By “I was abducted by two black men” I meant I’m going to Disney World.

In the frantic call, Sweeten said two men had bumped her 2005 GMC Denali, carjacked her and stuffed her in the trunk of a dark Cadillac. She implied that her daughter was with her in the trunk, according to Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore, who listened to tapes of the calls.

Sweeten, who is white, described her assailants as black but otherwise gave few details about their appearance, Vanore said.

“It was pretty generic,” he said.

Notably, the article doesn’t mention the whole “black men abducted  me” until midway down the page. The media swarmed over this story and it went national quickly–although it seems the sensational nature of the crime was due in part to the whole black abductors. Now the local stations all want to discuss the racial implications of how fast the media jumped all over the story and believed it even when investigators didn’t.

So what does it mean that after Susan Smith and Charles Stuart people still buy “a black guy did it” as a plausible explanation?