SIKESTON, Mo. — At age 79, Nannetta Forrest, whose father, Cleo Wright, was lynched in Sikeston, Missouri, earlier than she was born, wonders how the decades-long silence that surrounded his demise in 1942 influenced her life.
In 2020, Sikeston police killed one other younger Black man, 23-year-old Denzel Taylor. Taylor’s capturing demise instantly made native headlines, however then the cycle of silence in Sikeston repeated itself.
Host Cara Anthony and pediatrician Rhea Boyd draw well being parallels between the loss skilled by two households practically 80 years aside. In each circumstances, younger daughters had been left behind to grapple with unanswered questions and devastating loss.
“Whatever the age, youngsters expertise longing,” Boyd stated. “They miss individuals once they don’t see them once more; even infants can expertise that.”
[Editor’s note: A swear word is bleeped out in this episode.]
Host
Cara Anthony
Midwest correspondent, KFF Well being Information
@CaraRAnthony
Learn Cara’s tales
Cara is an Edward R. Murrow and Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists award-winning reporter from East St. Louis, Illinois. Her work has appeared in The New York Instances, Time journal, NPR, and different retailers nationwide. Her reporting journey to the Missouri Bootheel in August 2020 launched the “Silence in Sikeston” challenge. She is a producer on the documentary and the podcast’s host.
In Dialog With …
Rhea Boyd
Pediatrician and public well being scholar
click on to open the transcript
Transcript: Trauma Lives within the Physique
Editor’s be aware: In case you are in a position, we encourage you to hearken to the audio of “Silence in Sikeston,” which incorporates emotion and emphasis not discovered within the transcript. This transcript, generated utilizing transcription software program, has been edited for model and readability. Please use the transcript as a software however verify the corresponding audio earlier than quoting the podcast.
[Solemn instrumental music begins playing softly.]
Cara Anthony: When Nannetta Forrest was rising up, so much went unsaid in her household.
Nannetta Forrest: You already know, individuals didn’t do lots of speaking again then. And it was nearly like making an attempt to tug tooth out of a hen.
Cara Anthony: She lived practically her entire life in Indiana, however Nannetta’s story — the secrets and techniques and the silence — all began in Sikeston, Missouri.
Nannetta was born there in 1942. A number of months earlier, whereas her mom was pregnant, Nannetta’s father was lynched.
His title … was Cleo Wright.
Nannetta Forrest: He was taken away earlier than I bought right here!
Cara Anthony: Taken from a jail cell. Taken and dragged by the streets by a white mob. Taken to Sundown Addition, the middle of Black life in Sikeston, and lynched. Taken from his household.
Nannetta’s mom stored quiet. She by no means wished her daughter to know what occurred to her father.
However someday, Nannetta was together with her grandfather. A sport present that aired on CBS within the Fifties was on TV. It was known as “Strike it Wealthy.”
[Clip from “Strike it Rich” begins playing.]
“Strike It Wealthy” clip: Mr. “Strike It Wealthy” himself, Warren Hull. [Applause]
Nannetta Forrest: Celebrities would go on, they usually’d attempt to win cash for, like, underprivileged individuals.
“Strike It Wealthy” clip: Thanks so much!
Nannetta Forrest: And that’s when Grandpa instructed me, he stated, “You possibly can go on there, Nan.” And I stated, “Go on there with what?” And that’s when he went in his pockets and pulled out this yellow piece of paper.
[Solemn instrumental music plays.]
Cara Anthony: It was a newspaper clipping concerning the lynching of her father.
Nannetta Forrest: And that was my first time ever changing into conscious of it.
Cara Anthony: It was round 1955. Nannetta was 13 or 14 on the time.
Nannetta Forrest: I did wanna know the story behind it, what occurred, however no one appeared to wanna discuss it.
Cara Anthony: Over time, she pieced collectively bits of what occurred. However there was all the time one nagging query that didn’t have a solution:
What would her life have been like if that mob hadn’t lynched her dad?
