About this Episode:
Project Sunlight host, Rissa, discusses the case of 23-year-old Karen Santillan Tait, a Filipino American woman who was murdered in Waynesboro, West Virginia.

Show Notes

An undated photograph of Karen Santillan Tait.

Transcript

RISSA: Hello and welcome listeners to the first episode of Project Sunlight. This podcast is based on the more than 100 missing and murdered Filipina women in the United States identified and documented in a database developed by me, Rissa. Each episode will feature the case of a Filipina who is missing or has been murdered. I’ll also be hosting roundtable discussion episodes with a wide variety of guests that will help us understand the many ways social science and true crime intersect.

When I began learning about the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the United States and Canada, I was compelled to research intimate partner violence against Filipinas as a member of the Filipino American community. What I found was beyond disheartening.

According to a 2017 study, 41 – 61% of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime. A 2011 study reported that 68% of Filipinas and 50% of Indian and Pakistani women have been stalked by an intimate partner. In states like Hawaii, where Filipinos are the second largest ethnic group, Filipinas are disproportionately more likely to be fatal victims of domestic violence compared to other groups such as Native Hawaiians and Japanese.

The scarcity of information on missing and murdered Filipinas throughout the country has been pervasive. Due to a lack of data disaggregation by ethnicity, Filipino Americans are chronically understudied. Without this crucial data, women, like the one whose story you’ll hear next, will continue to be ignored by mainstream media outlets, likely because the implications of domestic violence among couples whose marriages have been commodified by an intentional framework of colonization and exploitation are far too controversial for the evening news.

Sadly, this case has even more scandal and heartbreak beyond this broader conversation; the twists and turns will leave you breathless.

On September 26, 2002, a hiker discovered the badly decomposed body of a woman in Hart’s run of Greenbrier State Forest, a 5,133-acre state forest between Lewisburg and White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The body had been dumped off of an embankment along Greenbrier State Forest Road, 4.7 miles south of where it intersects with Interstate 64. The forest is close to The Greenbrier, the state’s renowned historic resort; a declassified Cold War fallout shelter. This is an area frequented by the public for its picturesque mountain terrain, streams, hiking trails, and onsite camping. According to The Register-Herald, the hiker had paused at a wide spot in the road while on an early morning walk, it was a gray autumn day. Looking over a hillside, the hiker caught a glimpse of the bottoms of her feet.

The woman was wearing a red tank top and orange Mercata brand shorts only sold in Walmart stores in Mexico. At only 100 pounds with a small petite frame, first responders determined the woman to be of Asian or Hispanic descent. She had an olive complexion and dark hair. She was found to have a single yellow metal post-style earring with a clear stone. Located nearby were a pair of green swimming goggles. A medical examiner would determine her time of death to be approximately one month before her body’s discovery. The woman’s death was ruled a homicide by suffocation. In this same article by Jessica Farrish of the Register-Herald, she describes the investigators as initially believing that the woman could be one of the many Mexican migrant workers building a new golf course at The GreenBrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs. Until her identification, she would simply be known as ‘Jane Doe’.

Investigator Lt. Vince Deeds of the West Virginia State Police Lewis detachment (now of the Beckley detachment) remarked that the woman hadn’t been buried but had just been quote “tossed out.” Deeds, a cold case enthusiast, told the reporter for the Register-Herald that he drives his wife crazy talking about cold cases.

Right away, Deeds employed the help of the only Hispanic officer in the Lewisburg detachment and they canvassed the transient Mexican community together, but no one knew the woman. They had hoped that someone was just too distrustful of the police to report the woman missing.

Weeks and months passed but Deeds continued to work the case, sending DNA samples to other nearby police agencies for comparison to DNA of missing women in other states. After two years of no new leads, Deeds sent the woman’s dental records to the Smithsonian Museum and research center in Washington, where a researcher would identify her race. She was likely Asian.

