01x07 - She Never Showed

[bunniefuu]

Please help us
bring our loved one,

my baby, home.

There was no question
about how or what or why.

It was just... she's gone.

She didn't walk away.
She's not missing.

Somebody has her.

There are some text
messages between Alyssiah

and a young man

That raised some
red flags with us.

She had made arrangements
to meet with him that night.

Like, my head is numb.

I'm automatically thinking
that he's the culprit.

She said, "Can you
please just come get me?

I need you to come
get me right now."

- Spring 2013 in Willimantic,
a former mill town

in Connecticut.

20-year-old Alyssiah Wiley

is preparing for her
sophomore year finals

at Eastern Connecticut
State University

where she is thriving.

Alyssiah adapting to
college life was great.

My name is Chaharrez Landell.

I am Alyssiah's older sister.

She loved being on her own.

She didn't have
anybody to answer to.

I mean, she enjoyed her freedom.

She had a perfect
balance of her academics

and her campus life.

My name is Sade Burke,

and I'm a close friend
of Alyssiah Wiley.

She was someone who
came off very sassy,

and she was very fashionable.

You would think that someone
like that is stuck up,

but I remember her saying,

"Hey, Sade, you're
not going to say hi?"

And that was the first
time we ever had, like,

a conversation because we
never spoke before then.

Alyssiah was born on
November 24th, 1992,

and according to her mother,

she was headstrong
from the start.

Alyssiah was determined
to come into this world,

and when I was 8
months pregnant,

Alyssiah finally decided
she couldn't wait no more.

She was so tiny.

Like, she fit in
the palm of my hand.

We used to call her Leelee

because her sister really
couldn't say Alyssiah.

She would always say A Leelee.

The third daughter of single
mother, Corrinna Martin,

Alyssiah forms a tight
bond with Chaharrez,

her older sister.

Alyssiah was the
type that would...

If she saw me liking something,
she would try it out.

We fought over
clothes because she...

I don't want to
give her a bad name,

but she was a bit of
a klepto at one point.

We loved fashion. We
loved dressing up.

That's something that we
bonded on, glamming up.

But we were there
for each other.

We were close.

Growing up, life isn't easy,

but Corrinna instills
in her daughters

the drive to overcome adversity.

Education was so important
because she was a single mom.

Making sure that we were
able to stand on our own

was a huge thing for her.

She was just like, "You
have to have an education.

I didn't go to college, but
you're going to go to college."

Alyssiah's drive
was unstoppable.

I was in awe of it.

Alyssiah's hard work pays off

with a presidential scholarship

to Eastern Connecticut
State University.

It covers tuition,
room and board.

We were ecstatic for her
to be a young Black woman

and see that people
were recognizing her

for the content of her character

and her exceptional mind.

You know, that's
huge. That's huge.

But on the night of
Saturday, April 20th,

Alyssiah's best friend
Sade is concerned

when Alyssiah never shows

to meet in her dorm room
as they had planned.

We initially started texting
I want to say around 11:00.

She's telling me
that she's walking.

She's coming to me.
She needs a drink.

We were just going to hang out.

I was waiting for,
like, a text or a call

or something that
she was coming,

and I got nothing.

Then I called her twice,

and I got no response
to that either.

But briefly for that
moment, I let it go.

I'm like, "Okay, next
week is going to come

and she has to go to class."

Monday comes, she's not there.

Not in class, anything.

So now, I'm not going to
lie, I'm really freaking out.

With her anxiety mounting,

Sade decides to seek
help the next morning.

I approach our
professor and I ask him,

"Have you seen Alyssiah?"

He's just like, "No."
He was just like, "Why?"

And I was like, "Well I
haven't seen her all weekend."

And then he side eyed me.

He was like, "Is that
normal behavior for her?"

And I was like, "No."

He was like, "Okay, well
I'm going to check to see

if she's attended
her other classes,

and then I'll get back to you."

Then later that day I get
a call from campus police

letting me know that she
was nowhere to be found

and she's been missing
for a few days.

My heart dropped because
that's when I realized

that this was no longer, like,
me just being in my head.

This was for real.

Later that day campus police
reach out to authorities

in Alyssiah's home town of
New Haven for assistance.

A knock came on the door
and my stepdad said,

"Corri, there's a policeman
here asking about Alyssiah."

And I said, "Well
she's at school.

Why are you looking
for Alyssiah?"

And he says, "Well, I was
told to do a well check."

And I was like, "A
well check, for what?

She's up at school getting
ready for finals. Why?"

And that's when they told me
that Alyssiah had been missing.

With Alyssiah now
missing for 3 days,

campus security contacts the
Connecticut State Police.

The case is assigned

to lead investigator
Sergeant Forrest Ruddy.

I was contacted to assist
the university police

with their missing
person investigation.

So a detective sergeant and
a couple of other detectives

responded to the campus.

They were assigned to
interview her roommates,

her classmates, her professors

in the classes that she was in.

Everyone was saying
the same thing,

"We haven't heard
from her in days."

So that was a
little more alarming

and I get more
detectives on the scene.