Nannetta Forrest: Now, I do usually marvel that. Had he been alive once I was born and been in my life, what sort of individual would I’ve been? Would I’ve been the identical individual? Would I’ve been a unique individual? And that is one thing I’ll by no means know.
Cara Anthony: I’m Cara Anthony. I’m a well being reporter.
I’ve traveled to Sikeston, Missouri, for years, asking individuals concerning the killing of Cleo Wright — and the silence that surrounds his demise.
Almost eight a long time after the killing, that silence was nonetheless stifling. Like generations of stuffed-down concern and anger.
At practically each flip, locals refused to speak to me. In reality, many individuals felt they may not speak to me. Till I met … Mikela Jackson.
[Solemn instrumental music fades out.]
Mikela Jackson: It’s … it’s … it’s no therapeutic from grief. It’s an on a regular basis factor for me.
Cara Anthony: Mikela goes by Keke. She’s in her mid-20s. However she’s heard concerning the lynching again in 1942.
Cara Anthony: Speak to me slightly bit about that. Have you ever ever heard of Cleo Wright?
Mikela Jackson: Denzel brung that as much as me. Denzel brung it as much as me as a result of we used to dwell on Sundown Avenue, and he was telling me, like, they dragged him by Sundown.
Cara Anthony: “Denzel” is Denzel Taylor, Keke’s fiancé.
Sikeston police shot him at the least 18 occasions — and killed Denzel in April 2020. He was 23 years previous.
That 12 months, everybody was speaking about new analysis that discovered {that a} Black man had a 1-in-1,000 likelihood of being killed by police.
Denzel Taylor grew to become that 1 in a thousand.
[Sparse, minor music plays quietly.]
Proper in the course of her grief, Keke refused to be quiet.
Mikela Jackson: The Bootheel is aware of what occurred to him. The world, they don’t know who Denzel Taylor is.
Cara Anthony: The Bootheel is the place Sikeston sits — within the far southeast nook of Missouri.
Mikela Jackson: In order that’s why I need his story … I wanna make him proud, really. ’Cuz I need him to know, look, Babe, they going to listen to this a method or one other.
Cara Anthony: I made a movie concerning the deaths of Denzel and Cleo — two Black males killed a long time aside — in the identical neighborhood.
For the documentary, we explored questions concerning the influence of racial trauma and the persistent hurt it causes.
Right here, for the podcast, we’re exploring one other layer. How does systemic racial violence influence well being? The well being of Black individuals, specifically?
[“Silence in Sikeston” theme begins playing.]
Denzel’s story jogs my memory a lot of Cleo’s. So many issues about their lives — and their deaths — are related.
They each left behind a daughter they by no means bought to fulfill.
They each had been killed by a public well being menace of their time.
A menace to Black males of their time.
For Cleo, that was lynching.
For Denzel, it was police violence.
Neither of them bought their day in court docket.
On this episode, we’re taking a look at what occurred to Denzel Taylor.
We’re exploring police violence as a public well being downside. One which’s making us sick and reducing lives brief.
From WORLD Channel and KFF Well being Information, and distributed by PRX, that is “Silence in Sikeston,” the podcast about discovering the phrases to say the issues that go unsaid.
Episode 3: “Trauma Lives within the Physique.”
[“Silence in Sikeston” theme ends.]
[Gentle, bright instrumental music plays.]
Cara Anthony: Denzel was from Chicago. Rising up, he hung out in southeastern Missouri together with his dad’s household.
Denzel and Keke met in Sikeston. And Keke says they fell in love instantly.
Mikela Jackson: It was a butterfly feeling, like you can simply inform it was love. It was one of the best vitality ever.
Cara Anthony: They began their household. De’nia was born first. Denzel used to name her “Cupcake.”
Denzel Taylor: Hey, Cupcake. Say hey, y’all. I really like you, princess. [Baby babbles.]
