Brittany Samone Smith was pregnant and expecting a son, but instead of looking forward to expanding her family, the North Carolina woman was trying to navigate the perils of near-homelessness.

Then she went missing in the small city of Wendell, North Carolina, where she was staying. Her family contacted the authorities, prompting a search. Where was Brittany?

February 4 was the last time anyone had seen her alive, according to local news reports. Considerable media attention had turned on the small enclave.

The focus first turned to her boyfriend, Cody Page, who she had been living with in uncommon circumstances. 

Detectives interviewed Page, but didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. He has vehemently denied harming her.

"I love that woman from the bottom of my heart and would never harm that woman," he said. "I never laid a finger on that woman a day in my life,” he told local TV station WAVY..

Smith and Page had been living in a tent on the wooded property of a friend, Dale Williams.They would go inside the house to shower, but other than that, they lived in the rough.

“I didn’t have the means to put her up inside,” Williams was quoted as saying. “This certainly beats living under a bridge.”

Like Page, Williams had been interviewed by authorities but was not considered a suspect in Smith’s disappearance. He let authorities search his property for any clues in finding Smith, but nothing conclusive came of it.

“This is someone I’ve tried to help, nurtured, and cared for,” Williams told WAVY. 

Then a woman’s body was found inside a suitcase along the Neuse River on the morning of Monday, February 8, 2021. Law enforcement agents descended on the place.

A short time after search crews made the grisly discovery, it was confirmed that the body was indeed that of Smith.

Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker told reporters that a homicide is evident. “It’s safe to say that this is no accident. If this is, in fact, that young lady we’ve been looking for all weekend long. Someone is responsible for that. That just doesn’t happen.”

In response to the news, the victim’s family released a statement through Tyaisha Williams-Troy, a family spokeswoman. The letter, which Williams-Troy forward to Black Girl Tragic, reads:

It reads in part, “Yesterday, we learned that our beautiful daughter, mother, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin, and friend was snatched away from our lives and the lives of her innocent children. She is no longer with us to laugh, cry, dance, change, and become a woman of her full potential. Her baby did not get the opportunity to grow, love, play, and get to know his brothers.

“The world does not speak on all the thousands of missing black women abducted every day and the mass number of maternal homicides that occur right before your eyes. No one talks or weeps for the thousands of girls that are never found – the thousands of girls like Brittany who are waiting to be found and returned to their loved ones.”

“Someone discarded Brittany Samone Smith and her baby like they did not matter, and we want justice for all of the persons involved with the crime. We demand Justice for Brittany Samone Smith because unfortunately she is not able to stand up for herself!”

Read more of the letter below at the end of this article.

Shortly after the body was found, authorities arrested Thomas Clayton Johnson, 37, and Emmalei Grace Trevathan, 24, and charged them with murder, murder of an unborn child, and concealment of a body.

Now the focus turns on how did Smith know Trevathan and Johnson and what was the nature of their relationship.

Page told WRAL that he had struggled in the past with addiction and that Smith had her own battle with drugs as well.

“She had a secret life," Page told WRAL. "She wouldn't keep me informed. She was doing stuff that I didn't agree with."

The sheriff said, “We’ve got a lot of folks who are concerned about the whereabouts of this young lady. She’s a daughter. She’s a sister. She’s a family member. They’ve been working very hard to find her.” 

This case remains under investigation.  Authorities are asking for the public’s help about the case. If you have any information, please contact the Wake County Sheriff’s Office at 919-856-6911.

Here is the beginning of the letter on behalf of Smith’s family:

On February 6th, 2021 our loved one Brittany Samone Smith was reported as a missing person. She was last seen on February 5thby her boyfriend. Unfortunately, on February 9, 2021, we received the tragic news that our loved one, Brittany Samone Smith, was brutally murdered, and her body and the body of her unborn baby boy was found broken in a suitcase floating in the Neuse River in Raleigh, NC. On that Tuesday, we learned that our beautiful daughter, mother, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin, and friend was snatched away from our lives and the lives of her innocent children. She is no longer with us to laugh, cry, dance, change, and become a woman of her full potential. Her baby did not get the opportunity to grow, love, play, and get to know his brothers. Brittany has become another number in the thousands of missing black women who are killed. Whose voices have been snuffed out – their presence has been silenced, and the world has been silent! And the family is devastated. The world does not speak on all the thousands of missing black women abducted every day and the mass number of maternal homicides that occur right before your eyes. No one talks or weeps for the thousands of girls that are never found – the thousands of girls like Brittany who are waiting to be found and returned to their loved ones. Senseless acts of violence against women have to stop – or acts like this will continue. Someone discarded Brittany Samone Smith and her baby like they did not matter, and we want justice for all of the persons involved with the crime. 

