Aneesa Michelle Rivera

April 1, 1991 – October 3, 2008

Aneesa was a vibrant, outgoing, caring, loving, friendly & easygoing person.  She loved to hang out with her friends and talk on the phone.  Along with that Aneesa also had some self esteem issues.  She was looking for love in all the wrong places and because of that she fell into the arms of Kenneth Barr.

Kenny told her everything she wanted to hear.  She started to run away for weeks and months at a time which caused her to stop going to school and hanging out with her friends.  She would lose all contact with her family because she knew we disapproved of her relationship with Kenny because of his controlling ways and how much he had changed her.

After about a year and a half of her going back and fourth between Kenny and her family she decided to live with me again and get her life back in order.  I signed her into a GED Program which she attended 4 days a week.  She was also in counseling twice a week.  She started to hang out with her friends again and also talking to other boys.  She was actually being a teenager again.  Aneesa started to realize that there was more to life then just Kenny.

Kenny became infatuated, angry and very obsessive almost stalkerish.  I asked him not to call my house anymore.  I also changed Aneesa’s cell phone number and even spoke to his mother and told her what was going on and for her to keep her son away from my niece.  Her response was that he was in love and there was nothing wrong with what was going on.  These were all signs of a bomb waiting to go off.

One Thursday afternoon as Aneesa was having a counseling session, Kenny called her at least 5 times within the hour and she told her counselor that she wasn’t going to speak to him anymore.  But soon after the counselor left he continued to call so Aneesa finally answered only to tell Kenny that she’s moved on with her life and that she had another boyfriend  and he insisted that she had to stay with him and that the only way he would leave her is if she was pregnant with another boys child.  So in order to get rid of him she told him that she was two months pregnant.  That enraged Kenny and that’s  when he threatened to come the next day to the house and kill her.  She laughed it off because apparently this wasn’t the first time that he has threatened her.  She told her friends not to worry because he does it all the time so everyone bypassed the threats.

The next morning on October 3^rd, 2008 I left for work and spoke to Aneesa at 7:10am to check on her and she said she was fine.  Her best friend Symone came over at 7:20 to pick up money for her ticket to homecoming the following weekend.  Aneesa had a smile on her face and pretended that everything was ok.  Soon after that she called another friend and confessed how scared she was and that he kept on calling her.  She wanted her friend to stay with her but she said that she couldn’t because her mom would find out that she cut school so Aneesa stayed in the house by herself.

At 11:31 the first of three calls came into 911 about shots being fired in the house and also one of Aneesa’s friends who knocked on the door thought Aneesa was sleeping on the couch and walked in and found her dead with a bullet in her head.

I keep on asking myself “Why”.  Why didn’t Aneesa or any of her friends that knew what was going on say something?  Aneesa and her friends bypassed all the threats, the obsessiveness and the stalking.  These are all tell tale signs of an Abusive Controlling Relationship.  Because of Aneesa’s low self esteem issues she actually liked the attention she was getting from Kenny even though it was bad attention but it was attention that she craved.  When I sat in the Interrogation Room at the police station I told them that parents are always the last to know what’s really going on.  When her friends were interrogated everything that Aneesa was hiding about the relationship was coming to light.

This could have all been prevented if Aneesa or anyone of her friends would have spoken up and said something to an adult the night before or that morning about all the death threats.  Aneesa and her friends knew everything that was going on in the relationship wasn’t right but, not to betray the trust of their friend they decided not to speak up and tell someone and look what happened to her.

Teenage Dating Abuse has become an unspoken of epidemic and awareness needs to be made to our children.  The same way you teach them about drugs, alcohol and sex this also needs to be taught.  Teenagers are being mentally, emotionally and physically abused by their significant others and they need to be taught to love themselves and that this is not a normal relationship.  Children need to understand that if they know in their hearts that something is wrong then it really is.  Aneesa knew that, but continued the relationship.  Where is she now, 17 and dead, no life, and no future.  If  I can help another family see the signs and speak with their children to avoid of this happening to them and going through the pain that my family and I have had to endure I can then be at peace with myself and know that my niece did not die in vain.