Shaeida: the little girl who was disappeared in MOVE.

BETH MCNAMARA: Heads up. This episode contains explicit language and discussion of child neglect and violent deaths of children and is intended for mature audiences only. This is the ongoing investigative project about the Philadelphia based group known as MOVE. And I'm your host, Beth McNamara.

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Dr. Krystal Strong:“If you are not a part of the consecration, which you will make right in the center, please, we are going to get started at exactly 05:27 p.m.”                              

BETH MCNAMARA: It's May 13, 2022. Philadelphia activist college Professor MOVE and Mumia Abu Jamal supporter Dr. Crystal Strong is standing on a flatbed trailer parked in the middle of Cobbs Creek Parkway at the end of Osage Avenue. There is a crowd of about 60 people who have gathered to solemnly commemorate a devastating and tragic event 37 years earlier, often referred to simply as The MOVE Bombing.

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MIKE AFRICA JR: “On The MOVE!”

BETH MCNAMARA: The background noise you hear is a helicopter overhead.

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MIKE AFRICA JR.: “My name is Mike Africa, Jr. And I'm a member of The MOVE Organization. Say their names. The lives of eleven people, five children and six adults were taken at 6221 on May 13, 1985. As we gather in this place, we must say their names. When I say their names, we will take a moment of silence for each life and say Ashe, the children whose lives should have been protected.
Tree Africa. Ashe, 14 years old.
Netta Africa. Ashe, twelve years old.
Little Phil Africa. Ashe, twelve years old.
Tomaso Africa. Ashe, nine years old.
Delisha Africa. Ashe, 13 years old.

BETH MCNAMARA: That was Mike Africa, Jr. Last May 13, 2022, reading the names of the five children who died on May 13, 1985 at 6221 Osage. Vincent Leaphart’s MOVE headquarters, the fortified, row home owned by his sister Louise. MOVE never lists their members by legal names. Never. And at this point, the press and media just go along with it, no questions asked. That's not how the podcast rolls. From the beginning, we set out to firmly establish legal names and or biological connections as part of our deep investigation into the dozens of children that were born, raised or died while in MOVE. Mike Africa, Jr. Is Michael Davis.
His parents are MOVE members Debbie Sims and Michael Davis, senior. Four out of the five children that die on May 13, 1985 were born in Philadelphia hospitals given legal names and birth certificates. I'm going to start with the one child who had no legal documentation, Tomaso Africa. Tomaso was the first baby born in MOVE. Headquarters to Sue Levino aka Sue Africa, aka RIA. RIA never wants people to forget that she was the first. 

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SUE LEVINO/Sue Africa/Ria: “I was the first woman to deliver my child without the aid of any doctors, nurses. Like, an hour later, there were news media there, and I did 50 sit ups right after delivering a baby.” 

BETH MCNAMARA: When Ria's baby is born, he's not given a name. But then, in 1977, in a newspaper interview, Sue says that his name is John, after John Africa, and that the father is MOVE member Robert Moses. After 1978, Sue begins calling herself RIA and calling her son Boo Boo or Tomaso. Tomaso did not have any siblings in MOVE. In at least two interviews, RIA has given the wrong age for Tomaso at the time of his death. This is from 2016 

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SUE LEVINO
“and my son Tom was in the house on  May 13th. He was only seven years old, and he was murdered.” 

BETH MCNAMARA: Here is RIA again in April 2021. 

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SUE LEVINO: “Tomaso, Africa. Eight years old. 

BETH MCNAMARA: He would have turned ten that year. The other four children who died on May 13 were born in Philadelphia hospitals given birth certificates and legal names. Tree Africa or Tree Tree is Katricia Dotson. Her mother MOVE member Consuewella Dotson, now deceased, and father Nathaniel Galloway, nver a MOVE member. Katricia was born September 15, 1970 when Consuewella was just 16 years old. At the time of her death, Katricia was exactly four months from being 15 years old. Netta Africa is Zanetta Dotson, sister of Katricia Dotson. Her mother is also Consuewella Dotson, now deceased. The father of Zanetta has never been mentioned and no one seems to ask, but according to multiple sources we spoke to, including Misty Hampton, it seems that her father, James Conrad Hampton, was Zanetta's father too, 
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MISTY HAMPTON: there was a rumor that Zanetta may be my sister. 

