When Alonzo Washington heard that the headless body of a little black girl was found in his Kansas City, Missouri community, he immediately became overwhelmed with outrage.
When Alonzo Washington heard that the headless body of a little black girl was found in his Kansas City, Missouri community, he immediately became overwhelmed with outrage.
That was four years ago. Today, Washington feels a sense of relief that the girl’s alleged murderers have been found—and finally, she has a name.
"This is something that we should never forget," Washington, a community activist, told BlackAmericaWeb.com just hours after Oklahoma police arrested the mother and stepfather of Erica Michelle Maria Green, long known to Washington and all of Kansas City as Precious Doe. The pair were charged with the gruesome murder of the three-year-old girl.
According to an Associated Press report, a recent tip led police to Erica's mother, Michelle Johnson, 30, of Muskogee, Okla. Johnson, who was charged with felony murder and endangering a child and is being held in Oklahoma pending extradition. Her husband, Harell Johnson, 25, is also in custody in Oklahoma, also charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. It was on April 28, 2001 that Green’s decapitated body was found near a intersection. Days later, her head was found nearby wrapped in a trash bag. The grisly story received little national attention, something that moved Washington and several others to work overtime to find justice for the girl they would eventually name Precious Doe."
There are so many African-American children who go missing, and I began to realize how these children really get no national press," Washington said. "I wanted to do something to change that." Washington established a website and purchased newspaper advertisements alerting the public of black missing children like Precious Doe. He also coordinated vigils, rallies, and other activities to help make people more aware of the tragic turns taken in the lives of black youth. He was active in ensuring that Precious Doe was featured on national shows like "America’s Most Wanted" and "Today." She and other missing black children were posted on billboards and featured on trading cards Washington created to raise the nation’s awareness of black children who are harmed and endangered everyday.
What really bothered Washington, he maintained Thursday, was how captivated the country can get over the equally tragic disappearances and murders of white children and adults, all the while the stories of black missing children and adults fall by the wayside. "If Precious Doe’s case could have received half the media attention given to Jennifer Wilbanks, the 'runaway bride' from Georgia, it may not have taken so long to solve her murder," Washington said.
"I am the father of seven children, and that’s what makes me so relentless in trying to make sure that our children are valued," said the 37-year-old Washington, whose children are between the ages of two and 17.
"It just speaks to the issues of how our lives are not valued as much. Somehow, when we are murdered, our tips, our leads are not followed up," Washington said. "Yet, you’ve got [Wilbanks] missing, and everyone’s on it. The only way a black woman would have gotten that type of coverage is if it was 1786, and people would be looking for her because she was a runaway slave."
"All the work devoted to Precious Doe’s case seemed to be in vain," Washington said. "Even though tips were called into police as recently as last week, they were never seriously reviewed," he said. An Oklahoma man who had contacted Kansas City police to say he may have known the girl’s parents eventually called Washington, sending him a photo of the two he believed were responsible for Precious Doe’s death. In one of the photos were Johnson and several children, including Precious Doe.
Reportedly, Erica and her family were visiting Kansas City back in April 2001 when the death occurred. The police said that Erica's stepfather admitted that under the influence of alcohol and the hallucinogenic drug PCP, he became angry with Erica when she refused to go to bed, grabbed her, kicked her in the head and threw her to the ground, leaving her unconscious. He and her mother did not seek medical help, he said, because they both had outstanding arrest warrants.
Erica lingered for a day or two, but when it was obvious that she was dead, investigators said, the stepfather severed her head with hedge clippers and abandoned the corpse.
After her mangled body was discovered, Washington said, the entire community was aghast at the sheer depravity of the act—particularly against a toddler—resulting in an outpour of compassion and concern. Hundreds of people canvassed neighborhoods with fliers, manned phone lines and held vigils in the hopes that her killers would be captured.
According to Associated Press, a makeshift memorial of poems, teddy bears and flowers was eventually replaced by a permanent memorial in a park near where her body was found. Thursday morning, among the flowers and balloons there, a handwritten sign announced the news: "My Name Is Erica Michelle Maria Green."
"I was in it to win it," Washington said, declining to designate himself a hero for bringing attention to Precious Doe’s vicious murder. "I wanted to make sure that this was a case that we never forgot, and it was. Everywhere I went, black, white and Hispanic [people] would always ask if we had solved the Precious Doe case."
I would always say, "One day we will," Washington continued. "Today, was the day we did."