It's been nearly a month since the housekeeping staff of an upscale Chicago hotel discovered the body of Brianna Gardner, a 22-year-old Dallas woman who had been fatally shot in the head. The case seemed to be headed for a quick resolution when police arrested a 28-year-old man whose cell phone had been found in Gardner's room. But he was never charged.
In the meantime, news outlets didn't exactly bury the news that Gardner had just been picked up on a prostitution charge and was an aspiring stripper. Still, the last news report on the murder was August 16. Since then, nothing.
The silence was too much for Jennifer Glasco, who describes herself "a working girl in the same profession as Brianna," who started an online petition on September 1 demanding answers. (It's unclear whether "working" refers to stripping or prostitution; we have a call in to Glasco.)
"(T)his whole thing has hit a lot of us ladies very hard," Glasco wrote in an email. "Reading how the media put her out there. They were able to report what she was arrested for prior to her murder, but they have said nothing about the actual murder. It breaks my heart to know her case has just been put on the back burner. She was a human being that got her life taken away far too soon."
In short, Glasco thinks there's been far too much judgment and far too little justice. As of this morning, 918 people agreed.
"If this was a 22 year old college student, who dressed sexy and drank too much, flirting with every guy that crossed her path and was raped and killed ... it would have not left the front page of the news until the killer was found," the petition says. "Why is this case any different?"
