th, but she never showed up. And his story really fits with the text messages. I mean, he was saying, where

are you? And then, you know, by you stood me up. He said that he had nothing to do with her disappearance, however. And he said that he was currently in New York. And he said that he wasn't running away or anything like that, that he just wanted to move to New York. So they ended up making an agreement with Eric that he would come back into town on the 29th. He agreed that he would come into Charlottesville by bus, and that police would meet him at the bus station, and then take him to the police station

just to be interviewed. However, the day of the police ended up getting a call from Eric's girlfriend, who said that he had called her and said that he wasn't gonna be showing up, and that instead he was going to run away. And this is when he told her what really happened. He said, I never did anything sexual with that guy and he was blackmailing me. He wanted me to give him money, not to lie saying we did it.

And I did. And he agreed to stop and then next time he hit me up for money I said no. We did meet up but he had a lot of enemies. Me and him were walking and some people showed up and I kept walking, not looking back. Maybe that's what happened. It's possible that he's telling the truth but I don't understand if they really did meet up why he would send a text message to him saying you stood me up by. Over a lot of people think it's possible that this really did happen.

That someone came out of nowhere and hurt sage because she was transgender or for some other reason, you know, they did just have this big fight at the apartment and that Eric was just there to witness it and didn't report it to the police and knew that the circumstances were very strange since they were supposed to be meeting up. He was the last one to see him

and he didn't want to be blamed for it. Or it's possible that he did something. I don't know, it's very confusing because of those text messages. Eric ended off the email to his girlfriend by saying that he was moving to the Midwest and basically apologized to her for everything. So because of this, Eric now was a person of interest, of course. And so they obtained warrants to look into his social media, his cell phone, and his email. They also ended up tracking down his most recent trash so they could collect anything that was possibly important

in there. And not only did they check his most recent trash, they actually went to the landfill and had a person who specializes in landfill searches, which I did not know existed, but they had them come in and conduct the search and they didn't find anything of interest. So them come in and conduct the search and they didn't find anything of interest. So the police ended up getting the FBI and Neckmeck, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, involved. And they submitted her dental records to a database, so if her body was found anywhere in the country, that they would be alerted. In December of 2012, there were three major searches for Sage conducted. The first search was of that main street area and also Eric's apartment area

and they also searched by some nearby railroad tracks. They even brought in cadaver dogs from Virginia search and rescue dog association and one of the dogs ended up getting a slight indication that they had picked up sages sent. However, this lead unfortunately led nowhere. They also searched this pond of sediment where a body could easily be dumped, and a police dive team searched every inch of this, which was very difficult. And unfortunately, it came up empty again. Third search was of a landfill in Henrico County.

It consisted of the Charlottesville Police Department, officers from Henrico County, people from the forensic and hazmat teams, and two police dogs. They searched that entire landfill and found absolutely nothing. Towards the end of 2012, an anonymous person donated $10,000 to be the reward for anyone who had information that could lead to finding sage or figuring out what happened to her. And even though the police were doing quite a lot, they still weren't getting public attention.

And that's because the media was not doing anything. The media just plays such a big role in missing person's cases and getting information out. If the media doesn't cover someone's case, it just gets lost and people don't know about it. The media has a huge role in true crime. A lot of the times the police won't do much if anything if there is no public pressure. The family was just not getting the community support that they needed and there was no media attention really. Meanwhile, there are other cases that get tons of coverage and most of the time they're white girls.

For example, an 18 year old college student named Hannah Graham went missing from the same area in Charlottesville. And this got tons of news coverage. When she first went missing, there were multiple media trucks there on day one. There was none there for sage. And because the media started talking about it, people heard about it. And there were more resources put into the case. And ended up being one of the largest and most expensive searches in Virginia history. Unfortunately, 36 days after Hannah and Missing, her body was recovered. And as horrible as Sages family felt for Hannah's family, they couldn't help but feel like, you know, why didn't my daughter get the same attention?