BETH MCNAMARA: It seems this was an open secret in MOVE.  James Conrad Hampton went by Conrad or Rad and he was married to Consuewella's mother's sister, meaning Consuewella was his niece by marriage and his children were Consuewella's cousins. Zanetta was born two months premature on August 22, 1972. Consuewella is living with her Aunt Elussia and Uncle Conrad when she gets pregnant with Zanetta. This is also when Conrad recruits her into MOVE. Consuewella brings her two girls into MOVE and then has a baby boy with Charles Morris, also known as Beowulf Africa. The boy's name is Lobo and he survives the August 8, 1978 confrontation and is then taken into the custody of family members. Lobo is then raised in the system as Lionel Dotson. 

Little Phil Africa is Phil DeMar Phillips, born December 3, 1973, in a hospital to married MOVE members Janine and William Phillips. After Phil is born, Janine has two more boys, one born March 16, 1976 that dies three weeks later, and according to MOVE, it's because it was trampled by Philadelphia police. We did a whole episode on this, the Meaning of Life, and then 18 months later, they have a third son, Uju, who, like Consuewella's son, survives the August 8, 1978 confrontation and then is put in the custody of biological family and raised in the system. His name is Larry Smith.

The fifth child to die on May 13, 1985 in MOVE headquarters is Delisha Africa, legal name Delisha Hollaway, born on April 20, 1972 in a hospital to MOVE members Janet Hollaway and Delbert Orr, who were not married. When Delisha dies on May 13, 1985, she is just 13 years old. 

Identification of the remains of the children after the massive fire consumed 6221 osage was very challenging for authorities and for members of the Medical Examiner's Office.
Tomaso Levino was the first to be identified by a police officer from Civil Affairs who was able to make a visual identification. Tomaso's mother, Sue Levino, incarcerated at Muncie Prison was notified of the positive ID. Sue Levino, incarcerated at Muncie Prison, was notified by officers that her son did indeed die on May 13. She responded, “Get the fuck out of my face.” A medical examiner's report also states that Sue's parents had had both written and telephone contact with Sue since May 13th and said  “she did not seem to be overly concerned over the death”.

The Medical Examiner's Office and outside forensic experts were having a particularly difficult time identifying and confirming remains that might belong to 14 and a half year old Katrica Datson and 13 year old Delisha Hollaway. For Katricia, the remains seemed to be that of a female over the age of 18. For Delisha, they seemed to be for a female between the ages of six and seven. Delbert Orr refused to speak to representatives from the Medical Examiner's Office about identifying the remains of his daughter, Delisha. “I told them to get out of my face. I wasn't going to do anything to help them after they massacred my family.” 

Katrica and Zanetta Dotson were not buried until December 14, 1985, in an unmarked grave in Eden Cemetery in Philadelphia. Ten months later, in September 1986, the remains of Tomaso Levino, Phil Phillips and Delisha Hollaway are buried together in a casket in an unmarked donated plot in Eden Cemetery. MOVE had nothing to do with it. It was handled by a Pennsylvania state senator.

All of these details I just provided, which are definitely just a fraction of what Bob and myself have pulled together, were shared with you as a catch up kind of intro primer for the big news of this episode. It was two years into our research when something in a Daily News story jumped right off the page and changed everything. 

It was an investigative series in the spring of 1986 by intrepid reporter Kitty Caparella of the Philadelphia Daily News. Caparella was looking into school truancy of MOVE children after 1985. It was the third to last paragraph which reads Shaeida Shishi Orr, eleven, daughter of Janet Hollaway and Delbert Orr Africa, both of whom are in state prisons, asked about her whereabouts, MOVE spokesman Gerald Jerry Ford Africa says, that's MOVE business.

This is when I first realized that Shaeida Hollaway was a missing child in MOVE, and MOVE was covering it up. We set out to find anything and everything on Shaeida Hollaway, and I'm now going to share what we discovered, uncovered and examined that proves Shaeida existed and then disappeared while in MOVE. Once we had gathered enough evidence about Shaeida, I was ready to reach out to Shaeida's family. But by then, Delisha and Shaeida's father, Delbert Orr, had passed away. So I phoned their mother, Janet Hollaway, out of prison, on parole, but still very much a MOVE member.



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Hello? 

BETH: Is this janet? 

JANET HOLLAWAY (AFRICA): Yes. 
BETH: Janet, this is Beth McNamara.

JANET: Yeah.

BETH: I'm calling to talk to you about Shaeida. 

JANET: Oh, no, thank you. 

BETH: Will you least admit if she exists?...(hangup sound). Okay. 

BETH MCNAMARA: After studying MOVE this long, I take her no, thank you and hang up as confirmation of not only Shaeida's existence, but that MOVE does not want anybody asking about this, which means I'm on the right track. 

This is what we can prove. Shaeida Hollaway was born November 1,1974, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. I have the birth record number. Shaeida was documented by Child Protective Services in April 1975, when Janet is arrested during a MOVE activity and brings five month old Shaeida with her.

