Arianna’s aunt, Tess Fitts, has been going through the soul-destroying thriller of the double tragedy ever since.
“I do believe that Arianna is still alive, and it would mean everything to me to know where she is and to find her,” Fitts instructed CNN lately, and started to cry. “I wait for that day, every single day. I believe that day will come.”
But not like the current lacking individual case of Gabby Petito, or the disappearance of Natalee Holloway or the unsolved homicide of JonBenet Ramsey, there isn’t a military of obsessed followers additionally hanging on each growth, and no sustained media protection.
Asked why Arianna was not a family identify, Tess Fitts took an extended pause.
“I honestly thought she was,” she mentioned ultimately. “It’s kind of surprising to me to know that she’s not.”
Fitts says she chooses not to dwell on the problem of race, whether or not there might need been extra consideration if her sister and her toddler niece had been White, not Black, wealthy not working poor.
It’s a difficulty confronted by an untold variety of households of colour wanting for lacking kin: Have race and bias, acutely aware or unconscious, hindered their quest for solutions?
“I don’t even want to think like this, but in my situation, people think of me or his mother different. Like we love our children less or something, or they are less important or something. That’s what it feels like,” he mentioned.
‘Someone wished her’
Tess Fitts smiles when she thinks of Arianna, describing her as “a very energetic, bubbly and curious kid.”
“We’d be out in public [and] she’d just wave at strangers with a smile and people would respond to that,” Fitts mentioned. “Very intelligent, very curious about things, and she also had a little bit of sass sometimes too.”
But Fitts’s face turns into strained when she strikes to what occurred.
“I think that Arianna was taken because someone wanted her. Someone fell in love with her and they wanted her as their own,” she mentioned.
For her, the homicide of her sister Nikki and the disappearance of Arianna, have to be linked. Nothing else is sensible.
She says Nikki Fitts would typically have babysitters in Oakland care for her daughter in a single day whereas she took late or early shifts at a Best Buy retailer in San Francisco, utilizing public transport for the prolonged commutes.
It isn’t recognized when Nikki Fitts final held her daughter, however they had been final seen collectively mid-February 2016, in accordance to the family.
Police initially had some leads however none led to Arianna. No prices have been made in the homicide of Nikki Fitts or the disappearance of Arianna.
And 5 years afterward, there may be nonetheless no hint of the once-toddler who’s now doubtless misplaced some child enamel, grown a ton, and possibly discovered to trip a motorbike.
But even at the time she first went lacking, there was no nationwide frenzy to discover her.
“It breaks my heart that Arianna is not with her mom and not with her family, but it also breaks my heart even more that I know that Nikki wants nothing more than for Arianna to be with us, to be home,” Tess Fitts mentioned with tears in her eyes.
Having to battle for consideration
Robinson grew to become pissed off from what he thought was an absence of official motion and traveled to Arizona, to search for his son himself, hiring a personal investigator too. He additionally started pleading for media consideration of the sort that was being directed at the search for Gabby Petito.
“I love my son, he is my responsibility … but we need help,” Robinson instructed CNN. “My son means the world to me, and to his mother and his siblings. We would like to have that same kind of attention.”
Five months into what Robinson calls his mission to discover his son, proof and clues have turned up. After native media did a narrative, Daniel mentioned assist started to arrive, common residents who volunteered their time for a stranger.
Four weeks after Daniel Robinson went lacking, police referred to as David Robinson. The youthful man’s automobile was discovered crashed. His cellular phone, the garments he was carrying that day and a case of water had been all present in and round the wrecked automobile. But no Daniel.
So the volunteers and Robinson continued to search. They have discovered all kinds of the issues. The most annoying: human stays.
“We found a human skull,” Robinson mentioned.
Buckeye Police Chief Larry Hall instructed CNN proof was being assessed, however it was not Daniel. “We’re waiting for DNA to come back on that case before we can positively identify with the victim in that,” he mentioned.
Volunteer searchers wanting for Daniel might have helped remedy one other lacking individual’s case. But David Robinson is left with much more questions and can maintain attempting to get his son’s story out as he seeks a decision.
She mentioned no lacking individual of colour has turn out to be a family identify in the US.
“There’s not one,” she instructed CNN. “I really think there is unconscious bias out there.”
“There are a lot of Gabby Petitos and Natalee Holloways in the black and brown community,” Wilson mentioned.
Tess Fitts lives that reality on daily basis, wanting for her niece. She says the San Francisco police have been working her case however Arianna isn’t residence and she or he can’t stay with it.
So she has to taken up a few of the problem, creating an internet site, a Facebook group, and speaking about Arianna each time she is requested.
“I want everyone to know Arianna’s name. I want everyone to know what Arianna looks like. I want everyone to know that Arianna is some place she does not belong,” she mentioned.
“I want everyone, everyone to know.”