Cara Anthony: Aiyana got here subsequent. In 2020, Keke was pregnant with their third daughter, Brookelynn.
Mikela Jackson: He stated he wished seven children. I stated, Denzel, what? He wished seven children. That’s a basketball staff. I can’t deal with that.
Cara Anthony: They had been planning to get married after Brookelynn was born.
Mikela Jackson: I actually wished a giant household with Denzel. I wished to get married. I wished to go to D- … We was planning on shifting to Dallas and every little thing and it’s similar to, my entire world is rather like, it simply blew up on me.
Cara Anthony: Bear in mind 2020? It felt just like the information was stuffed with tales about Black individuals getting killed by police.
Movies from physique cameras had been throughout social media. Round that very same time, Keke remembers Denzel getting pulled over by police increasingly.
And, Keke says, he began to develop into satisfied that sometime he is likely to be killed by police too.
Mikela Jackson: He stated if he was to ever get in any sort of interplay with the police, he would allow them to kill him simply to indicate how America is.
He would carry it up, like, outta nowhere. And he would say it, and I’d marvel, like, why is you always saying it? And I form of will get irritated as a result of it’s, like, that’s not a manner that I’ll need you to exit. Like, we’re imagined to develop previous collectively.
Cara Anthony: On April 29 that 12 months, Denzel’s premonition got here true.
Police physique cameras captured what occurred the night time Denzel was killed.
You’re about to listen to a retelling of what occurred the night time Denzel died — primarily based on interviews together with his household and audio pulled from these physique cam movies.
Once I first bought the movies, I stared on the attachments in my electronic mail for a very long time. I didn’t wish to look.
[Soft droning music fades in.]
However I believe it’s necessary that we do have a look at what occurred. It’s a part of what I’ve to do to look at police killings as a public well being menace.
Denzel was staying together with his father and his stepmom.
[Rain sounds play.]
It was raining that night time. Denzel and his dad, Milton Taylor, had been caught in the home collectively.
They bought into an argument. Issues escalated.
Denzel’s mother, Jean Kelly, was asleep in Chicago some 400 miles away. Within the early hours of the morning, Denzel’s sister bumped into her room yelling.
Jean Kelly: “Mother, get up.” I stated, “What occurred?” She stated, “Denzel simply shot Daddy.” I stated, “What? Denzel simply shot Daddy? That doesn’t make any sense in any respect.”
EMS audio: 49-year-old. Male. Gunshot wound. Two to a few photographs to the chest. 5 officers on scene.
Cara Anthony: By the point police arrived at Milton’s dwelling, Denzel had left. EMTs stabilized Milton and took him to the hospital.
EMS audio: We’re operating sizzling. St. Francis. One affected person.
Cara Anthony: In the meantime, up in Chicago, Jean is making an attempt to determine what’s occurring. She calls Milton’s spouse, Denzel’s stepmom.
Jean Kelly: She stated she had a few relations out in search of Denzel, you realize, as a result of she was saying, “I need them to seek out him earlier than the police finds him.”
Cara Anthony: Police are talking with Denzel’s stepmom when he seems.
The body-camera video exhibits the scene from an officer’s perspective.
[Music fades out.]
Cara Anthony: By now, it’s stopped raining. A streetlamp lights up the tip of the block. Police had wrapped the realm in yellow police tape. The digital camera exhibits Denzel standing within the close to distance on the opposite aspect of the yellow tape. He’s carrying a hoodie.
Officers: Present me your arms now! Take your hand out of your pocket!
Denzel Taylor: Simply kill me, bro.
Jean Kelly: They had been saying, uh, “Put your arms up” or regardless of the, the, they stated to him, and there was some phrases exchanged. And, uh, it gave the impression of he stated, “Properly, shoot me, bro. Simply go forward, shoot me.”
Cara Anthony: The officers fireplace their weapons.
Jean Kelly: They hit my son one time, I imagine, if not two, and my son fell. He went, he dropped to his knees and fell face down.
