Billboards are a simple and clever way to advertise on busy highways by targeting motorists.
It is a marketing tool that attracts businesses in need of closure and grieving families. Three billboards outside the 2017 film Missouri Ebb cover this theme. The fictional Mildred Hayes details her daughter’s unsolved murder by placing billboards around town to shame the local police department into action.
Director Martin McDonagh came up with the idea while traveling in Texas, where he saw a huge roadside sign placed by the anguished parents of a murdered woman. McDonald can’t remember the exact location of the signs, but they bear a striking resemblance to the case of Kathy Page of Vito, Texas.
Since the film’s release, many families have raised their appeals, hoping that the raging traffic below will provide an answer. Here’s a look at the Millbrook Twins murder on a billboard.
Fifteen-year-old twins Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook vanished after buying snacks at a gas station in Augusta, Georgia. Police were reluctant to investigate what they believed were two runaways, and the case went cold.
By 2019, a documentary called “The Disappearance of the Millbrook Twins” was aired on Oxygen.com, which exposed police failings in the case and racist attitudes toward the African American Millbrook family.
Subscribers to “The Fall Line” podcast (which also featured the story), in addition to private donors, raised funds to pay for a billboard featuring the girls’ photo and an $11,000 reward for information.
Donations continue to fund the $400 monthly rent for the billboard which overlooks a major highway in Augusta.
