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Today marks a dark anniversary for many here in Pleasanton.
Exactly one year ago, on September 30, 2020, was the last time former Foothill High School student Sydney “Syd” West was seen in front of her parents. reported his disappearance to the San Francisco Police Department.
Sydney, who had moved to Chapel Hill, NC with her family while in high school, was back in the Bay Area preparing to study at UC Berkeley.
She had a long phone conversation with her father the night before she disappeared, and he expected the two to speak the next day. But the call never came. She was last seen early that morning near the Golden Gate Bridge in the Crissy Field area, and there has been no new information on her whereabouts since.
The case almost immediately struck a chord in his former hometown of Pleasanton and his adopted home in North Carolina. It’s always like that.
This is in large part thanks to Sydney’s parents Jay and Kimberly West, who continue to babysit the case of their daughter in the spotlight.
“Hey Syd… It’s been a year. A year without someone you love is so difficult,” Father Jay said in a moving video posted to the “Find Sydney West” Facebook page this week.
“We pray every day that you will be there, and by the grace of God, by a miracle, you come back alive to us,” he added. “I’ve said it a million times, find your way, my daughter. We love you and you are inseparable from all of our souls.”
Kimberly echoed similar sentiments when I reached out to her via email last weekend, with help from the campaign’s media relations representative.
“It has been an emotional roller coaster that no one can imagine,” she said. “As time goes on it gets harder and harder to have so many days without talking in Sydney, seeing her face, hearing her voice and laughing. There is hope when we have a lead, and defeat when it doesn’t work. “
The family has hired Bay Area private investigator Scott Dudek to search the public for leads, and the advice continues to come in. “It only takes one piece of advice; it might be the only one that finds it,” Kimberly said.
While checking the status of the official police case, I contacted the San Francisco PD last week to see if there was a working theory for Sydney’s disappearance or perhaps a potential cause. had been left out, listing a few obvious examples to see if anything had been crossed out.
A simple but understandable statement followed from an SFPD media representative: “We have no update on this investigation which remains open.”
Kimberly told me, “The bridge was very busy (that day). Someone must have seen something … Nothing is excluded. So many children are missing in the United States, it shouldn’t even be something anyone has to go through. “
I visited Find Sydney West website and Facebook page periodically over the past few months to seek new information. The Facebook account is particularly moving, with messages often from her parents recalling fond family memories or reflecting their daughter’s absence or raising awareness of her case. They paint the portrait of a young woman deeply loved and deeply missed.
Support for Sydney and the Wests is definitely bi-coastal – as seen in videos and photos from Kimberly’s hometown of Buffalo, NY, where the Find Sydney West team this summer raised funds and raised awareness at the National Center. for missing and exploited children through a cycling event. .
It also struck me that the Sydney family posted last week in reaction to the sad news of Gabby Petito’s death. This is the case that made national headlines after the 22-year-old Florida woman was first reported missing on a trip and then her body was discovered in the Bridger National Forest- Teton, Wyoming – and now the ongoing manhunt for her fiance, Brian Laundry.
The West’s posts have shown how interconnected families with missing loved ones can feel with each other.
I take a break from reading recurring updates on the Petito case.
Partly because it was a few months earlier that my wife and I were visiting these same national parks in Wyoming. But also in recognition of the critical conversations of the media response to the saga; the idea that national journalists would jump at the chance to cover a young blonde and white woman when they downplay or often ignore equally important cases of missing people of color.
National news agencies and social media traffic are often guilty of a selective crowd mentality when it comes to criminal cases. I like to think we avoid such blinders in the middle of our coverage locally here in the Tri-Valley, but I’m not afraid to recognize our shortcomings either.
We as the information industry – and as a society – need to better prioritize missing persons cases, especially those involving children or young women who have been abducted or otherwise victimized.
But we all need to pay close attention to kidnappings targeting girls and women of color. There are families and other important sources who tell us that in many cases in America, the cases of these victims are – consciously or unconsciously – downgraded to those of the white missing person. It can’t happen. Their life cannot be underestimated.
And frankly, ignoring or minimizing such instances is exactly what officials rely on the company to do, so they can continue to skate freely.
We need to focus our attention on missing persons cases as often as possible. Because our common goal as a community should be to help these families come together or find a solution.
With that, I urge anyone with any information on Sydney West’s whereabouts or who may have seen what happened with her that morning near the bridge to come forward and contact Dudek on 925- 852-4204. Let’s go #FindSydneyWest.
Editor’s Note: Jeremy Walsh has been the Editor-in-Chief of Pleasanton Weekly since February 2017. His “What a Week” column is published on the first and third Friday of the month.
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