Talking Dateline: The Day Akia Disappeared

0:03Hello, I'm Keith Morris, and I'm here with Josh Mankiewicz, and we are talking Dateline. Welcome, Josh. It's usually the other way around. Hello. How are you? Good. Thank you. This was a very interesting and worthwhile episode. The episode is called The Day Akiya Disappeared. This story is about the May 2017 disappearance of eight and a half months pregnant young mother, Akiya Eggleston, and the efforts by family and investigators to find out what happened to her. If you haven't listened to the show yet, it's the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts you just chose from. So go there, listen to it, or if you want to watch it, you can stream it on Peacock and then come back here.

0:44And when you come back, Josh has an extra clip he wants to play for us from Akia's family. Later, we're going to answer some of your questions about the show from social media. So stay tuned for that. Okay, let's talk Dateline. Let's start with who knew what about her life at the time she disappeared. Well, you know, that ended up being sort of the crux of this story. You know, Akia Eggleston was not the first and will not be the last 22-year-old woman who was, in the eyes of the law, certainly an adult, and was making adult decisions like, I'm going to have kids. She already had one two-year-old, and she's about to have another one.

1:27But what was interesting about this was she, I think, deliberately did not tell her parents who she was involved with, who the baby's father was. I'm pretty sure because they would have said way earlier than her disappearance, oh, no, no, no, no, no. This is a mistake. You need to reevaluate what you're doing here. When they would talk to Akiah, she would say, everything's fine. I'm doing great. As her adoptive mom said, everything was rainbows and unicorns. I think one of the sort of central themes of this story is the idea that if Sean and Angelique, her parents, had known earlier what they later knew after a police investigation, this could have turned out differently.

2:15It's the sort of thing that gives parents nightmares. As you point out and as we've recounted again and again in our stories. when young women die violently, it's usually because of something that happened in the relationship. Yeah. I mean, the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, which is a chilling statistic because you think it's going to be some kind of medical complication. No. But not only is it homicide, but it's almost always someone known to the victim. Almost always, yeah. And, you know, it's the classic story. It always goes back to Shakespeare, doesn't it? It's a love triangle.

2:50People are jealous and angry, and bad things happen. I mean, here was a love triangle or sort of quadrangle in this case. I mean, you have Kia. You have Michael Robertson, the baby's father, and one of the most terrible people I've covered on Dateline, I'm going to say. You have his girlfriend, Haley, who hated Kia for sleeping with her boyfriend, fiancé at the time. And then you have this guy, Stefan, who was a very good friend of Akiya, adored her. Clearly, I think, you know, wanted her to choose him. And if she had, she'd probably be around today. But she was stuck on this bad boy, and he killed her and the baby.

3:39Stuck on a bad boy. Where have I heard that before? Yeah, on Dateline is the answer. Yeah, repeatedly. And the other thing that has been on Dateline repeatedly, and you and I also have both done stories about that, is a young woman or multiples of young women who wind up in landfills in garbage dumps. Well, you know, this case came together because of cell phone technology analysis, which was done brilliantly by the FBI, which got involved here. The FBI would normally – you call the FBI and say, my relative's missing. I mean – No, this is not an FBI case for sure. No, I mean they're going to say, look – So I was a little surprised that they were involved in this situation.

4:25Yeah, well, this – I mean this was an hour that we did, not two hours. A little more time we would have explained this. But, you know, one of the things I first said is, like, how did the FBI get involved in what's essentially a local missing persons case? And the answer is Summer Baugh, that agent that we interviewed, she picked up the phone and she heard the agony on the other end when Akia's family was calling. And she could tell how worried they were and how at the end of her rope Akia's aunt Zenobia was. and that made her sort of think of reasons why the FBI might be able to get involved.

5:01Like maybe this is a trafficking case. We don't know. That would be our jurisdiction. Maybe this is a kidnapping. We don't know. All of that sort of made them think, all right, we're going to go ahead here. And they did. And the FBI is like so good at analyzing technical data and things like that. It's phenomenal. I had the privilege one time of being introduced to some of that technical ability at an FBI station out west. And what they're able to do with their little black boxes and things that look like they come out of, you know, Doctor Who, it's quite remarkable. They made a huge difference here.

5:38Because, you know, Baltimore PD is like almost every other department in the country in that they don't have enough people doing these jobs. Of course. And on a case like this, which is a missing persons case at first, but then maybe a homicide later, maybe a double homicide, you don't know, there's no body. That is not a one-person job. That's the kind of thing where the more people you put on it, the more information you're going to bring in. And a lot of departments aren't able to do that. And in this case, bringing the FBI in, I think definitely was an enormous help. you know an analysis of a huge sort of data dump that revealed everything like where everybody's phones were like they knew that a kia stopped posting at 522 okay well let's look at where everybody else was at 522 that day uh haley the uh the other woman in this who clearly hated a kia was with her mom and also didn't really have any way of getting she didn't have a car she way of getting to where Akia was.