Is it because she's trans? Is it because she's black? Why does the media pick and choose who they care about, who deserves attention, because they really determine the outcome of some of these cases? And it's really frustrating because there are so many cases that people will send me and be like, please talk about this, this needs coverage,

no one's talking about it. And I look it up and there's no information. There is not a single article on them. There are no journalists looking into it and I'm not an investigative journalist. I get all my information from the internet. So it's really hard when you want to talk about a case, but you can't find any information about it. And that is a problem that I think goes back to the media. It's a complex issue, obviously. There's also just a lack of public concern for some of these people, and that's why the media doesn't cover it as much. But I truly believe that the change is going to start

with the media, normalizing talking about all missing persons cases, especially local media. It's one thing to not get national media coverage, but it's a real shame when local media channels ignore a family asking for help and awareness for their missing child. And you can't help it ask yourself if Sage was white or if she was cisgendered. Would she have gotten the coverage that Hannah did? I don't know, let me know your thoughts on that below, but I'm pretty sure I know what most of you are going to say. So then in February of 2013, someone came forward who was a friend of Sage's name Monica and she had seen Sage at the Amtrak station

at Wild Wings Cafe. She said that she saw her on 7 p.m., so this is right after her last sighting. And she had the same experience that Ciara had with Sage. She said that she was gonna be meeting up with this guy, and then they kind of chatted for a little while, and then Monica left. I don't know why she waited so long

to come forward with this information, but you know, better late than ever. Now management of the restaurant actually said that around that time there were cross-dressers in the restaurant. So it could have been sage. However they didn't have any security cameras at Wild Wing Cafe or the Amtrak station so they have no way of knowing if she was there. So if you look at the text messages again, at 6.37, Eric sends Sage that message saying that she stood him up and that he's going to leave. And then at 6.36, Sage sees her steps

to Mr. Kiar and they talk. And now Monica is coming forward saying that they talked at 7 p.m. after all of this. So please wonder if maybe Sage had met up with Eric during that time. But that's really all they had to work with at this point. And by 2014, the case had kind of come to a dead end. Also, people were upset because the police did not make this a criminal investigation against Eric. Many people feel like Eric is clearly the person of interest and not he's on the run.

I mean, while it's his he on the run, unless he's that upset about being outed for sexuality, which is possible. He could have left because of that, or he thinks he's going to be framed for this and he didn't do it, I don't know. His story doesn't completely make sense, and I wouldn't be surprised if he is the one who did it. But the police were acting like this wasn't criminal, and that they really had no idea. And eventually, in 2015, Eric was actually cleared as a suspect, which I think is so insane, but their reasoning was that Eric wouldn't have been able to pull this off, that he didn't have the means to hide a body. He didn't have a car, he barely had any money, so how is he able to have had a body? I think that is the stupidest excuse to clear someone I've ever heard. Just

because he didn't have a car, doesn it mean he didn't have anything to do with her disappearance? He easily could have taken her somewhere else or had someone else help with this. Not only that, they said that he was on his computer that night from 11 to 3 a.m. Which I'm confused about. That is not the time that Sage went missing

or was last seen. He was meeting up with her at like 6.30. So who cares if he was on his computer from 11 to 3? He could have done something and then gotten on his computer at 11. I'm not saying that he for sure did it, although I'm very suspicious of him, but I don't think there is enough to clear him as a person of interest. They also said that if they did arrest him and a judge determined that there was not enough, you know, evidence that he did it, that it could ruin the whole case.

I don't know, very weird. Then in January of 2016, there was a possible sighting of sage, except it was 300 miles away from where sage first wanted missing. So police went to the area and they actually found who they thought was sage, and it ended up being sage's roommate Shakira. They looked very similar, I guess, so I don't really know, or maybe someone got confused, I don't know. But anyway, while they met up with her, they figured it was a good time to interview her a little bit more.

And this is when she said that she was a little bit suspicious of their other roommate Aubrey. It turned out that Aubrey had been using Sage's food stamps right after she went missing. And not only that, she used a credit card that belonged to sage. However, she said that they kind of used credit cards as like communal cards and that she was just going to get some cleaning supplies for the house and she didn't think anything of it, which is her

normal routine. But Shakira also said that Aubrey was wearing Sage's wigs, which is kind of weird and a little disrespectful. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to judge because you don't know their relationship. They could have just shared everything. But I think it's interesting that Shakira thinks it's weird. I mean, she lived with them.