The investigators entered Jane Doe’s DNA records were into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

For years, the case would go cold. There wouldn’t be a breakthrough until March 18, 2011, with the report of abuse by an elementary school-aged girl in Waynesboro, VA, after attending an abuse seminar called “Hugs and Kisses” telling the teacher that she was a victim of abuse at home and had been for several years. This little girl was about 10, 11-years-old.

When Waynesboro Police department Cp. Alyssa Campbell arrived on the doorstep of a mobile home in Patches Trailer Park, it was to investigate 52-year-old Thomas Neal Tait for allegations of child sex abuse, Campbell noticed that Tait had quote “reams of computers” which spurred police to obtain a search warrant, resulting in the discovery of more than 80,000 images of child pornography. These images featured mostly girls and babies. According to Campbell’s commanding officer, Sgt. R.B. Luzader, Tait built computers.

Farrish writes that when Campbell asked him about the girl’s mother, she noticed he was nervous. He told police that she had simply left to return to her family in Legazpi City, the Philippines, but failed to give them a solid answer as to when she left and where she was staying. He became evasive and hostile, maintaining that Karen had abandoned their family for her village to be with her parents and siblings. Tait never reported his wife missing. Karen’s daughter told investigators that she believed her mother was living in the Philippines, but she wasn’t sure.

Tait met his wife, Karen Santillan, in 1997 when she was 19 in a burger shop in Legazpi City. He was 36-years-old. She was described as a meek and timid young woman. Karen was from an extremely poor village outside of Legazpi City and was her parents’ youngest daughter. Legazpi City is located in the province of Albay, renowned for its natural beauty, featuring black sand beaches and an active volcano, Mt. Mayon. It’s known for its booming tourism industry, but much of the urban poor live in makeshift shanty towns teeming with garbage.

He had traveled there for the sole purpose of finding a wife. By contrast, Karen had never traveled far from the area she called home. Tait had been traveling back and forth from the U.S. and the Philippines; Investigator Lt. Deeds remarked to the Register-Herald that there were several areas in the Philippines thriving on sex trade. I’ve heard these kinds of men referred to as “sex pats” - a play on the word expat or expatriate.

In 1998, Thomas Neal Tait married Karen. In 2000, Karen became pregnant and she legally immigrated to the United States in July of that year, living in Waynesboro, Virginia. She had high hopes of a better life for her new family and later gave birth to their child, a daughter. According to Lieutenant Deeds, Karen thought she had met her “American dream.”

But the pair’s relationship was anything but marital bliss. Tait was described by investigators as a “control freak” and while he took Karen to state parks, he didn’t quote-unquote “allow” her to go to more public places. One undated picture I came across shows Karen perched on rocks beside a stream in what looks to be a forested area. She’s wearing a pink shirt with a pair of sunglasses around her neck and blue denim jeans with her hands clasped on her knees. Her dark long dark hair is parted to one side, her eyes are brown, and her smile is bright, with just a hint of the timidness that her neighbors had described to the media saying that when they saw her, which was rare, she was timid but friendly.

In 2002, Karen’s family in the Philippines lost contact with her. Her family told investigators that they assumed she was simply happy and thriving in the United States. She was 23 at the time of her disappearance.

With Tait’s explanation not adding up, Campbell continued to try to find evidence of Karen’s return to the Philippines. Despite the language barrier and with the help of Interpol and the US State Department, Campbell was able to confirm that indeed Karen had not returned home to her village as her husband had claimed. Karen’s daughter was removed from the home.

On December 16, 2011, Karen Santillan Tait was declared an involuntary missing person by the Waynesboro police department. A DNA profile was developed using a sample from her child and her parents in the Philippines. According to a press release by the Waynesboro Police Department, the profile linked to an unidentified case that had been entered into CODIS by the West Virginia Medical examiner’s office. Based on these results, dental records were requested from the Philippines and compared to remains of ‘Jane Doe’ confirming Karen’s identity along with additional forensic testing.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in West Virginia notified The Waynesboro Police Department on October 16, 2012, that the remains found in Greenbrier Forest State Park were Karen’s. After ten years of lying in a West Virginia morgue as ‘Jane Doe’, she was finally no longer nameless.