I have a photo of Delbert, Janet, and baby Shaeida in a June 1975 story by Philadelphia News columnist Chuck Stone that IDs all of them with correct spellings, both in the copy and in the photo caption. We have video evidence. Both Delisha and Shaeida are on the porch of MOVE headquarters and filmed as part of a WPVI news piece on MOVE. It's winter, and MOVE has put them in winter coats, which is unusual and likely just for the cameras. It's only for a brief second, but both Delisha and Shaeida are on the porch looking directly at the camera.

Next I find Shaeida in WPVI. News footage of the Philadelphia City Council meeting on April 20, 1976. They're discussing the death of MOVE member Janine Phillips, baby LIFE that MOVE says was killed by police. 

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City Councilmember Joseph Coleman: We recommend that a full and impartial investigation be conducted in the reputed death of the child by the appropriate investigative authorities of the city, state and federal governments. 

BETH MCNAMARA: In the public gallery, Shaeida can be seen sitting on her father, Delbert Orr's lap. Next to Delbert is MOVE member Gerald Ford in May 1976. More video evidence of Shaeida and Delisha when MOVE lets a WPVI crew from the program Visions come inside MOVE headquarters. 

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RICK LOMBARDO: We went inside the headquarters. I got to see what they lived like, and the house was terrible. 

BETH MCNAMARA: I interviewed Rick Lombardo, who was a producer and a cameraman that day for WPVI.

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RICK LOMBARDO: The first thing that you notice when you go up there is the smell because of the animals. There were a lot of stray dogs, and I don't know what the cleanliness was. It didn't smell like an urban environment. It smelled more like a farm in there. I mean, it was like a barn hay all over.

On the first floor, there were big vats of raw meat because they fed all the dogs in the neighborhood that were strays. We went in, we were introduced to the children, and there were probably, I think, six or seven that I remember. And they were all very, very small from maybe one to four, five years old maybe, and we got a chance to see them in action, what they were doing with the kids and how they were interacting with them on a daily basis. It was almost like they were trying to show us how well the kids were doing and how their kind of lifestyle was just important for the kids, and that's the way they were raising them. 

BETH: When they introduced you to the kids, did they share their names?

RICK: I heard some names, but I don't recall individually being introduced to the kids. No. I just remember some of them mentioning some of the names, like, here's so and so and so and so. Come here, SHE SHE. 

BETH MCNAMARA: Rick says he heard the name Shishi. That's the nickname for Shaeida Hollaway in MOVE.

The footage is shot in the backyard of MOVE headquarters in Powelton Village. There is hay all over the ground, like a barn or a petting zoo. There are at least a dozen large dogs roaming among ten very small, completely naked children, while two male MOVE members feed the dogs raw horse meat from their hands, and three female MOVE members sit on the hay, breastfeeding their infants. 

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DELBERT ORR AFRICA: What they are in is the universal school of productive reality, which teaches in their activity makes them healthy, while stagnation makes them sick. 

BETH MCNAMARA: That is the voice of Delbert orr Aka, Delbert Africa, father of both Shaeida and Delisha.

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DELBERT ORR AFRICA: As you can find out from asking any one of these kids, they'll tell you that activity will make them healthy. These kids aren't sitting around stagnating muscles, unused, misused. These kids are healthy. show them your teeth again. Now, all these kids are like that.

“SHE SHE”

BETH MCNAMARA: Right here! Delbert says SHE SHE, meaning Shaeida. He's calling SHE SHEi over to the cameras. 

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DELBERT: SHE SHE, smile for the man. Come ‘ere. Show em all them pretty teeth. 

BETH MCNAMARA: Shaeida is doing as told.She's showing her teeth to the camera. She's not smiling, and she looks nervous, uncomfortable. She is naked in front of two strange men with a camera pointed right at her. 

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DELBERT: Come here. Heym Hey. Let me see your teeth, Deli. 

BETH MCNAMARA: Now Delbert has called over Deli, meaning Delisha, his other daughter, Shaeida's older sister, who's four years old.

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DELBERT: All right, see how white these kids teeth are? These kids don't use any toothbrush. This comes from the teachings of the founder of this organization, John Africa. These kids eat roots like potatoes, raw, sweet potatoes, onions. They eat fresh fruit, vegetables, all, again, raw. And these kids are in perfect shape. 

