In the aftermath of a pregnant woman being shot to death, survivors are saying that violence is not the answer. | Pixabay
In the aftermath of a pregnant woman being shot to death, survivors are saying that violence is not the answer. | Pixabay
Friends and family remembered Nakea Brooks as a life cut too short...and for what?
"She was someone who was born and raised in Fayetteville at Cape Fear Valley,” cousin Jessica Gordon said in a WTVD news report this week. “She was a mother, a daughter and friend.”
Brooks was one of two persons who were shot and killed Monday morning, the report said. One was pronounced dead at the scene, the other in a hospital not long after.
The suspect, Rhaim Santiago, died the day after the slayings, crashing his vehicle in Smithfield after a police pursuit that had him shooting at officers.
Brooks was two months pregnant at the time of her death.
“Her life was taken and that child's life was taken,” Gordon said. “Senselessly. Heartlessly. Cruel.”
The loss of a loved one in a violent crime is always tragic, but this one even more so as Brooks left behind a small child in addition to the one she was carrying.
She had dropped off her 5-year-old daughter, McKenzie, with a relative before she went to spend time with her boyfriend, Marshellous Braddy, who was the father of the child she would have borne in seven months. Braddy, 33, was the other victim in the shooting.
“She knew something was wrong when Brooks didn't come back to get her daughter,” Tisha Mack told WTVD, referring to Brooks’ mother. “She already knew something had happened.”
The loved ones Brooks left behind are making a plea, saying that violence isn’t the answer.
"Stop killing one another that's' my message,” Gordon said. “I want us to get help and therapy so another 5-year-old girl doesn't have to grow up without her mother like McKenzie will have to.”
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