According to NBC News, not too long after she became the Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Coalition in Columbus, Ohio; Amber Evans went missing. The 28-year-old Evans has worked for the organization since 2015, and though she loved her job, her mother Tonya Fischer said Evans had begun to grow weary. “The work was getting to Amber,” Fischer told NBC News. “She was taken off the spectrum of organizing and being in the heart of it all, to the administrative side.” Saturday, January 26th was the last time Evans spoke to her mother, with Fischer saying their conversation revolved around the future Evans saw for herself.

“I said, ‘Amber, tell me what your life is going to be — your 30 and 40-year-old life — and how that looks for you.’ Fischer said that Amber told her, “Mom, I want to go back to Paris and teach the children English again.” Two days later, Evans went to work and left after a 5:30 pm meeting, telling her co-workers that she wasn’t feeling well. At approximately 6:30 pm, Evans went to a local drug store where she bought a Snickers bar and cold medicine and was captured on camera leaving the store. She has not been seen since.

In the evening, Evans’ car was found near the Scioto River in downtown Columbus as part of an investigation into allegations of a domestic dispute between Evans and her longtime boyfriend, who has not yet been named or identified as a person of interest. According to Officer Denise Alex-Bouzounis, Evans is considered a “distraught missing person,” and her boyfriend “has cooperated with investigators and at this point, no foul play is suspected there.”

Bouzounis also told NBC News, “There is a chance that she could still be alive somewhere, but none of her friends or family have been contacted by her in the month that she’s been missing… They’ve told us, that’s not like Amber — she’s all about family.”

The disappearance is offering another example of an issue termed Missing White Woman Syndrome, or the propensity of the news media to plaster coverage of missing white women on a nearly around the clock basis, while ignoring missing Black women and children. Even though Evans’ disappearance has been covered by NBC and CNN, there have not been regular updates on the case, as there would be for the Natalee Holloways and the Laci Petersons of the world.

Before the NBC coverage, the last update on Amber Evans was on February 13th.

Amber Evans missing poster via Dateline NBC.
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