BETH MCNAMARA: This WPVI footage is further proof of the existence and proof of life of Shaeida Hollaway and what she is being forced to endure in MOVE as a very young child. I believe that this WPVI Visions episode on MOVE caught the attention of local journalists, who then went down to Powelton Village to investigate the children for themselves. Reporter Tyree Johnson wrote a July 1976 story for the Daily News. Headline “Are MOVE kids sick?”featuring a photo of a young girl with the caption “MOVE Girl with Apple”. The scanned article is very grainy, but I think this is a photo of Shaeida. 

Summer, early fall of 1977. Civil affairs writes up dossiers on all MOVE members because “guns on the porch” just happened May 20, 1977. 

In the dossier for Janet Hollaway, it says that Delbert is the father of her two children.
It also says that Janet and Delbert are not married legally. The document lists birth record numbers for both girls. This is very significant because many MOVE children born after 1974 were home births so that there were no legal records of their existence and therefore the children could not be tracked for social service wellness checks, school truancy checks, child custody issues, or even proof of life. 

After April of 1977, children in MOVE, on the orders of Vincent Leaphart, were being shuttled back and forth between MOVE's Philadelphia headquarters in Powelton Village and their outpost house in Richmond, Virginia, where they were keeping a low profile as a religious sect calling themselves the Seed of Wisdom. Authorities there tried to investigate reported neglect of the ten children in the spring of 1977, but were unsuccessful in evaluating any of the children because MOVE barricaded themselves in the house and refused to let them in.So I can't be sure if Shaeida or her sister were down there at that time. 

The next time Shaeida is mentioned specifically is in February 1978. MOVE has been in a standoff with police for ten months because if they come off their platform, they will be arrested for weapons and terroristic threat charges stemming from May 20, 1977, “Guns on the Porch”.Being barricaded inside MOVE headquarters with 60 dogs, no indoor plumbing or heat is taking a toll on MOVE members and one night, Consuewella Dotson bolts with her infant son, Lobo. She surrenders to police, is taken into custody, and her son then goes to the maternal grandmother. While in jail, Consuewella is interviewed about the conditions inside MOVE headquarters and how many children are inside. Consuewella tells police that there are four children inside MOVE headquarters, but that the following children are in Richmond, Virginia her two daughters, ages five and seven, that is Zanetta and Katrica Rhonda's five year old son, that is Owewolf, aka. Birdie, and both of Delbert's daughters, age two and five years. That is Shaeida and Delisha.

Consuewella says that the only two people that she knows that reside at the MOVE house, meaning adults, in Richmond is Sharon Sims, aka Fox, and Valerie Brown. Again, this is February 24, 1978. August 1, 1978. MOVE has refused to vacate 307 and three nine north 33rd as they previously agreed to.

This is Delbert Orr speaking to the press. 

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DELBERT ORR AFRICA: Ain't no deadline. As far as the teachings of John Africa goes, this is our house. We'll always be here. They will never recognize no deadline set by no sadistic doom like Rizzo.

BETH MCNAMARA: And this is Janet Hollaway on August 2. 

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JANET HOLLAWAY: Rizzo is saying the MOVE organization has the right to die. We don't have the right to live. What are we are telling Rizzo is anytime that you got a system that has theft under its feet, that has rape under its feet, that's turned in a whole fucking globe up and down, then you got a problem. And what The MOVE Organization is saying is we talkin’ about eliminating that problem. And anytime that you allow Rizzo or the system to tell you that we can't put out information given to us by JOHN AFRICA to clear up the situation, then he ain't talking about being right. 

BETH MCNAMARA: Six days later, on August 8, Janet, Delbert and ten other adults who have eleven children with them inside of MOVE headquarters refused to surrender to warrants and the eviction order. 

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A bullhorn announcement came at 06:00. A.m. Directing MOVE to surrender immediately. MOVE ignored it. 

BETH MCNAMARA: They are surrounded by police who plead with them to surrender or at the very least send out the children. They refuse. Shots are fired.

[sound of gun fire, yelling, more gunfire]

Eight police and firemen are wounded with Officer James Ramp then dying. 

MOVE finally surrenders. They are coming out of the basement windows. Janet Hollaway comes out holding two naked children, one on her back and one around her front. Neither of these children are her daughters, Shaeida or Delisha.

Delbert comes out alone and is severely beaten by police. Taken into custody on a range of charges including murder. Neither Delbert nor Janet mention their two daughters or their whereabouts. Janet and Delbert, along with seven other MOVE members, are found guilty of the murder of Officer James Ramp, shooting seven other fire and police, and a range of other charges related to August 8th. All of them are sentenced to 30 to 100 years in prison.Each.

January 1980, Richmond, Virginia. Detective Steve Dalton and Assistant Prosecutor Pat Bell are devising a plan to respond to reports of child neglect and abuse in the MOVE outpost house known as the Seed of Wisdom. This is Pat Bell. 