On July 16, 2012, Thomas Neal Tait was charged with 20 counts of Possession of Child pornography and convicted of those crimes on September 26, 2012, ten years to the day of the discovery of his wife’s body. As Tait was sitting in jail awaiting his sentencing for the pornography convictions, police issued a murder warrant and worked to get him extradited to West Virginia to face a murder charge. Police revealed that it was the totality of the evidence, that lead to their decision to charge him with Karen’s murder. According to court records, it was on November 1st, 2012 when Tait confessed to killing Karen in an interview with two Department of State investigators.

Tait plead guilty to being charged with second-degree murder on Valentine’s Day of 2013. A judge ordered him to serve 30 years in prison. Three days later, Tait appeared in court again to be sentenced for the 20 counts of possession of child pornography that would earn him an additional 30 years in prison to be served concurrently in Virginia. As Tait hung his head in silence, the judge remarked that what was found on Tait’s computers quote “shocks the conscience of the court.” Investigators believe that Tait killed Karen so that he would have a child to abuse without her being in the way. Prosecutors argued that Tait had shown no remorse throughout the investigation, comparing his behavior to that of a psychopath.

"I believe he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison. Thirty years is more than fair," said Sgt. W.A. Pendleton of the West Virginia State Police.

The Greenbrier County prosecution team was satisfied with the judge’s ruling. Although West Virginia’s parole laws could have allowed Tait to walk free in as little as ten years, Tait will serve his time in Virginia where there is no chance of parole. Jurisdiction in the case was hard to pin down without being able to determine the precise location of Karen’s death. According to another article by Tina Alvey of the Register-Herald, the age of the evidence in Karen’s case made it impossible to determine whether the crime met the legal standard for a first-degree murder charge.

Cpl. Alyssa Campbell’s role in bringing about justice for Karen Santillan Tait can’t be understated enough. Her exhaustive work with what began as a child abuse investigation turned into a child pornography investigation and finally, a murder investigation was recognized by the media and the Waynesboro police department with pride. Campbell was presented with the Police Star Medal for quote “resourcefulness, tenacity and leadership above the ordinary call of duty.” It had been ten years since the last time an officer had been given the award by the department.

There was still the hurdle of having Karen’s cremated remains returned to her family in the Philippines so that she might finally rest in peace. Karen’s family was described by Campbell as “indigent” or extremely poor, living meal to meal and could not afford to bring their daughter’s body to the Philippines. In October of 2013, the Waynesboro County Police Foundation held a fundraiser to cover the cost of cremation and repatriating Karen’s ashes to Legazpi City for burial, asking for tax-deductible donations to the Karen Santillan Tait Fund. A news article with the News Virginian describes the police department as receiving a donation of $32 in a wad of crumpled bills the day after the fundraiser’s announcement from a local woman who had heard about the case on the radio. Campbell hoped the fundraiser would help bring about closure to Karen’s grateful family in the Philippines, calling the closure of the investigation’s final chapter “bittersweet” in one interview with the press.

A week later, The Waynesboro County Police Chief announced it had surpassed its $6,000 goal with overwhelming community support. They expressed their gratitude and said that any additional money would be placed in an education fund for Karen’s daughter. On October 23, 2013, the Embassy of the Philippines announced that it expected the arrival of Karen’s ashes in Legazpi City that week, which would then be turned over to her family.

The ambassador of the Philippines to the United States at that time, Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. thanked the police department for their work and remarked that had it not been for the efforts of the prosecution and officers like Cpl. Alyssa Campbell, quote “Our kababayan would most likely remain nameless and her killer would still be on the loose,” going on to say that now Karen could finally rest in peace with her loved ones in the Philippines. However, there would be another tragic, unexpected twist in Karen’s story, years later.

