‘Lady in the Lake’: A look at the exclusive coverage in the AFRO Archives

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

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?

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. 

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.

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.

This article originally appeared in the Afro