TokyoNiGHTS

It's hard to get angry at her for doing it. I'd say this is more on the networks. What exactly is attractive about this story? A woman "kidnapped", accusing people of raping her, and then everyone find out that she just ran away? Are they so desperate for movies that this is actually a good idea to them? I'm sure there's gotta be something else out there.

Lain

Ho boy... So the famous people that have had something happen to them try to make a book/movie about it. Big Whoop!

Why create a movie on her life? She ran away, claimed she was kidnapped, turns out she actually got cold feet and personal issues. I smell "Runaway Bride" the sequel with Julia Roberts in the air.

Paceysgal

Oh God. No one cares about her life. I can't even think of one thing that's remotely fascinating about this woman The authorities should make her pay back the funds they spent looking for her ass with the money she'll make from this craptastic story. Honey, we know you've got some issues but seriously... I don't need to know about 'em.

I agree it seems as though the media focuses on the "wholesome, all american" people. Look at Jessica Lynch. There's a girl who got all the media coverage and was called 'hero', got a book deal and a TV movie out of it and there were others out there damn near in the same situation. It's so sad when not just one, but a lot of people acknowledge that this has been going on.

Lain

This might be a bit off topic but I remember watching Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah, they constantly talk of that the show is "not a news broadcast". Even if it wasn't, at least they didn't only show attractive beauty queens from rich families that are missing. There were some that are mentally ill, some average looking, and some from different races with different lives that are not always so rich.

Anyone agree?

ceilirose

I don't think it's right although obviously she can do what she wants. She staged the whole thing and it's apparent she has some deeper issues but it seems kind of excessive to cash in on it. Hopefully the movie bombs.

Elizajoey

No, she didn't. She went missing. The networks, the family and the police created it. She only went missing - as if she would have planned for this type of fallout - I think she made up the hispanic line specifically because she knew of no way out.

Why I agree there is underlying stereotypes - the idea of the pure white female and the need to be protected, I also wonder why people seemed annoyed - of course it completely sucks, to put it bluntly, that not all the missing people don't get the attention so the person may be found but why must we bombad the lucky few that do.

ceilirose

No - she staged her disappearance because she couldn't face her situation. The reports are that she bought her bus ticket a week prior to her disappearance under an assumed name.

She could have called her family/fiance anytime she wanted to but only did so when she ran out of money. If you listened to her tapes with the FBI she was freaking out because she only had four days to the wedding and only one free day to get her manicure and pedicure. Plus she didn't know what to pack for her honeymoon because she didn't know where she was going. I'll grant you that we all have different levels of coping but I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for her.

The woman is over 30 and she has some issues but she's either incredibly naive and/or self-centered to think that she could just disappear four days from her wedding (with 700 expected guests) and not expect her family to be concerned. The media coverage took on a life of it's own and that's a whole other issue which has it's own bias to it. But the media is perpetuating this woman's melt-down and trying to garner sympathy for her and ratings by making her some sort of a victim. She played the race card and apparently described a sexual molestation in great detail that didn't even happen.

There are thousands of people in this country (and other countries) who are missing through foul play or mental and/or physical illness and literally cannot contact their families. Most of them don't come from well connected and wealthy parents. Those are the people I have sympathy for..not this woman. Let her get whatever help she needs and she can go on with her life but she is not blameless in this story. Now that she's making money from it I have even less sympathy for her.

TokyoNiGHTS

I think now is a good time to bump this topic. You can really start to see its a racial issue now. Natalee Holloway has still been getting much more media coverage than Latoyia Figueroa who just went missing and is pregnant. She's been getting alot of attention on blogs because they're starting to get pissed that networks seem to focus in on only white women to give lots of media coverage to when they go missing while any other race gets little to no attention. Its become more and more obvious where their focus is on these cases.

86amanda86

Sarah - I love your avatar!


I live in SLC where Elizabeth Samart was kidnapped. I dodn't know if you guys knew this but her family is horribly wealthy. Maybe not in all these cases, but in hers, her father payed a lot of money for the kind of publicity her kidnapping got.

Lexis

The Aruba case has been the front page of Yahoo so manu times but I have yet to even hear about Latoyia Figueroa.

Amanda, its good to see you back.

mh67511

During the summer it was BIG news when those three young boys in NJ went missing. I believe they were Hispanic (or at least looked Hispanic). They were found dead though , but I saw it on at least every news channel/program I watched those few days. I also heard about that black pregnant woman who went missing, but not much more than that. I think a lot depends on how much of an outcry the family makes. I've seen the the Holloway parents on TV so often!

I think the reason the Aruba case is getting so much attention is because for one thing, she's young and went missing in Aruba. It's just not a very common thing and the fact that she was on a class trip, usually you think of them as being safe and then this happened. She's probably dead though and I hope they find her soon just so the family can have some closure and Nancy Grace would stop talking about it. I can't imagine she'd be found alive....then again look at Elizabeth Smart. You never know.

ETA - after reading the following Dateline story, my thoughts changed a lot. It's very eye-opening:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8667821/

Lain

941 minutes on Laci Peterson's case?!? Something must be going on! So how much air time did Holloway and Smart get?

I know it's nearly impossible to feature thousands and thousands of people on those big networks like ABC and CBS. It would make the news last as long as the Today show...maybe even more longer. I just get ticked off at times when missing people turn out to be young, attractive, rich and blond.

Has anyone seen that commercial in which all the women were putting on blonde wigs as to meet the standards of models like the ones shown in the magazines?

TokyoNiGHTS

Scarburough Country and the Abrams Report usually give it aruond 20minutes of airtime each day they're on. That case probably gets more airtime in 1 day than Figueroa has altogether. It'd be great if this wasn't about race, but it looks like this is the case. The NBC person in that story says they don't cover base on race, but I don't remember anything about those other women that went missing around the time Lacey did.

Lain

I just have this gnawing feeling that after the Holloway's case is solved, they might turn this into another movie or a book. We got it from Jennifer Wilbanks, Elizabeth Smart, JonBenet Ramsey, Laci Peterson....

It irks me in many ways that people would turn their crimes into motion pictures. But just like Tokyo mentioned, it's all about the networks. What is it with people trying to make their lives into movies these days?!? Jeez!

Yeah...you can disagree with me if you want. But still...

TrepeGroupie4

It bugs me that they're virtually saying that only blue-eyed blondes are attractive- geez, I've seen some fugly blue-eyed blondes and some attractive women who are black, Hispanic, etc. I actually have seen reports of missing black women on the local news, but it was probably because there was a serial killer operating in my hometown, and all but one of his victims were black. Also, my hometown is mostly Hispanic, so minorities aren't so neglected as much here. People need to get out of Hitler mode already. (one of Hitler's ideas was that the Aryan race, marked by blond hair and blue eyes, was superior to all others- just in case you didn't know)