http://select.nytimes.com/search/res...AC0894DE404482NEW JERSEY WEEKLY DESK
Talk of the Town (a Small Brazilian Town)
By SETH KUGEL (NYT) 1242 words
Published: May 28, 2006
NEWARK - SINCE 22 year-old Carla Vicentini disappeared in Newark on Feb. 9, Karlos Kohlbach has written more than 35 newspaper articles about her case. One of the nation's most popular television shows ran a segment on it. And a Senate commission held a hearing.
It was not here that all this happened, but in Ms. Vicentini's native Brazil. Mr. Kohlbach is a reporter for Gazeta do Povo, or People's Gazette, in her home state of Paraná. The television show, Fantástico, is a Sunday night must-watch on the Brazilian network Globo. And the Senate hearings were in Brasília.
By contrast, the mainstream American news media have barely touched the story. The Star-Ledger did one small article and, at least as far as anyone involved in the case knows, television news never mentioned it at all.
All of which raises the question: why would something that happened in the Ironbound section of Newark -- a city of about 300,000 people -- be a huge national story thousands of miles away and yet be virtually ignored where it took place?
Mr. Kohlbach, the reporter, said the case was a natural for the Brazilian press. ''There are so many Brazilians coming to the United States,'' he said, ''and it's common for them to be deported or imprisoned, but disappearances are not so common. The story broke away from the typical profile of 'he was deported, he was put in jail.' She was legal.''
But he could not explain why he could find barely any information in the English-language news media. Instead, he followed the coverage through Portuguese-language newspapers in Newark.
Indeed, efforts by a dedicated but makeshift team to get more mainstream coverage faltered. One problem: her two biggest English-speaking advocates were in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Charlotte, N.C.
Family and friends wonder if things would have been different if she had had family members who could speak English, or who lived in Newark and thus could bang on doors to publicize -- and humanize -- the case.
Still, it seemed compelling: Ms. Vicentini had arrived from the small city of Goioerê on a work exchange program, a dream trip to the United States that would allow her to work here temporarily. A photograph from a going-away party shows a beaming blonde in a red blouse and white shorts, surrounded by friends and looking even younger than 22.
But things did not go as planned. She was assigned to work at a White Castle restaurant in Dover and share a small motel room with several other women in the program. Unhappy, she went with a new friend, a Brazilian named Eduarda Ribeiro, to Newark.
She and Ms. Ribeiro moved into the living room of an apartment owned by a family acquaintance, 70-year-old Jose Fernandes, who owned businesses in both Goioerê and Newark. Both she and her friend quickly got jobs in Newark restaurants. She called her mother every day to keep her up to date.
Four days later, she disappeared. On the cold snowy night of Feb. 9, after her shift ended, she came by the Adega Bar & Grill, Ms. Ribeiro's workplace. Employees in the lounge remember her staying until around closing time, 3 a.m., but the story gets confusing from there.
Did she leave with a man named Antonio, who Ms. Ribeiro told reporters had been buying Ms. Vicentini drinks? If so, why were her wallet, passport and jacket found in her apartment just a few blocks down Ferry Street? Who called Mr. Fernandes's cellphone a few days later and screamed for help?
Still, people disappear all the time. Fifteen of the missing-persons cases reported to the Newark police this year are still open. More than 450 people have been reported missing, most juvenile runaways.
Not everyone makes the news.
But in this case, it was not for lack of trying. The lack of coverage ''really, really ticks me off,'' said Joan Scanlon-Petruski, who runs the Kristen Foundation, a nonprofit organization in North Carolina that provides support for families of missing adults. She has been regularly contacting cable news programs to cover the case.
Ms. Scanlon-Petruski became involved when she was contacted by Renata Ribeiro (no relation to Eduarda), a fluent English speaker who lives in Belo Horizonte, far from Goioerê. Ms. Ribeiro had been touched by national Brazilian coverage of the case and contacted the family, almost immediately becoming their advocate, interpreter and friend. Ms. Ribeiro found Ms. Scanlon-Petruski's organization on the Internet.
And in Brazil, the news media kept coming. The F.B.I. was joining the investigation? Article. Ms. Vicentini's parents were taking sleeping pills to get through the nights? Another article. The two-month anniversary of her disappearance? Another article. A psychic posts a supposed message from beyond the grave from her on the Internet? Well, not such big news in Brazil, but front-page news in the Newark-based Portuguese-language Brazilian Voice.
Ms. Vicentini's advocates have not only criticized the mainstream American news media, but also the Brazilian Consulate in Manhattan, which they accuse of not pursuing the case actively. The Brazilian consul general, Jose Alfredo Graça Lima, said in a telephone interview that three or four staff members had been working diligently on the case and ''are in contact with the family and with the local authorities.''
But he was not aware of the recent Senate commission hearing in Brazil about the case, which itself made news, and Ms. Vicentini's mother, Tânia Vicentini, said that until recently two months had passed without a word from the consulate.
On April 29, Carla Vicentini turned 23. It was a difficult day for her mother. ''I told my family and friends, don't remind me it's her birthday,'' Tânia Vicentini said. ''This month has a 28th and a 30th, but no 29th. I'll only remember that day when I have her back.''
The family is working under the assumption that she is alive. Hermes Parcianello, a Brazilian federal deputy who represents the Vicentinis' hometown and is the equivalent to a United States representative, said the Newark police had told him that Ms. Vicentini could have been kidnapped as a sex slave.
In an e-mail response to questions, Detective Hubert Henderson, a Newark Police Department spokesman, declined to speculate about what happened, but said that the investigation is being handled by the Major Crimes Squad, including two Portuguese-speaking detectives. ''We never lose hope that a case will be resolved,'' he wrote.
Earlier this month, concerned that there was not much movement in the case, Tânia Vicentini decided to come to New York on a visa rushed through by American officials. She arrived in Newark on Friday morning, May 19, accompanied by Mr. Parcianello, Ms. Ribeiro and Mr. Kohlbach, the reporter. And indeed, things began to happen.
Mr. Lima, the consul general, met with her, announcing that a lawyer had been hired to represent the family, something the family had long sought. The police and managers from the Adega met with her at length. The Star-Ledger sent its reporter out again.
But the story still resonates far more in Brazil. On May 20, Ms. Vicentini walked down Ferry Street, where her daughter lived ever so briefly. The mother's big, expressive eyes, remarkably like her daughter's, brimmed with tears as she stood in front of the Adega, where Ms. Vicentini had last been seen. ''I think I'm going to explode,'' she said.
No television cameras were rolling; there was just Mr. Kohlbach, snapping digital shots for Gazeta do Povo back in Paraná.
Photos: Carla Vicentini, before she moved to the United States, at her going away party in Brazil. She eventually moved to Newark, where she disappeared on Feb. 9.; The Adega Bar & Grill in Newark, where Carla Vicentini, left, was last seen. (Photo by Dith Pran/The New York Times)
