By D. Kevin McNeir
Special to the AFRO

While the disappearance of a beautiful, popular Black woman in Baltimore may not have made front page news in the city’s White-owned publications, the AFRO-American Newspapers–following the mission of the Black Press– deployed its reporters week after week asking the question: Where is Shirley Parker?

The archives of the AFRO-American Newspapers are a trove of information related to the death of Shirley Parker. The paper was the only publication that extensively covered the disappearance of the Baltimore woman week after week, leading to the exclusive coverage used to create the Apple TV+ series, “Lady in the Lake.”

Credit: AFRO Archives

Eventually the body of Shirley Lee Wigeon Parker, 35, a divorcee and mother of two sons, would be found months after her April 1969 disappearance. On June 2, 1969 an electrical company crew was dispatched to repair two lights in the fountain at the center of Druid Hill Park Lake. 

There, they found an answer to the question being asked throughout the Baltimore’s Black community: The body of a woman floating face down, subsequently identified as Parker. 

Despite their best efforts, neither reporters nor the police were able to determine whether foul play was involved or if Parker had simply made a poor decision in choosing to swim alone and, after somehow becoming injured or fatigued, had been unable to swim ashore. 

The city coroner would eventually rule the cause of her death as hypothermia. But questions remained.

Now, Parker’s disappearance and unsolved death is making the news again. This time, with a seven-part television series, “Lady in the Lake.” 

The suspenseful noir thriller, which made its global debut on July 19 on Apple TV+ , has among its cast Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-winner Natalie Portman, who also serves as executive producer. Emmy Award nominee Moses Ingram also appears. New episodes will continue to be unveiled every Friday through August 23. 

In Baltimore, decades after her death, Parker’s death still lingers in the minds of residents who lived in Charm City during the 1960s.  One woman, Marilyn Jones, was just a girl when the case set the Black community’s concern and curiosity ablaze.

Jones, a Baltimore native, was so moved by the story that ten years before the “Lady in the Lake,” series, she wrote a short fiction novel based on the case. 

The 2014 novel is titled “Auchentrolly Park Drive,” and is proof of how the story captivated the minds of Black Baltimore in 1969 and beyond.

“My father used to frequent the Sphinx bar where Ms. Parker worked and he knew her,” Jones wrote in a letter to the AFRO. “When she disappeared, Daddy often talked about the mystery of her disappearance. At the time, most White newspapers paid little attention to these types of occurrences in the Black community. However, the AFRO carried the entire story of Shirley Parker– but I was just a young girl at the time.” 

Dr. Vonnya Pettigrew, CEO and founder of Baltimore-based Root Branch Media Group, weighed in on how the archives of the Black Press are used to tell Black stories, but often don’t get credit. 

“We tell our story first and we tell it without allowing ourselves to be exploited as others have so often done,” said Pettigrew.“Far too often…mass media has simply scrubbed information from Black sources like the AFRO or The Baltimore Times without getting the real story. And when they tell our stories, we are not on top.” 

In fact, while other publications can only say they covered Parker’s death- the AFRO covered important happenings in her life. On Feb. 1, 1964, years before her death, an AFRO photographer snapped a photo of her as she participated in an event with The Clerics, a business club for women. 

  • The Clerics, a club of business girls, recently presented a check for a scholarship to the Coretz Peters Secretarial School. They are Misses Helen Smith (left), Miss Inez Rice, Mrs. Lula Haynes, Miss Vonzetta Pinkey who received the scholarship, Miss Gladys Hunter and Miss Shirley Parker.
  • Shirley Parker’s mother, Mrs. Theresa Austin, examines her missing daughter’s purse along with her grandson, David Parker, age nine. Years later, at age 56, David Parker spoke on his mother’s death with the AFRO, saying he believed she hit her head after swimming out to the fountain of Druid Hill Park Lake to clear her mind.
  • An obituary for Shirley Parker for is still available today in the AFRO Archives, curated and cared for by the team members of Afro Charities.
  • A photo of Druid Hill Park Lake, where a close friend said missing Shirley Parker may be in May 1969.
  • Shirley Parker’s remains are recovered from Druid Hill Park on June 2, 1969.

Even after news of Parker’s death faded from the headlines, the AFRO followed what became of her family. Decades after the death of his mother, the AFRO tracked down Parker’s son, who was just nine years old when his mother went missing. The paper asked the man, at age 56, what he believed happened to his mother –now that he was an adult himself.

“What I think happened was my mother swam out into the lake because she was an excellent swimmer and got awards for swimming,” he said. “I feel she swam out there to clear her mind after an argument with Arno, her boyfriend, and to think about me and my brother. I think when she was ready to go, she stood up and fell back and hit her head on the spout, where the water comes out, because the autopsy said she had a hole in the back of her head.”

In honor of Shirley Parker and her story, the Afro Charities team, which cares for and curates the archives of the AFRO-American Newspapers, made available a variety of articles and photos printed as the case unfolded in 1969.
Take a look through the AFRO’s coverage below if you are watching the “Lady in the Lake” series and seek to learn more about Shirley Parker and discern fact from fiction.

The post ‘Lady in the Lake’: A look at the exclusive coverage in the AFRO Archives appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

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