In May of 2016, a news article by journalist Kate White of the Charleston Gazette-Mail stated that a former employee of the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner filed a lawsuit alleging to have been fired for refusing to discard the remains of a homicide victim that should not have still been in the office. The lawsuit describes the employee’s refusal to participate in what they called “illegal immoral conduct.” It also states that at the time, the office had a backlog of cases over 40 years old. She had found the remains while organizing a storage cooler she described as messy and in complete disarray.

Regina Banks, the former employee who was working as a death investigator at the time, says she was shocked to learn that either the victim’s family had received the wrong person’s remains, or they had not been sent at all and that quote “the reports were inaccurate.” Banks claims that she was ordered to burn the remains and make them disappear. Although Banks doesn’t formally name the victim whose remains she discovered in the cooler, she alleges that the remains were of a woman whose family had raised money to have their daughter’s remains shipped overseas for burial. These were the remains of Karen Santillan Tait.

Banks says that her supervisors prevented her from contacting Karen’s family. The lawsuit goes on to make other hair-raising allegations; Banks also discovered the remains of a fetus from the 1990s, which her supervisors instructed her to burn and then throw out. Despite protest from Banks that the child’s family should be contacted for proper burial, the lawsuit alleges that her supervisors were concerned about the length of time that had passed, that it would to quote the article, “open a can of worms” if Banks were to notify them. Additionally, Banks says she witnessed bodies being dropped on the floor and badly bruised, causing concern that doctors would not be able to determine whether these injuries occurred due to criminal conduct.

Even more alarming, another employee had filed a lawsuit against the medical examiner’s office just months before Banks, with similar allegations. The employee had worked for the medical examiner’s office for 15 years when she claims she was fired in retaliation for refusing to participate in a scheme to cover up the mishandling of remains. A representative for the Department of Health and Human Resources refused to comment.

The outcome of the lawsuit filed by Regina Banks is unclear, but an internet search of the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reveals numerous scandals, lawsuits, and reports of understaffing as a former office space bursting at the seams from lack of space. As of this podcast, there have been no further updates.

The details of this case have been heartwrenching. But I did find one very thin silver lining so that however dark this story, we might end this episode on a high note.

I think this is the perfect time to point out the incredible courage it must have taken this young girl to tell her teacher about the abuse she suffered from Thomas Neal Tait. She told the investigators the truth about his dark secrets and as a result, it was finally discovered that this a sexual abuse investigation was only one part of Tait’s sick master plan. After being removed from her father’s home, Karen’s daughter was placed with other family members in the United States.

A study that I read while researching this case (which I’ll also link in the show notes on projectsunlightpodcast.com) reports that less older Filipina women report abuse to police than younger women, a few reasons being: a general unfamiliarity with the law in the United States, language barriers, immigration status, lack of a family support system (remember many Filipinas leave their entire families behind) and shame. With the Philippines identifying as 80% Catholic and an export of nearly 6,000 people a day leaving home for better opportunities, it’s not surprising findings reveal that 1st generation Filipinas have more difficulty in reaching out for help.

We can reasonably conclude that educational programs designed to encourage the report of child abuse like the one, in this case, can in fact work, really really well. Karen’s daughter grew up here in the United States, presumably, her first language is English and that could have easily been another mitigating factor in the difference between her decision to report abuse, and how her mother navigated the abuse in her marriage to Tait.

Karen’s daughter reported her father’s abuse and as a result, she and her family would finally learn the truth about what had happened to her mother, who left her home on the other side of the world to fulfill her American Dream. Despite the horrible outcome of this case, I think we can say that Karen’s daughter is proof that Filipinas can survive abuse and reclaim their lives when given the help and resources our community so desperately needs.

If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-(SAFE), or 1-800-799-7233 for anonymous, confidential help. That’s 1-800-799-7233.

References

News Articles

Studies

Show Notes

Transcript

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References