Cara Anthony: There’s a pause. It’s only a second or two, however as I watch it, it feels longer.
After which, the police fireplace once more, sending bullets into his physique on the bottom. They preserve capturing. You possibly can hear dozens of photographs.
Police physique cam video: We bought photographs fired. We want EMS. We bought one topic down, photographs fired! Palms now! Palms! Palms!
Cara Anthony: One officer walks up — and makes use of his foot to roll Denzel the remainder of the best way onto his abdomen. Denzel groans because the officer pins his arms behind his again and handcuffs him.
[Handcuffs click]
Cara Anthony: They search his physique.
Police physique cam video: Goddamn it.
Cara Anthony: Police don’t discover a gun. Or any weapon. Only a piece of wooden in his hoodie pocket.
Police physique cam video: Are you [expletive] severe? He had a [expletive] stick of wooden.
Cara Anthony: Police name for an ambulance.
EMS audio: … EMS reply to at least one topic shot. Time of web page, 02 36.
Cara Anthony: On the physique digital camera video, one officer factors a flashlight in Denzel’s face.
Police physique cam video: Why didn’t you simply take your hand out of your pocket, man?
Cara Anthony: Minutes tick by. Purple and blue police lights flash off the moist pavement. Denzel continues to be on the street, immobile.
[Ambulance sirens]
Cara Anthony: EMS arrive, however it’s too late. Denzel is lifeless.
Over the radio, the dispatcher requires the coroner.
EMS audio: That’s sure, ma’am. Contact coroner. Ten-four.
[Somber instrumental music plays softly.]
Cara Anthony: Keke had been out of city. She bought the decision as she was driving again to Sikeston. The police had killed Denzel.
Mikela Jackson: And I stated, “No, they didn’t. No, they didn’t.” I couldn’t imagine it. It was heartbreaking.
Cara Anthony: A particular prosecutor declined to file expenses towards the law enforcement officials who killed Denzel. The officers didn’t remark for this challenge. Sikeston Chief of Public Security James McMillen says the officers believed Denzel was armed and that they had been in concern for his or her life.
Denzel’s household sued the town of Sikeston. Town and the household reached a wrongful demise settlement for $2 million. Near half of it went to authorized charges. Many of the remainder of it is going to go to Denzel’s daughters.
Keke thinks so much about how life goes on for the officers who killed Denzel.
Mikela Jackson: They nonetheless get to see their household each single day of their life. They nonetheless get to name their daughters. They nonetheless get to go dwelling and tuck their children into mattress. Denzel can by no means do this ever, ever once more.
I’m a compelled single mother or father. I’ve to push by each single day.
Keke watched the physique cam video time and again. However Denzel’s demise simply wouldn’t sink in. And he or she’s fearful about their daughters.
Mikela Jackson: I hope they by no means see the video ’trigger that’s traumatizing. ’Trigger that’s their dad.
Cara Anthony: Ultimately, Keke left Sikeston. She says there are too many recollections of Denzel and what occurred to him there.
On the day I visited her new dwelling, it was simply over a 12 months after Denzel’s demise.
[Cara and Keke laugh together in the background.]
Two-year-old Aiyana is napping within the subsequent room. Keke has the youngest, Brookelynn, on her lap. And the oldest, De’nia, is … in every single place.
Proper now, she’s zooming by the eating room on a scooter.
Cara Anthony: She simply did, like, a trick, like a BMX. She’s BMXing on this condo proper now. Is she a daredevil?
Mikela Jackson: She do this on a regular basis. [Laughter] An excessive amount of. No. No bike.
Cara Anthony: Ultimately, De’nia parked her wheels and talked to me.
Cara Anthony: Let’s simply get this began. Inform me your title once more and the way previous you’re.
De’nia: 4.
Cara Anthony: And what’s your title?
De’nia: De’nia.
Cara Anthony: In my time as a well being reporter, I’ve written so much concerning the influence gun violence has on children. I’ve gotten some coaching in the right way to speak to them about it on their stage — with out retraumatizing them.
