The mother of missing Black transgender woman Taylor Casey has implored officials to step up the search for her daughter after she went missing at a yoga retreat in the Bahamas last month. A spokesperson for the Chicago mayor’s office has also echoed the mother’s plea.
“You have the support of the mayor’s office,” said Kennedy Bartlett, representing Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson at a news conference on Thursday. “We will be calling on our federal delegation to do everything within their power to make sure that we are bringing Taylor home.”
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Casey’s mother said she was despondent over the lack of progress in finding her daughter, who turned 42 yesterday.
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“I wonder where you are,” the woman’s mother, Collette Seymore, said through tears. “Are you okay? Are you in danger? Are you sick? Are you hurt? My nights are sleepless with worry about you.”
Casey was reported missing on June 20 by employees of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island, where she was earning a teaching certificate. The case remains under investigation by the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Seymore and Emily Williams, a friend of Casey’s, recently visited the Bahamas looking for answers.
“They couldn’t keep details straight,” Williams said. “We went to the Bahamas to get answers, and we left with more questions. And we left early because we feared for our safety. That’s how dire the situation is.”
Williams said authorities suggested Casey left on her own volition, but added, “We know that’s not true.”
Days earlier, Bahamian authorities provided an update on the case. Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said searches using divers and a submersible drone were conducted near an area where Casey’s cell phone was discovered. The aquatic searches revealed nothing.
“They came up negative with additional information,” Fernander said, adding the search continues with officers, canines, and marines.
In an interview with NBC Chicago, Seymore said something sounded “off” in her daughter’s voice when the two spoke just a day before Casey disappeared.
“I got an eerie feeling after hanging up the phone with my child,” Seymore said. “And I sensed through the phone that something was wrong.”
Seymore questioned the integrity of the investigation, claiming Casey’s case wasn’t receiving the proper attention because of her racial identity.
“I just feel like they are hiding something, covering up something, and they separated, isolated my child,” Seymore said. “My child was the only African American in the instructor’s class.”
In a Facebook post, the retreat described members of the ashram as “distraught” over Casey’s disappearance and said they were fully cooperative with police and her family.
“Many of our community members chose to speak with them and the ashram did not intervene in terms of what individuals said. They were encouraged to speak freely. Any perceived hesitancy could have been due to their own grieving processes,” the retreat’s administrators wrote in the Facebook post.
