Nicole Michelle Smith

Nicole Michelle Smith, a 35-year-old Black woman, died on June 17, 2007, in St. Louis, Missouri, a date that sits like a hard stop in the middle of a life that began on January 12, 1972.

Publicly available records about what happened in her final hours are sparse, offering almost no narrative beyond the fact of her death and where she was ultimately laid to rest. In the absence of a published account describing the circumstances, the timeline becomes defined by what can be verified: her ...