The body of Desheena Kyle, a Knoxville, Tennessee, woman who'd been missing for three months, was identified Thursday.
An activist who helped lead the search for Kyle told Insider that coverage of the Gabby Petito case initially felt like a "slap in the face."
But Petito's case also helped the search efforts because it provided an example of how a police investigation is "supposed to go," the activist said.
The outsized national attention Gabby Petito's disappearance drew was both insulting and a blessing for a Knoxville, Tennessee, activist who helped organize the search for Desheena Kyle, a woman who'd been missing for three months.
"When we saw that happen it was just like, 'well damn,'" Fahd Wali, who leads a community organization called Protect Our People, told Insider. "It was just like a slap in the face really."
Kyle's grandmother reported her missing on June 28, and the 26-year-old was last seen at her apartment in Knoxville ten days earlier. Community members came together for weeks to search for Kyle until police recovered her body on Tuesday. The manner of death has been ruled a homicide.
Kyle's boyfriend, Joshua Bassett, had been named a person of interest in her disappearance and the Knoxville Police Department told Insider that Bassett is now a person of interest in her death. Bassett is currently in jail facing unrelated probation violation, gun and drug charges, according to police.
Wali said Protect Our People, which is meant to stand in the gaps between the Black community in Knoxville and police, organizes children's programs, gun safety training, and employment assistance. So when Kyle went missing this summer, Protect Our People naturally stepped up to lead the search for her.
Kyle's family had tried to get the word out about her disappearance for months with little success, so Petito's case initially frustrated them and Wali.
"We reached out to the TV station and we got some news coverage on it but you know how it goes," he said. "The light is on for a second, but then they say you know, 'Here comes some more news,' and it's out of the way."
News organizations around the country reported on Petito's disappearance, sparking a national conversation around "Missing White Woman Syndrome." Petito's own father called for more media coverage of other missing persons cases and implored the public to take an interest in solving them.
But Wali said that Petito's disappearance also helped the search for Kyle, because it provided an example of how a police investigation was "supposed to go." In the months after Kyle's disappearance, the community's perception of the Knoxville Police Department's efforts to find her was not good, according to Wali.
"I just know what we see on national TV," he said. "As far as when somebody goes missing, you put a search party out and the community and the family is notified, and that hadn't happened here."
Knoxville police spokesman Scott Erland told Insider the department devoted "hundreds of hours" to the Kyle case before community interest increased. The department spent much of its time searching for Kyle, compiling evidence, and interviewing people for information about the case, he said.
"All that being said, we understand the community's frustration and recognize that the vast majority of the work that we have done on the case has gone unseen," Erland said.
Wali said when he saw how much attention Petito's case was getting, he put out a message on Facebook asking for people to help search for Kyle and got an overwhelming response.
"It just took off bigger than we expected," Wali said.
In his telling, the Knoxville Police Department intensified their search only after the community efforts led by Protect our People ramped up.
"All we wanted to do was put light on it so they could move on it," Wali said.
"We hope with this in the future - and God willing it will never happen again - but if anybody in our community goes missing, Black or white, rich or poor, that they'll get out there and do what they're supposed to do," he added.
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