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PAT BELL: I get complaints for the neighbors again about these children being out there with no clothes on, digging food up out of the dirt. They weren't going to school.There were X number of kids there and so forth. Ya’ all got to do something about these kids. They look terrible. And so I went over and talked with. We were going to get a search warrant and we're going to keep the whole thing quiet.

So we organized the police department. Steve was on top of it. We had enough information from an inside guy, Sharon's boyfriend. 

BETH: Frank Cox. 

PAT BELL: Yeah.
Steve. Did he give you all the information? 

STEVE DALTON: Yes. 

BETH TO STEVE: Did he give you a map of the house and everything? 

STEVE DALTON: I think we had that, yes.

PAT BELL: See, we had rumors that there could be some of those guys in the house, in the basement that could have guns. Because this is because the guy, Sharon's boyfriend, was scared to death of them. \

BETH TO PAT: Frank was scared of MOVE? 

PAT BELL: Absolutely.

BETH MCNAMARA: January 15, 1981. One a.m. In coordination with the informant boyfriend of MOVE member Sharon Sims, Richmond PD entered the row home occupied by MOVE. 

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DETECTIVE STEVE DALTON (retired): The condition of the kids, their stomach would definitely extend. It's like somethin’ you would have seen from Ethiopia or one of the foreign countries as to the way that their bodies looked unkempt, no clothing.

PAT BELL: I guess because I was the first woman that they saw, they all flocked to me, and all these kids came running and grabbing me. And I'm standing in the middle of the floor with all these children, some crying, some begging me what was going to happen to all this kind of stuff. What's going on? I remember thinking, I can't cry. 

BETH MCNAMARA: A social worker was assigned to each one of the 14 children and was there as they were transported to the hospital for medical evaluations.

This is the report on Delisha Hollaway. 
Delisha apparent age: four to five years. 
Physical exam small, thin, protruding abdomen. Dirt caked feet on soles of feet. Three centimeter scar on top of left foot.
Developmental, age, four and a half to five years. Laboratory studies mild anemia, X rays. Bone age: between five years and five years and nine months. Prominent growth arrest lines in the ends of long bones. Slight diffuse osteoporosis.Her weight is 36 pounds. 

Delisha’s age at this time is seven and a half years old. The normal weight range for that age is 40 to 69 pounds. But the two MOVE members, Valerie Brown and Sharon Sims, are not cooperating with authorities about the age of the children, their names or the identity of their parents. All of the MOVE children taken into temporary foster care are malnourished and not where they should be for their real ages, physically or developmentally. 

Shaeida Hollaway, who would be just over the age of five at this time, is not listed as one of the 14 children taken into custody and seen at the hospital. 1980 is where Shaeida Hollaway falls off our timeline for good and we can't find her. 

The two MOVE women arrested on neglect charges, Sharon Sims and Valerie Brown, get the 14 children back on appeal and then abduct them back to Philadelphia. Six of those children end up in Osage Avenue on May 13, 1985.

And as you now know, five of them die, including Shaeida's older sister, Delisha Hollaway. Ten year old Shaeida Hollaway is not inside 6221 Osage that day. She is last known to be in Richmond, Virginia, in 1978 in the custody of Valerie Brown and Sharon Sims. As you heard earlier, Kitty Caparella in March 1986 asks MOVE. “Where is Shaeida?” And they say that's MOVE business. 

Shaeida Hollaway has been missing for 43 years. Her parents, Janet Hollaway and Delbert Orr, have not spoken her name or admitted to her existence since 1978. It's time for MOVE to talk, and it's time for the public and the press to ask MOVE “Where is Shaeida Hollaway?”.  

I have made up a missing person's graphic with a photo of Shaeida Hollaway taken from a screenshot of the WPVI footage. I'm going to put it up on our social media and ask you to share it widely, like with everyone you know using the #Where is Shaeida? And #missing in MOVE. Thanks in advance for your help. 

If you have any information about Shaeida Hollaway or want to ask us questions, give comments or suggestions that can help in our continuing investigation into the disappearance of Shaeida Hollaway, the 2002 murder of ex MOVE member John Gilbride, the allegations of child abuse and MOVE or anything else on the podcast, please email us murder at ryan's run@gmail.com or direct message us on social media.

This podcast was hosted, written, edited and produced by Me, Beth McNamara Archival Research and additional producing by Robert Helms. As always, thanks for listening and for your support. If you could rate and review the podcast, that would be awesome. If you could share it even better. For bonus content and news on the podcast, be sure to follow us on social media where Murder At Ryan's Run on everything.