We demand Justice for Brittany Samone Smith because unfortunately she is not able to stand up for herself! Over 64,000 black women are missing in the US, and the media rarely reports it. Unfortunately, our Brittany was one in that enormous number, and the media is not talking about it. No one is sharing our cries and our pleas for help and additional information; we are asking for your help to share our voice and help us to put pressure on our Wake County Sherriff department to continue to seek information from the two suspects in custody because we know there are more people involved. The family is completely outraged by our local news negligence in reporting the correct information. At first it was printed that she was a teenager, then it was printed that she was 23 years old, it was then said that hikers walked by and saw her body, there were so many lies and inconsistencies with what was printed.  They did not take the opportunity to speak with any of the family to hear our plea for help. The local media misled and manipulated the public to focus on irrelevant information that had no assistance in finding a missing person instead of focusing on her humanity. They were not concerned about finding Brittany’s body but were more concerned with interviewing her boyfriend to help clear his name. We have been treated as though we do not matter! We would never want to throw race into this issue but the decency that her boyfriend is receiving versus how we are being treated feels like we are being punished. Her boyfriend has received more information than the family and he is not even next of kin. The first interview that the media did on the case was with the homeowner where she stayed and his whole message was defending her boyfriend. No one even asked to speak with us, and once they did her boyfriend did a counter interview to persuade people how much he “loved” her and then proceeded to put her business in the street. 

But what about Brittany? What about her life and her baby’s life? We demand Justice for Brittany Samone Smith! We don’t want her case to be rushed to take the limelight off of Wake County. Despite public opinion based on the media’s negative attention – we want you to know that Brittany was loved dearly. Brittany struggled with deep addiction issues that unfortunately she was unable to defeat. The family tried hard to help save her but she was the only one that could save herself – and now it is too late. Brittany had a home that she could return to – she had a family that loved her but she chose to stay in the streets with her boyfriend. She would go in and out of rehab but there was nothing we could say or do to make her stay. So yes, she had struggles in her life but she was a fighter and did not deserve this. The family keeps thinking about the moments before her life was taken. How she was alone, and scared, and crying, and pleading. We imagine how she would have fought back with all her might, how she might have tried to run and yell for help. We keep thinking about all of the people who knew where she was going, who maybe knew what was going to happen. Those that let her leave, and those that claimed they cared for her but let her walk into a death trap. We are completely devastated! Her body was left in fresh water for days so was left unrecognizable. So, the last time that we saw Brittany is the last time we will ever see her. On this past Friday, the family went to the funeral home to retrieve Brittany’s body and they handed us two boxes – one for Brittany and the other for her baby. That was one of the hardest realizations we have ever been faced with. These heartless monsters have almost destroyed a family. Causing us to challenge our faith just wondering how could someone do something so detestable, and how could our GOD allow it. We always believed that he would never put anything on us that we could not bear but this is unbearable. A mother should never have to bury her grandchild. A child should never have to say goodbye to his mother – not in this way.

It has been days now and the sadness is turning to anger! Who all were involved in the murder of our loved one Brittany Smith and her unborn baby? Because we know there were accomplices. Her boyfriend was the last person to see her that morning. If she was the love of his life like he claimed she then why would he allow his pregnant girlfriend to jump into a car at 4am without even taking a look at the car or seeing who they were or even asking where she was going. We refuse to believe the story that he is selling us. They currently have two suspects in custody but not even the people she hung around can make a connection to who they are and she had a very small circle. We are not able to discuss a lot of information because this is still an open investigation but we are hoping and praying they will continue to press until they find every accomplice, conspirator, or murder that was involved. We don’t want them to rush the case to take the pressure off of Wake County – we want COMPLETE Justice!!

Further Reading: Respect For Women

• Teaching Boys to Respect Women | Institute For Family Studies

• 5 Simple Ways Men Can Better Respect Women

• Respecting Women Not a Rule, but a Responsibility.