She also said that Aubrey had some jealousy issues with Sage, but you know, this is kind of hearsay. I'm not really sure about how Aubrey would feel about that. However, Aubrey said that this is all a misunderstanding and they actually checked her GPS and found that she was probably at home when all of this was happening. However, this was a really small area and cell phone pings aren't super exact,

so it's possible she, I mean, she really could have been anywhere in the area. So it doesn't really prove that she was at the apartment during all of this. However, what's interesting is the police believe that Aubrey knew Eric and they confronted her about this and she said that she did meet him one time. However, several people like witnesses have said that they saw Aubrey, Sage, and Eric all together several nights before Sage disappeared. Another thing that is kind of strange is

another one of Sage's friends started wearing one of her lockets and it was very important to Sage and it's just kind of one of her lockets. And it was very important to Sage, and it's just kind of shitty for her friends to be using all her stuff. And that has made a lot of people question whether or not they could have had something to do with her disappearance, but there's not much evidence for that.

Another thing that is strange, and I want to know in this video, is that one of the people that was at that huge fight at Sage's house the day before she went missing ended up going off with social media completely after that like just disappeared off the web. Normally this person was very active on Twitter and it was really weird to people. And a month after Sage went missing he got back on Twitter and said,

I can't stand a man who wants to be a woman. I want a man who's a man, not a man who's a woman. So that is a little suspicious. However, this didn't lead to anything. In 2017, Sages' case was reclassified from a missing person's case to a homicide investigation. This is what Sages' family wanted.

They do not believe she left in any way, and they believe that she is no longer with us. It took them years to change the status of the case, but they finally did, and the family was very happy about that. And this is because when a case is classified as a homicide, it is easier for authorities and for lawyers to get access to search warrants and information for the investigation. Now to this day, Eric is nowhere to be found.

He has been gone since 2012. Since then, he has been reclassified, not as a person of interest, necessarily, but more as a potential witness, and police claim that they really want to talk to him, although I would not be surprised if he had involvement in this. Somewhat recently, on May 8, 2018, a forensic team conducted a search of Sage's apartment, and they said that if there was ever blood there, even if it was cleaned, they could be able to pick it up. However, nothing was found. Or it's possible something was found, and they just didn't tell the public about it, but

I doubt anything was found. Most recently, in June of 2019, Eric's mother actually listed him as a missing person, and she actually gave a public plea out to him. I would like Eric to know that if he is out there and eats help, he can call his mom. What's interesting though is his mother thinks there's a good

chance he might be dead, which I don't know why she thinks that. I mean, it's pretty clear he left on purpose and probably went and started a new life without telling us how they pinpointed these locations. Police say McFadden may have

traveled to cities like Baltimore, New York City, and even as far as Rochester, New York. Sages family has been holding vigils for her every year since she went missing. They are of course heartbroken that they still have no answers,

and they often wonder who she would be today. She was so young and had her whole life ahead of her. It's extremely sad what happened. At one point, her family organized this event to donate socks to a homeless shelter kind of in sage's honor because sage was known as someone who is extremely giving and generous and would give the shirt off her back so they wanted to continue doing good in her name. As of today, sage's case is still being treated as a possible homicide. If sage was still alive today, she would be 27 years old. Eric was

21 when he went missing. I couldn't figure out his birthday, but he's either 28 or 29 years old today. Investigators have been working with the FBI to try to solve this case and get the family answers that they need after all of this time. There's currently a $20,000 reward out for any information on stage's disappearance that could help to finding her or figuring out what happened. At 19, he was taken from us without any explanation. It hasn't been given any justice.

We are asking you, Eric McFadden, to please come into the Charlesville Police Department to answer any question. If you have any information that could lead to solving this case, please contact the Charlotte's ville Police Department. I will have their information in the description box. And I really want to know your opinions on this case. I want to know what you think happened. Do you think Eric is responsible? And I want to know what you think about media coverage on cases of people of color and of members of the LGBTQ community. I think as a society, we really need to change the way that we cover missing persons cases. I know you guys are gonna have very mixed opinions so

please leave them down below. That is gonna be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show you can find it on my YouTube channel which will linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. From joyful occasions to the unexpected, first Franklin financial makes loans for living, offering fixed rates and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1ffc.com to learn more.

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