6:39That seemed to get her off the hook. The best friend, Stefan, he was at work. So where was Michael Robertson? Well, he was there. He was at Akia's apartment at 522. And that made him the prime suspect and pretty soon the only suspect. As soon as that information became available, boom, the case was solved. And it's one of those - Except you've got to get him to say where she is and what happened. And he never quite did either one of those things. First, he denies being there. Then he admits, oh, yeah, she got me a rideshare over there. So, yeah, I was there. So now he's changed his story. He's admitted being with her on the last minutes.

7:21We know that she was alive. And then he says, oh, yeah, that night, that's the night we got into it, which is as close as he got to a confession. But he admits they were together and they fought. Then after that, he makes some internet searches. And what he's searching is, where does Baltimore trash go after it's collected? Which is why investigators thought he put her in the dumpster outside her apartment. It's pretty good circumstantial evidence. I think so. I mean, look, I think a lot of people, particularly sometimes reporters who cover crime, are in a kind of abusive relationship with circumstantial evidence, which is they talk down about it.

8:04And you hear things like they built a strong, if circumstantial case. Circumstantial evidence is pretty powerful. They can be the best cases. You know, circumstantial evidence doesn't lie. Circumstantial evidence can't be accused of being drunk or not putting on its eyeglasses or changing its story over the years. Like if your cell phone is at this location on this date, that's going to be true five years from now. You don't have to remember anything. I was afraid at the penultimate act of that episode that you were going to tell me they decided they didn't have enough evidence to go to trial.

8:45Yeah. So they made the right decision. That's for sure. Well, good for them and good for Kurt Bjorklund, who prosecuted it, who had never done a no-body case before but went ahead. And, you know, in this case, Akia's pregnancy and her near-term status made the no-body case easier to prosecute. Because when somebody who, for example, let's say is not pregnant, disappears, defense attorneys say to the jury and to everybody else on the courthouse steps, you can't tell me that Jane Smith isn't about to walk in the door right now because we don't know where they are, right? But when somebody is that pregnant, about to give birth, suddenly doesn't show up at her baby shower, and then what?

9:35She doesn't tell anybody that the baby's been born or that she's moved away or that she's run off. None of that makes any sense. Her pregnancy made the nobody case easier to sell to the jury. And I thought Bjorklund did a great job with it. Well, interesting tale. And when we come back, we have an extra clip of your interview with Akia's family.

10:06One of the interesting things about this, and you, I mean, clearly this was a theme of this story, is that when this really quite lovely young woman just vanished out of her life, We've seen so many other stories and done so many other stories where somebody vanishes and a few days later, the whole world is looking for her and is upset about it. And it's on television and it's – there's all kinds of attention being paid to the case. Wasn't the case here. No. And again, that is a fairly frequent thing. A person of color disappears and for some reason it's a different deal. It's not a blonde-haired, white-haired, white-blonde-haired girl.

10:48Her family did everything they could to get her case sort of covered because they were frustrated with the pace of the police investigation. And I don't blame them. I mean, many parents are going to be frustrated, but it took a long time. Well, you know, it did take a long time. I think there were times, and we talked about this in the story, where the family thought the police weren't working on it. I don't think that was the case. I think they were working on it. There is a perception out there in the public that police work is quicker and easier than it actually is. And that's because of TV dramas, which wrap everything up in 59 minutes.

11:32Subpoenas are almost never answered the same day. They can take months. when phone records arrive, it doesn't come with a note that says, by the way, I think you'll see the murderer's phone was at this location on this day. You get this mountain of cell phone data, which can be very, very daunting. But there's a couple of truths here. One is that cases like that don't get covered in local media. I'm not talking about police attention. I'm talking about the local media. Somebody goes missing. if they are from a good part of town, local TV stations show up. If they're not from as good a part of town, their families are frequently told, this is not newsworthy, which is what Angelique was told when she tried to get people to cover.

12:20So one of the things the family did was enlist the help of the Black and Missing Foundation, which is a nonprofit which seeks to draw attention to cases of missing people of color, particularly the kind that don't get a lot of coverage like this one. Because when news media, local media or national cover a story and that builds a fire under local law enforcement and under prosecutors who may be the ones asking for those warrants from a judge or magistrate. And when there is a big public interest in a story, when it's in the newspaper, when it's on the news, when police are getting asked every day, what are you doing to find so-and-so?

13:05That's when things tend to happen a little bit more quickly. The Black and Missing Foundation, how long has that existed? Do you know? Well, I did a story about how TV covers only white people in 2005. Remember it well, yeah. And Black and Missing was founded a couple of years after that in like 2007 or 2008. And since then, they've done just tremendous work. They just recently this month came out with a sort of a guide or a handbook that law enforcement can read that will help them. Because, look, this all works better when the family and law enforcement are not antagonists and are not angry at each other when they are partners in solving this.

