Tragedy

On July 8 I got a email from our principal saying a student at our school was found dead. There was no details on what happened in the email but when I reached out to one of my coworkers through text message she told me to look at FB page for a local scanner that gives the community I live in news about stuff that is happening because our local police and fire are encrypted  so we don’t know what’s going on. On that FB page I found out that she had went missing earlier in the day and they found her unconscious near an abandoned house.  We later found out a sex offender from another town in our state had somehow lured her and her 6 year old sister away from their house and then tried to strangle the 6 year old who was able to get away but unfortunately Destiny was not able to. They took her to the hospital where she passed away. My heart hurts so much. Destiny and her sisters weren’t the best behaved kids but who can blame them with how much trauma they had. From what I understand her dad is in prison and by the way her and her sisters came to school there was possibly neglect going on at home. Her and her younger sisters would come to school in dirty , smelly clothes very often. Unfortunately that meant that other kids were mean to them. Thankfully the monster is behind bars. It brings me back to what happened to me when I was her age. I too was almost kidnapped but thankfully in my situation the guy wasn’t able to get me. For my experience it was a Saturday morning and it had just snowed in our city. I went out to my friend’s house a few houses away from mine to go shovel one of my friend’s sidewalk outside their house. This strange man who I had never seen before snuck up near me and knelt down next to me saying either “seek the potential” or seek the prudential” not sure which I just knew he was weird and I needed to get away from him. So I didn’t say a word I just started walking away from him. I looked back and noticed he was following me. We lived in a upstairs apartment and there was porch stairs then our bottom door and then more stairs and our door to our apartment. I got through the bottom door dropped my shovel on the stairs and ran up the other stairs and slammed the door. Our kitchen was right next to the door on one side and our living room on the other. My mom was in the kitchen cleaning or eating I can’t remember. When I had come in and slammed the door she started yelling at me “what the hell is wrong with you?” I couldn’t speak I was so scared. Our top few stairs creaked when someone walked on them so you could hear the stairs creak as he neared our upstairs door. My mom said “Hello, who’s there?” No answer and then you heard the stairs creak again as he went back down them. Seeing as this was a Saturday it was our errand day except my mom did not drive so we would take the city bus. The bus stop was across the street from our house so we were waiting at the bus stop and I saw the man near our house so my mom and I walked down to the corner store on the opposite side of the street. We knew the owner of the store and he let us in and locked the door. My mom called the police. The police came and searched the neighborhood but couldn’t find him. Many years later me and my mom went to the corner store and I saw the guy. He lived in one of the apartments above the corner store. So very scary.  My heart is broken for this poor girl and her younger sister and for the other sister who lost her older sister. The school is planning on possibly getting a bus to attend her funeral because her funeral is in Chicago and I hate driving in Chicago and my husband refuses to as well. We had went to Chicago a lot when my friend Lil Michelle was there after her accident and he would get lost EVERY time. So that will be nice. I’ve also been thinking about going to the abandoned house where she was found and maybe putting up pink streamers around a pole or tree that may be in front of it or getting a pink bear or stuffed animal of some kind and putting it there.

Man charged with Rockford child’s murder is suspect in previous death; bond raised to $5M (msn.com)

Fundraiser by Whitney Rouse : PRINCESS DESTINY HUGGINS (gofundme.com)