SCOTT, La. (KLFY) – The Village 337 is putting the spotlight back on missing Scott woman, Ella Goodie. The 33-year-old was last seen on March 9 of this year.

Her family says that she was driving a passenger to Houston. The next week, Brandon Francisco, 36, was named as a person of interest and believed to be the last person in contact with Goodie.

On March 25, Francisco was arrested on unrelated charges, however, in May, Louisiana State Police (LSP) said they were investigating Goodie’s disappearance as a homicide.

Since then, there has been no new information released.

A spokesperson for The Village 337 said that if Goodie was white, she would have been found by now.

As Ella’s 34th birthday was this week, her family hoped she would be back home celebrating with them. Instead, Friday will mark six months since they last saw her.

“How do you celebrate the birthday of a person you haven’t seen in 6 months without them? You can’t talk to them. You don’t know where they are. You can’t go to a headstone or a grave. You don’t even know if there is one to be prepared,” said President and Director of The Village 337 Devon Norman.

He said that he questions why Ella’s family still has no answers.

“I think that it’s apparent that when somebody who is not a person of color dies in this community or goes missing or vanishes out of nowhere and there is a person of interest, there’s so much work to be done to make sure we find out who it is and that this person is brought to justice. That doesn’t happen for us.”

Norman told News 10 that if Ella wasn’t black, things would be different.

“I think the world would have responded differently if Ella was white,” he said. “If people had not seen her face, I wonder how much quicker they would have been ready to respond.”

In May, LSP announced they were now investigating Ella’s disappearance as a homicide, with Francisco, the person of interest in her disappearance, still in custody.

Her family hoped they would get answers, but they were wrong.

“If there are answers, if he has spoken, how is it that the community does not know? There’s no way, not in 2022, not in this America,” Norman added.

Norman believes Francisco holds the answers to Ella’s whereabouts. While state police tell News 10 that they can’t release any more information on the case, Norman questions why.

“If you’re in the profession of protecting and serving people, I’m not saying anybody is doing their job wrong, but maybe there is more that can be done. I think transparency is key. If there’s nothing, assure the public,” he said.

As for Francisco, Norman has one message for him.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” Norman said.

Francisco is scheduled to go to trial in Rapides Parish on October 10 for an unrelated attempted second-degree murder charge from 2018. This week, the Louisiana Supreme Court also ruled that the prosecuting attorneys could not present evidence from a prior attempted murder charge, in which Francisco pled guilty to stabbing his ex-girlfriend nearly 20 times.