Her family’s quest for the truth about her long-lost sibling is the basis of a new podcast.
When Tonya Mosley’s cell phone rang in 2004, she was a young reporter working in Louisville, Kentucky.
Mosley recounts that this unexpected call from a stranger named Antonio Wiley was different. First, she discovered Wiley was her nephew. Then, he revealed that she had a sister—his mom—who had gone missing 17 years earlier and was likely dead. The mystery deepened.
“That phone call opened up a world that I knew at some point I would be connected to,” says Mosley, who grew up with her mother in Detroit but had always been curious about her absent father’s family. “[I knew] the day would come when I would receive a call that would give me an understanding of these other parts of myself.”
Two decades later, Mosley, now the cohost of NPR’s Fresh Air, has transformed her nephew’s search for answers about his mom into a new podcast, She Has a Name. This 10-part series blends memoir with true-crime investigation, unraveling a mystery while telling the fuller story of 29-year-old Anita Wiley.
A single mother struggling with drug addiction, Anita disappeared in the summer of 1987 during Detroit’s troubled times.
“She was a wonderful mother. But she was human,” says Antonio, now 51. “She was trying to provide for her family in a changing world.”
Through her podcast, Mosley—now a married mother of two living in Los Angeles—better understood that no one is just one thing.
“[My sister] was headstrong but also soft and feminine,” Mosley reflects. “It’s easy to lose sight of humanity when addiction takes over.”
“Stories like Anita’s need to be told,” says Mosley. “We’re using this platform to give a voice to the voiceless and help families find peace.” Antonio, who works in Detroit’s automotive industry, adds, “We wanted to share our journey and help others find healing.”
The last conversation Antonio had with Anita occurred shortly before her disappearance. As she helped him pack for a weekend visit with his cousins, Antonio recalls her saying, “Enjoy yourself. Have a good sleepover.”
When family brought him back home, Anita was nowhere to be found. A missing person’s report was soon filed, but her case went cold. Antonio moved in with his father and aunts.
“It felt like my heart had been torn out,” Antonio recalls. “But it also gave me purpose: to grow up and find my mother.”
Over the years, Antonio became obsessed with discovering what happened to Anita. He spoke with detectives, dug through records, and talked to friends and family, never giving up hope.
Antonio reached out to Mosley in 2004 through their father, who Mosley had recently started speaking to again. Mosley had always suspected her father had other children. Growing up, she would dream of having a beautiful big sister named Anita.
After connecting, Mosley and Antonio kept in touch, meeting whenever she returned to Detroit. Antonio continued his search for Anita. In 2016, he informed Mosley that he had submitted his DNA to a new program aimed at identifying the numerous John and Jane Does buried in the city’s cemeteries.
“It sounded like a great idea,” Mosley recalls, hoping it would lead to some answers.
Four years later, in 2020, Antonio finally got the news he had been seeking for over three decades. A body labeled “Unknown Woman 1987”—discovered charred in a vacant Detroit house shortly after Anita’s disappearance—was identified as his mother, thanks to his DNA.
Antonio, now a father of five, quickly organized a memorial. “I was able to secure her headstone,” he says. “Now she really does have a name.”
Though some painful questions remain—authorities believe Anita was killed, making her one of Detroit’s 686 homicide victims in ’87—but they don’t know who did it or why. Just finding her has brought peace to her son.
“This sense of being made whole,” Antonio shares, “feels phenomenal.”