Cara Anthony: Your mommy’s sitting right here, and she or he stated I’ve permission to ask you about your daddy.
De’nia: Daddy?
Cara Anthony: Do you miss your daddy?
De’nia: Sure.
Cara Anthony: Yeah? The place’s your daddy?
De’nia: I don’t know.
Cara Anthony: Yeah.
De’nia: He’s sleeping.
Cara Anthony: Hmm?
De’nia: He’s sleeping.
Cara Anthony: You stated he’s sleeping?
De’nia: Sure.
Mikela Jackson: That’s what she say. She stated, “My daddy’s sleeping.”
Cara Anthony: De’nia is making an attempt to make sense of why her dad isn’t with them anymore. And Keke doesn’t know what to inform her.
Mikela Jackson: Like final night time she really wakened out of her sleep and she or he was crying and she or he was like, Mama, my daddy. And I didn’t know what to inform her as a result of it’s, like, what do you inform a 4-year-old that they’re by no means ever going to see their dad once more?
[Subtle instrumental music plays.]
Cara Anthony: I known as a pediatrician, Rhea Boyd, to speak about what shedding a mother or father to police violence may imply for teenagers like De’nia, Aiyana, and Brookelynn.
Rhea Boyd: Whatever the age, youngsters expertise longing. They miss individuals once they don’t see them once more, even infants can expertise that.
Cara Anthony: Dropping a mother or father — particularly to violence — can have a significant influence on a toddler’s future well being.
Rhea Boyd: Sure experiences, together with the demise of a mother or father, will increase a toddler’s threat for sure bodily well being illnesses, like coronary heart illness, um, form of neurologic illnesses, like elevated threat for Alzheimer’s. Psychological well being impairments, like elevated threat for melancholy. And these are elevated dangers as they transfer into maturity.
Cara Anthony: Examine after research present the hyperlink, despite the fact that we don’t completely perceive all of the mechanisms.
Rhea Boyd: It’s not simply innate to our biology. It’s due to the circumstances by which Black people have been compelled to dwell.
Cara Anthony: Black individuals in the US carry extra stress all through their lives than white individuals. That doesn’t change, even once they earn more money.
Researchers have tied that stress to the racism we take care of in on a regular basis interactions — and to the institutional racism that makes it tougher for us to deal with ourselves and our households.
Black individuals age quicker, get sicker, and die before our white friends — and carrying continual stress is an element.
Rhea says police violence contributes to this, too.
Rhea Boyd: Police are a public establishment. And once they disproportionately take the lives of Black people, or disproportionately police Black neighborhoods, that has direct impacts on our lives, on our well-being.
Cara Anthony: Keke says, again when she was dwelling in Sikeston, she felt anxious each time she noticed police lights in her rearview mirror.
[Subtle instrumental music ends.]
Mikela Jackson: Now, it’s like, OK, right here it go once more. I’m getting pulled over. As a result of it, I’m, it’s, I’m used to it at this level. I’m used to it.
Cara Anthony: Used to it, perhaps. However not numb to it.
Mikela Jackson: I can’t inform my children, “Hey, don’t be scared if you get pulled over.” I can’t inform them that. ’Trigger I’m nonetheless scared myself, even a 12 months later. I’m nonetheless scared.
Cara Anthony: Rhea calls this “anticipatory stress.”
Rhea Boyd: Anticipatory stress means you carry a stage of vigilance and fear and concern about issues that may occur to you or your children.
Cara Anthony: Youngsters can decide up on what’s occurring in these conditions and may find yourself carrying that poisonous stress, too.
Denzel Taylor’s mom, Jean Kelly, instructed me concerning the fear that comes with having a Black son in America. The concern that he may develop into that 1 in 1,000 Black males killed by police.
[Grand, angelic music plays in the background.]
