In the wake of the James Kim media coverage, the Oakland Tribune and the Chron follow up on a Berkeley family who's been looking for their son, 23-year-old Wallace Richards (pictured at left) for a year, with no leads.
Wallace Richards had dropped off a dancer friend outside the Hustler Club around 11 a.m. on November 10, 2005, with the promise to get the oil changed in her gold Mercedes and to come back and pick her up after her shift ended at 7:30 that night. Richards never came back, and the car was found a week later in San Lorenzo. Richards had been on leave from SFSU but was planning on reenrolling to finish up his degree.
The family, in contrast to other missing people in the Bay Area like James Kim and the pediatrician who accidentally drove into the bay in Alameda, has had a hard time getting sustained media attention and have faced difficulties in getting access to records. Authorities acknowledge that race (along with his young age and gender) could be a factor as to why the story didn't get extensively picked up.
According to the FBI, there are over 48,000 active missing persons cases (adults) nationwide, with 30,000 missing for over a year -- and in Oakland, they investigated almost 1000 missing persons cases from 2004-2005 (with some cases on their rolls for "decades").
Richards is African-American with a medium-brown complexion, and is 6'2" and 235 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a green and grey North Face windbreaker.
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he was dating or just screwing a dancer at that club? gee, i wonder if the pimp owner of the club liked or condoned that? it would be real hard to figure out who killed him. give me a break!
Perhaps race does have influence in the media's coverage. Intense media coverage could put more heat on the Feds to help out more. However, in comparision to James Kim, the actual vehicle that found James Kim was only there because the family paid out of their pockets for that helicoptor search, not because the FBI hates african-americans more than asian-americans with american-american wives. You can see that wealth is a factor in this too.
@jash: Nice...
The "pimp owner" of hustler club would ultimately be Larry Flynt. I doubt he killed Wallace. And whatever your personal hangup about dancers, surprisingly, they're regular human beings too - just getting along like everybody else. So are their friends, family and lovers.
And no, it's not obvious "who killed him" or what happened.
Your version seems fitting for tv though, I'll give you that. Now, take your prejudice elsewhere.
@erie: Yeah, wealth certainly does matter. Especially considering how inefficient and misidrected most govt orgs have become the past 10 years. Funny you have to buy your own rescue team in a presumed first-world nation.