From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog,Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Ohio'sleaders in Black digital news
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio- National cable channel A&E will feature Cleveland murder victim Christine Malone (pictured) on its documentary television series "The First 48," which will air at 9 pm on Thursday, Oct 23, producers and Malone's family told Cleveland Urban News.Com yesterday.
"The story on our mother will air this week," said Angelique Malone, one of eight grown children of Christine Malone and now a community activist and one of several keynote speakers at the upcoming Oct 29 4 pm rally on violence against women on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland where convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell murdered 11 Black women and raped several others. (Editor's note: Oct 29 is the fifth anniversary of the Imperial Avenue Murders. For more information call The Imperial Women Coalition at (216) 659-0473)
A&E has a contract with the city of Cleveland per the urging of Mayor Frank Jackson, and runs stories of interest, including segments on violence against women.
"As awful as it is,"said producer Melissa Bentley of Malone's murder regarding the upcoming A&E program, "It can bring awareness to other women."
Bentley works for ITV Studios, which submits stories on behalf of the city of Cleveland to A&E, a contract that she says was secured subsequent to The Imperial Avenue Murders.
The bodies of Malone, 45, and Jazmine Trotter, 20, both Black and both victims of murder, were found in separate vacant lots less than a mile from each other near East 93rd St. and Bessemer Ave on Cleveland's majority Black east side in 2013, and police found the murdered body of 21-year-old Ashley Leszyeski, who is White, in an open field near East 93rd St and Anderson Ave. less than a mile from where Trotter and Malone were found. All three of the women were killed between the period of March and May of 2013.
The story on Trotter, the youngest of the three murdered women, aired on A&E last year.
Malone's body was found on March 28, 2013.
The assailants of the murdered women are still on the loose with no major leads, police said. And since their murders, more greater Cleveland women have been raped and found dead in large numbers and there is an increase in rapes and murders in Cleveland this year alone, data show.
Local area community activists groups, including the Imperial Women Coalition, want a missing persons center in Cuyahoga County and more resources from the city and county coffers to help deal with what they say is an epidemic of violence against women, including rape and murder, which disproportionately impacts poor Black women, data show. But they say that they appreciate Mayor Jackson's efforts in bringing national attention to the issue.
"Much more is needed to seek to eradicate violence against women in greater Cleveland, particularly relative to women of color and poor women," said Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition, a group founded in 2009 around the Imperial Avenue murders tragedy."We do, however, appreciate what Mayor Jackson has done in contracting with A&E to bring more awareness to this growing epidemic of violence against women in our community."
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