13:52And one of the things that Black and Missing does is try to facilitate that sort of partnership in which families are engaged with law enforcement but not battling them. It gets local newspapers, TV news organizations and other online news organizations to sort of focus on a case that otherwise might have sort of not been on their radar. So that's one of the huge values of what Natalie and Derek could do at Black and Missing. I imagine they're staying pretty busy. Oh, yeah. No, no. They've got their hands full. This was a story that was initially featured on Missing in America. Well, yeah, this started – this is our online series, and then it became a podcast.

14:35We just finished the third series of that, which is available wherever you get your podcast. Akia's story was originally featured on the Dateline Missing in America digital series, and then it ended up being a TV story when it was prosecuted as a murder and solved. And so, you know, you can go to our website, and there you'll find all of hundreds of Missing in America cases. And again, just like this one, I mean, if you know anything, you could offer families some huge, huge relief just by saying what you know. So this little piece of extra sound is – it was something that did not play in the episode, and it is with Sean and Angelique, Akia's parents.

15:14And what they're talking about is exactly the importance of local news media in finding missing people. And we hope the media will do better in reporting these types of stories. So do I. Yeah. There's so many missing. Indigenous. So many. Just across the board. I kind of feel it's an epidemic. All colors and ages. What is going on in this country? What's happening? And why can't we do better? It's always different until it's you. It is a central problem. Sure. And then that's a, I mean, it's always different until it's you is something that could be on almost any Dateline episode. And I will say this about her family, about her parents.

16:05You can only imagine the agony that they have gone through these past years. And even now, when the case supposedly has been resolved, if you're a parent, you cannot but wake up in the morning and think every day that my loved one and my grandchild is lying in a dump somewhere in a landfill. It's the worst. And it's also why, you know, if you talk to them, they will say this case isn't resolved because they don't have anybody to bury. And they are people of faith. And their faith carried them through this. And I know it's killing them that they don't have her and the baby to bury. Well, after a break, we are going to come back to answer some of your questions from social media about this episode, which was fronted by our good friend, Josh.

17:04So we are back, and now we have some social commentary on Josh Mikowicz's episode. And let me see what negative things are said. I'm just looking for the negative ones here. Of course. That's all you care about. You're just like the rest of the media, always trying to tear me down. Well, it's so easy to do. You're such a nice target. But the comments I find here are really all very sensitive. I wish her friend would have told someone what he saw. Akia's body would have been found, possibly. And it's disgusting how people of color don't get front-page news when missing, especially when she was pregnant.

17:44That is from Love Sinity. Well, you know, Akia's friend, Stephan, he was a very sweet guy, very good guy, who was looked at by police, but I think was never considered a serious suspect the way Michael Robertson was. He admitted during police interviews that he went to her apartment before anybody reported her missing, before the baby shower. And he saw the hole in the wall maybe made by moving the dresser. And he saw stuff in bags. All that made him wonder. but it didn't make him wonder enough to call the police or tell anybody about it. Or to call the family. Yeah. Which would have gotten that part of the investigation started a little quicker.

18:25Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. In the end, it probably wouldn't have made a difference, but it— If prosecutors and police are right, she was already dead by then. Yeah. But it would have sped some things up, definitely. Lucy Barnes writes, ladies, choose your partners wisely. Also at the heart of this tale. I mean, this is, you know, ladies, raise your standards. You hear that on the Date with Dateline podcast all the time, and it is true. I mean, Michael Robertson was a terrible guy. He clearly couldn't make up his mind between the two women in his life, Haley and Akia. And probably what happened in those last moments together is when Akia realized, oh, this is all BS.

19:10We're not getting an apartment together, and I'm going to be left out in the cold with this baby. And I think that that is the genesis of the fight that probably ended Akia's life. Jiffy Pop Culture has a comment about Akia's daughter, and I was wondering about this myself. Yeah. Where is Akia's little girl? Okay, a lot of people ask this during the broadcast and afterwards. Akia's daughter was not living with her at the time. was not being, she was sort of sharing custody, although custody makes it sound like it was a legal arrangement. It wasn't. It was one that Akia worked out with this woman who was the baby's godmother, the little girls.

19:48She was two. Emery was two when this happened. And she was living with this other woman, her godmother. And so she was not part of what happened that day. Akia was seeing her whenever she could, like every week or something. But, you know, she was trying to work and manage her pregnancy and bring in some money too, because goodness knows Michael Robertson wasn't doing that. And so that little girl stayed with the woman who was raising her after Akia died, and she's still with her. She's doing well. She was two when this happened in 2017, so she's like nine or ten now, and I think doing well. Well, there's a silver lining at least.

20:31Well, there were quite a number of social media posts for this episode this week. It was good to see a new episode. Good to see you there. And I think the posts were pretty much 100 % that this was an excellent episode and the kind of thing that we ought to be doing more of. That's right. I know it's particularly galling for you to see me receiving any kind of praise. True. I'm sorry. Did you see what a big man I was to recognize it? I really thought – you've grown, I think, is really where I'm going with this. All right. Well, thank you very much, Josh. That is our Talking Dateline for this week.

21:11And thanks, everybody, for listening to us. Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories, reach out to us on social at DatelineNBC. And we'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

21:30Amen.