On January 22, 2022, Chandra Meeks, a mother and nurse living in Belleville, Illinois, posted a cryptic video to her TikTok account. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing when it comes to talking about what happened to my sister,” Meeks said to the camera — the sun shining on her as she spoke from the passenger seat of her car. “But I just don’t understand why no one has been charged with her murder; why has her alleged killer been allowed to taunt me?” she asked. “Losing my sister and her unborn child affected a lot of people.”
Peripartum homicide, the killing of a pregnant woman or a woman who has just given birth, is an additional layer to the maternal mortality crisis plaguing the U.S. Not only are pregnant women 35 % more likely to be killed than nonpregnant women, but the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health also found that homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant women. These homicides are often a result of domestic violence, and their partners are usually the perpetrators. Not only are Black women at higher risk for peripartum homicide than any other group, these cases are typically unsolved.
Meeks’ younger sister, Catherine “Cathy” Jackson, was shot to death in her East St. Louis home on January 9, 2018. She was eight months pregnant. Just weeks before the attack, the mother had moved into the city’s downtown area to an apartment on North Ninth Street. Before moving, Jackson had been experiencing homelessness and was living in a shelter. So when a local organization helped her move into a new apartment, she looked forward to a fresh start.
Meeks was happy for her sister’s new beginning but was concerned because the neighborhood had a bad reputation. “I said, ‘Cathy, are you going to be all right down there? It’s dangerous,’” Meeks recalls telling her. “‘I don’t want you down there.’ And she just kept saying she was good, she was going to be good.”
On the night of the murder, Meeks was supposed to visit her sister in her new home. “She called me and asked me to come get my youngest nephew, *James,” she says. “And I agreed because toddlers can be overwhelming — everyone needs a break.” As the oldest sibling, Meeks spent a lot of time with her sister. She would cook family dinners and have Jackson and her four other kids over all the time. She was like a second mom to them all.
“But when I started driving to get James, there was too much fog on the highway, and I couldn’t see anything. So I had to turn around to go home — when I tried to call her, she never answered,” Meeks said. Two days later, she received a call from her mother explaining that Jackson’s landlord found her sister shot to death. Her older children were not home when the shooting occurred. James was discovered at the scene; he had been in the home for days with his mother’s pregnant, lifeless body. Meeks says a bullet to the face left her sister so disfigured they opted for a closed-casket funeral.
Firearms are used in 63% of all peripartum cases. Pregnant women are usually more susceptible to this level of violence in states that have more lenient gun laws and where women have less access to abortions and reproductive services. However, Illinois is known for having strict gun laws and solid reproductive care for women in comparison to other states.
But race also plays a role. “Black women are disproportionately affected by peripartum homicide, a finding that is likely driven by a myriad of factors rooted in structural racism,” says Grace Keegan, MD candidate at the University of Chicago and a lead author on a study published in The Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Not only do Black women face higher rates of domestic violence nationwide, we are less likely to report it due to the stigma tied to it, choosing instead to stay silent. It’s important to note that abuse isn’t always physical; it is any behavior in which a person exerts power and control over another.
Meeks describes her sister’s ex-partner and James’ father as violent, alleging that he killed her sister. “When I first got James, the only thing he would say is ‘Daddy, shoot mama.’” After the murder, Jackson’s ex was wanted for questioning. However, he was eventually released. Although Meeks never had a good feeling about her sister’s ex, she can’t confirm that her sister was in an abusive relationship. But when she gained custody of James, she claims his father began harassing her online and writing letters that he left in her mailbox to intimidate her because he wanted custody of James.
“There are usually similar patterns of domestic abuse in these types of cases by the victim’s ex,” says Amara Coffer, host of Black Girl Gone podcast, a true crime podcast highlighting the stories of Black women who have disappeared or been murdered. She has reported on over 200 cases like Jackson’s and dozens of peripartum cases. “Signs of abuse are not always glaring,” she notes. “Maybe a victim was never hit physically, but there are certain things that the family and friends will say afterward, like, ‘You know, we didn’t really like him.’”
According to Meeks, her sister hid her pregnancy and may have been conflicted about what her next steps would be. But when Jackson’s ex found out she was pregnant, he was upset and accused her of hiding the pregnancy to cover up that the unborn child wasn’t his. Coffer says she noticed a pattern in the strain that unplanned pregnancies can put on relationships and how it can be a tipping point. “Abusive messages, controlling behavior, and stalking, especially if she was trying to move on, or if he was accusing her of cheating, those are usually clear indicators of abuse, especially when the victim ends up dead,” she says.
Unfortunately, until there is a thorough investigation, there is no way to know for sure who brutally murdered Jackson and her unborn baby. Now, her sister keeps her name alive by posting memories of her on social media. She gained guardianship of James, and although Meeks raises the boy as her own, she makes sure he remembers his mother. One of Meeks’ last TikTok posts celebrated her sister’s birthday. “Happy Birthday to Cathy,” James sang in the clip. “Do you miss Cathy?” Meeks asked James. “Uh-huh,” he replied with a smile.
*Names were changed to protect the identity of a minor.
