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Who was Blessing Olusegun? Black girl's death is eerily similar to Sarah Everard case except for media coverage

'It's wonderful Sarah Everard received some justice quick however this just highlights how prominent white privilege is. Where is justice for Blessing Olusegun?' asked one user

The disappearance and tragic death of the 33-year-old UK woman Sarah Everard and the arrest of a police officer who has been accused of murdering her have re-surfaced the missing and murder case of a Black woman named Blessing Olusegun, whose death to date remains “unexplained”. People are drawing striking parallels between the two cases while pointing out the drastic difference in the media coverage of the two crimes. 
 
This has created an uproar among social media users who have dragged the legal system for its treatment of people of color, as Everard’s murder received unimaginable attention. On September 18, 2020, Olusegun was found dead on a Bexhill beach near Galley Hill in the UK. 

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Who was Blessing Olusegun?

According to a petition started on Change.org seeking justice for Olusegun, she was a 21-year-old student from London who had come to Bexhill on a one-week placement as a carer to help elderly people with dementia and other mental issues. Similar to Everard, her last conversation was with one of her friends before she went missing under mysterious circumstances. 

A friend of Olusegun, Christiana Sofolabo, recollecting the events of the day the victim went missing told Sussex Live, “She was saying to me she couldn't sleep and that she wanted to go for a walk. I offered to stay on the phone, but she said 'nevermind’.” Sofolabo also noted that her friend was “walking in the early hours of the day she died.” 

On September 18, Sofolao received a text message from the care agency where Olusegun was placed saying she was missing. When Sofolano called her friend’s phone, the call was answered by police, who informed her about finding the cell phone, but not her death. 

What happened to her?

Olusegun’s body was reportedly found by a dog walker on the beach. The Sussex police told Sussex Live in a statement, five months after her death, “At 6.20 am on Friday, September 18, the body of a woman was found lying on the beach at Bexhill near Galley Hill. The body was identified that morning as that of Blessing Olusegun, 21, of Middle Park Avenue, London SE9, and her next of kin, her mother, was contacted that afternoon by Metropolitan Police at our request.”

It further read, “Meanwhile, police in Sussex began an investigation of the circumstances, and the death was treated as unexplained though not suspicious at that stage... A postmortem took place on September 24, and further forensic tests were carried out in order for the cause of death to be established.”

They cited “drowning” as the reason for her death based on forensic tests, but found no evidence of “violence or of internal or external injury." CCTV footages show Olusegun near the town center in one, the second shows her walking under a tunnel headed towards the beach and the last sighting was near a cafe. 

Enraged Internet demands answers 

One Twitter user wrote, "It's wonderful Sarah Everard recieved some justice quick however this just highlights how prominent white privilege is. Where is justice for Blessing Olusegun?" Another wrote, "I don’t think mentioning the passing of Blessing Olusegun is a deflection of Sarah Everard’s. Both stories are beyond tragic, it’s just interesting how quickly the world explodes and demands change when it’s a White woman who has passed? And that’s sad."

One tweeted, "The data is stark when there are intersections between gender and race. There is also less public concern, as we have seen (or not seen) with the case of Blessing Olusegun."