Jean Kelly: [Singing] Lord, have mercy on me …
Cara Anthony: Jean says earlier than Denzel’s demise, her spirit was on alert, like she was bracing for one thing unhealthy. And a tune stored taking part in time and again in her thoughts.
Jean Kelly: [Singing] Lord, have mercy on me. I stated, Lord, have mercy on me.
I simply wanted his, I wanted his mercy and his grace and energy and every little thing to arrange me for what was to be … no matter it was to be, I used to be going to want his mercy.
[Grand, angelic music fades out]
Cara Anthony: I do know what Black persons are coping with in the present day. However I can solely think about what it will have been like in 1942, when Cleo Wright was lynched.
Rhea Boyd: The kind of management individuals had their children and their physique beneath always in order that they weren’t the sufferer of that sort of violence, I believe, physiologically, it was doubtless so huge that the intergenerational results of that sort of terror nonetheless dwell in our our bodies as descendants of those that skilled it.
Cara Anthony: Analysis is beginning to discover how dwelling with this sort of terror may transcend behaviors to one thing deeper: altering how our genes work.
[Bouncy instrumental music plays.]
A few of this analysis comes out of a discipline known as “epigenetics.” It’s the concept that one thing you expertise can change how the genes in your physique are expressed.
And that may have big impacts in your well being: It may make you age faster or be extra susceptible to creating a illness like most cancers.
And epigenetic analysis is trying into how issues your ancestors skilled may additionally have an effect on your well being in the present day.
A police capturing and a lynching.
Two Black males killed in the identical city — practically 80 years aside.
As I reported their tales, many individuals have requested why we’re analyzing the deaths of Cleo Wright and Denzel Taylor aspect by aspect.
After years of reporting on these deaths, I’ve determined, as a well being reporter, I wish to deal with is that this: the trauma that continues to be after the violence towards these males — the doable well being results for his or her households and their communities.
I wish to higher perceive what the loss may imply for Cleo and Denzel’s daughters. Little women rising up with out their dad.
Cleo’s daughter, Nannetta Forrest, wasn’t born but when her father was killed. Once we final spoke just a few years earlier than she died, she was 78 years previous. And he or she stated she was nonetheless asking herself that query that had nagged at her, her entire life: Who would she have been?
Nannetta Forrest: Would I’ve been the identical individual? Would I’ve been a unique individual?
Cara Anthony: And Denzel’s women: De’nia and Aiyana. And Brookelynn, who wasn’t born but. Brookelynn would possibly ask herself the identical factor as she grows.
Mikela Jackson: She has no recollections. She’s by no means seen him a day in her life. So it’s like, she’ll by no means know him, like, as an individual. [Den’ia playing in the background]
Cara Anthony: Identical to Nannetta, Denzel’s women are dealing with greater dangers of psychological and psychological well being issues … and the chance that shedding their father this manner may change how their genes work.
[“Silence in Sikeston” theme begins playing.]
Within the face of these dangers and prospects, Keke’s in search of methods to guard her daughters.
She’s moved them away from Sikeston to a metropolis the place she hopes they’ll have extra peace.
She desires them to know all about their dad, and the way a lot he beloved them.
She desires them to know his voice.
Denzel Taylor: Hey, Cupcake!
Cara Anthony: It’s the alternative of silence. She desires them to have the ability to heal out loud.
On the subsequent episode, we’re in Sikeston, the place persons are in search of methods to heal and transfer ahead after the deaths of Cleo Wright and Denzel Taylor.
Pershard Owens: We bought to look within the mirror and say, am I doing what I can to try to change the dynamic of Sikeston, even when it does damage? That’s what we have now to begin doing.
Cara Anthony: Together with the chance for large adjustments — community-level, systemwide adjustments.
James McMillen: I get annoyed and I’m making an attempt to direct that frustration into one thing that would really work.
Cara Anthony: That’s subsequent time, on the ultimate episode of “Silence in Sikeston.”
[“Silence in Sikeston” theme ends.]
