By COURTNEY CHENNAULT
This week, the disappearance of Carl Conyers, son of John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), the longest-serving active member of the House of Representatives, is calling the attention of many.
According to CNN, Conyers, a student at the University of Houston, went missing after a series of mysterious events. To enhance the story and likely increase reader interest, CNN laid out the facts as if they were puzzle pieces begging to be assembled by the reader.
The first part of the report is entitled, “Message from Conyers’ account: ‘I’m OK.” In this section, CNN reported that Daisha Lewis, Conyers’ girlfriend, went to Conyers’ home on Wednesday and noticed that Conyers’ clothes were next to his backpack with his wallet, an envelope filled with pictures, and his primary phone charging. Conyers and his second phone were not there.
The next day, Lewis was still at Conyers’ home when she received a message from him via Twitter that said, “I’m OK.” Soon after, Conyers’ told Lewis and their friends to meet him on campus. While on their way to campus, Lewis felt suspicion regarding Conyers’ message and decided to return to his home, where she discovered Conyers’ ID and debit card were newly missing. Furthermore, clothes from his dresser and his house keys were gone.
In the next section, “He suddenly shaved his beard,” CNN reported that Conyers suddenly shaved a beard he had been growing for a year.
The third section, “A second phone,” reveals a very interesting observation. According to CNN, Lewis discovered that the IP address for the aforementioned tweets that Conyers sent her was the same as Conyers’ apartment Wi-Fi. She stated that Conyers, or someone else, could have been tweeting on this second phone, which had been missing from the start, in the parking lot of the apartment while Lewis was inside.
The sections continue in the same intriguing fashion and inform the reader that no suspicious activity was discovered in Conyers’ bank account, social media platform, etc.
Finally, CNN stated that the FBI is helping authorities in the search for the 21-year-old student.
This article pulls the reader in and almost encourages him to make speculations about what happened. As a result, it is likely that the reader will actively stay tuned as the investigation continues.
This story is particularly interesting to me as I am familiar with the Conyers family. We are from the same community, I went to school with Conyers’ cousins and I have many mutual friends with Conyers himself. I certainly hope he is safe and returns home soon.