Jahnay Brown recently finished her studies at Cornell University and decided to move back to Pennsylvania to live with her mother. However, as time passed, she started to lose touch with her family and friends until she eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where she completely disappeared.
The last known communication from her was with an ex-boyfriend on October 16, which was also the last day she was seen. Her disappearance was reported by her sister a month later, leading the Los Angeles police to issue an Ebony Alert for the missing 23-year-old on November 19.
She was last seen on West 8th Street in Los Angeles and is described as 5 feet 7 inces tall and about 125 pounds.
Her sister, Jahque Bryan-Gooden, mentioned to NBC News that she had not been in contact with Jahnay since the previous year through email. She expressed her concern stating that it was uncharacteristic of her sister to vanish without a trace and to cease communication with everyone gradually.
On August t, Bryan-Gooden said, she sent an email to her ex-boyfriend that said “Gone for the last few months. Back, Moving to a new city Monday. Bye.” And then on October 16, she emailed the ex-boyfriend again, suggesting they get married.
“I think we should get married and I think we should work in industry,” the email said. “I was just in contact with the commissioner of the Department of Water Management in a city and it’s a brilliant idea.”
The ex-boyfriend confirmed receipt of those emails and their content. And Bryan-Gooden says she has spoken to people in Los Angeles who reported seeing her, but none of those sightings are positively confirmed.
“We keep meeting people that say, like, ‘Oh, I saw her at this bus stop,’ or, ‘I saw her in this area,’” Bryan-Gooden said. “The random people that we find that say, ‘Yes, I saw her,’ are all near that street. Like, they all say they saw her in that area.”
LAPD said last week they had no update on Bryan’s case.
“It is incredibly tiring and frustrating that no matter how much I know it seems like it’s incredibly slow to move on getting any proof,” Bryan-Gooden told NewsNation this week.
Meanwhile, former California state Sen. Steven Bradford stepped into the case last week, noting the massive international media attention when Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi was reported missing, and ultimately found to have disappeared “voluntarily,” and the relative silence around Bryan’s disappearance.
“When Black young women and children disappear, resources are not committed to find them,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “We need to ask ourselves, why is that?”
Kobayashi “disappeared almost in the exact same time frame,” he said. “How does one race rise to the level of national attention and Miss Bryan’s case barely gets a whimper?”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. Avalos in the LAPD Missing Persons Unit at (213) 996-1800 or leave an anonymous tip at (800) 222-8477.