[Upbeat instrumental music plays.]
Cara Anthony: Thanks for listening to “Silence in Sikeston.”
Subsequent, go watch the documentary — it’s a joint manufacturing from Retro Report and KFF Well being Information, introduced in partnership with WORLD.
Subscribe to WORLD Channel on YouTube. That’s the place you’ll find the movie “Silence in Sikeston,” a Native, USA particular.
This podcast is a co-production of WORLD Channel and KFF Well being Information and distributed by PRX.
It was produced with assist from PRX and made doable partly by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Basis.
The audio sequence was reported and hosted by me, Cara Anthony.
Zach Dyer and Taylor Cook dinner are the producers.
Enhancing by Simone Popperl.
Taunya English is managing editor of the podcast.
Sound design, mixing, and authentic music by Lonnie Ro.
Podcast artwork design by Colin Mahoney and Tania Castro-Daunais.
Oona Zenda and Lydia Zuraw are the touchdown web page designers.
Have you ever seen the superb Sikeston images? It’s from Michael B. Thomas.
And Lynne Shallcross is the picture editor.
Thanks to my vocal coach, Viki Merrick.
Music on this episode is from Epidemic Sound and BlueDot Classes.
Further audio from the CBS TV present “Strike It Wealthy” and Denzel Taylor’s household.
A number of the audio you’ll hear throughout the podcast can be within the movie.
For that, particular because of Adam Zletz, Matt Gettemeier, Roger Herr, and Philip Geyelin.
Kyra Darnton is govt producer at Retro Report.
I used to be a producer on the movie.
Jill Rosenbaum directed the documentary.
Kytja Weir is nationwide editor at KFF Well being Information.
WORLD Channel’s editor-in-chief and govt producer is Chris Hastings.
We’re holding this dialog occurring Instagram and X.
Tarena Lofton and Hannah Norman are engagement and social media producers for the present.
Assist us get the phrase out about “Silence in Sikeston.”
Write a evaluate or give us a fast score wherever you hearken to this podcast.
Thanks. It makes a distinction.
Oh, yeah. And inform your pals in actual life, too.
[Upbeat instrumental music ends.]
Credit
Taunya English
Managing editor
@TaunyaEnglish
Taunya is deputy managing editor for broadcast at KFF Well being Information, the place she leads enterprise audio tasks.
Simone Popperl
Line editor
@simoneppprl
Simone is broadcast editor at KFF Well being Information, the place she shapes tales that air on Market, NPR, and CBS Information Radio, and she or he co-manages a nationwide reporting collaborative.
Zach Dyer
Senior producer
@zkdyer
Zach is senior producer for audio with KFF Well being Information, the place he supervises all ranges of podcast manufacturing.
Taylor Cook dinner
Affiliate producer
@taylormcook7
Taylor is an unbiased producer who does analysis, books friends, contributes writing, and fact-checks episodes for a number of KFF Well being Information podcasts.
Lonnie Ro
Sound designer
Lonnie Ro is an audio engineer and composer who brings audio tales to life by authentic music and professional sound design for platforms like Spotify, Audible, and KFF Well being Information.
Further Newsroom Assist
Lynne Shallcross, picture editorOona Zenda, illustrator and net producerLydia Zuraw, net producerTarena Lofton, viewers engagement producer Hannah Norman, visible producer and visible reporter Chaseedaw Giles, viewers engagement editor and digital strategistKytja Weir, nationwide editor Mary Agnes Carey, managing editor Alex Wayne, govt editorDavid Rousseau, writer Terry Byrne, copy chief Gabe Brison-Trezise, deputy copy chief Tammie Smith, communications officer
The “Silence in Sikeston” podcast is a manufacturing of KFF Well being Information and WORLD. Distributed by PRX. Subscribe and hear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch the accompanying documentary from WORLD, Retro Report, and KFF beginning Sept. 16, right here.
To listen to different KFF Well being Information podcasts, click on right here.