Working with university police,

investigators attempt

to track Alyssiah's movements
and uncover their first clue.

I'm Joseph T. Corradino,
States Attorney

for the Judicial
District of Fairfield.

The school was able to access
its various data systems

and they were able to document

the last time she was on campus.

The footage in
question shows Alyssiah

on the morning of
Saturday, April 20th.

We have her on
surveillance cameras

in the lobby of Occum Hall,
and then leaving the building.

We were able to recover Alyssiah

walking out of Occum Hall.

And then waiting outside,

and a black Nissan
Altima shows up...

And Alyssiah gets in there.

That raised some
red flags with us.

Shocking secrets from the past.

I didn't want her to think,
"Who else can I trust?"

So I kept it, what
she told me, I kept.

Heartbreaking regrets.

I was just crying.

That destroyed me
because it made it feel

that she was never coming back.

And the quest to decipher
Alyssiah's final moments.

She said, "I want you to know

this isn't the first
time this happened,"

and I was like,
"What do you mean?"

The story changed,
so we wanted to gain

as much information as we can.

Connecticut authorities

are investigating
the disappearance

of 20-year-old college
student Alyssiah Wiley.

When investigators inform
Alyssiah Wiley's mother

that her daughter has
been missing from campus

for 3 days, she's distraught.

It took me about 45 minutes
to convince the officer

that Alyssiah,

she's not missing, she didn't
walk away from her life.

She's not missing, she's not
missing... somebody has her.

The last time Alyssiah
was seen on campus

was on Saturday when
surveillance footage captures

her getting into an
unidentified black car.

It was obvious to us
that she knew who it was.

At that point in the
investigation it looked like,

okay, she was a
willing participant

getting into that vehicle.

The university police
department detectives

had been speaking with
the family members,

and they were in contact
with the last person

known to be seen with Alyssiah.

The family reveals that
the person in question

is her boyfriend,
Jermaine Richards,

and that the relationship
began in high school.

When she was a junior in
high school she was like,

"Hey, I started
talking to this guy."

That guy was Jermaine.
Alyssiah told me

that she was walking
home from school one day,

and he'd seen her and
approached her in a car.

That's how they met.

She just said that
she really loved him

and she did want
to start a family.

She described him as,
like, the dream guy.

After reviewing the
footage and confirming

that the vehicle
belongs to Richards,

investigators make arrangements

to question him.

Detectives had been speaking
with the family members,

and they related to us

that they were in contact
with the boyfriend, Jermaine,

and they asked him to respond
up to the police department

to assist us in
our investigation

since he was the last person

known to be seen with Alyssiah.

We're looking for help here.

We want to gain as much
information as we can.

Richards tells police

that after picking up
his girlfriend on campus

a little after noon on Saturday,

he then drove an hour and a
half southwest to Bridgeport

where they spent an uneventful
day at his mother's house.

Then he told the police he
dropped her off on campus

on that Saturday sometime
shortly before 11 p.m.

He left her at the Dairy Queen

which is about two blocks from
the main gate of the campus,

and he came back to Bridgeport.

According to Jermaine, he
hasn't heard from Alyssiah

since dropping her off.

So at the time we spoke
initially with Jermaine

we looked into his background,

he didn't really have that much

of a criminal history.

The family also had mentioned

that he was in
the nursing field.

Healthcare assistant, home
care and things like that.

In interviewing his mother,
she pretty much said

that she had seen Alyssiah
and Jermaine at her house

in Bridgeport the night before.

They were getting along,

didn't seem like
anything was wrong,

so she said there
was be no issues.

We looked into his black Altima

to see if there was
any evidence in there,

any signs of a fight

or anything broken
inside the vehicle.

There was nothing.

To track the couple's
movements on Saturday,

investigators subpoena
their cell phone records.

While they must
wait for Alyssiah's,

they immediately gain
access to Jermaine's.

Cell site data is limited.

We don't get an
exact GPS location.

We simply get a range in
which the phone may have been.

After he left her
at the Dairy Queen,

he gets on the telephone.

His cell phone was on the towers

up at Willimantic
at 11:00 p.m.,

and then there was a
45-minute phone conversation

with another friend.

He's on the telephone

almost all the way
back to Bridgeport,

so his phone is making
contact with cell towers

over the entire distance from
Willimantic back to Bridgeport.

That's a distance
of about 75 miles.

It seems Richards'
story checks out.

Jermaine Richards said he'd
dropped her off on campus,

so the police set up a
cordon around the campus

to interview any person
that came into that cordon

and ask them if
they had been out

the previous Saturday night.

Over 300 people
were interviewed.

But no one claims
to have seen her.

Investigators broaden their
search from the college campus

and find something
disturbing nearby.

My name is Daniel Tepfer.

I'm a reporter for the
"Connecticut Post" newspaper.

Just kind of an odd
population in Willimantic.

Just down the street
from the school

there was kind of a rooming
house of drug addicts

and people with
psychological problems.

So there is always
that question about

maybe somebody in that town

could have done
something to Alyssiah.

If, in fact he did
drop her off there,

some random sex offender
could have grabbed on to her,

thrown her in a car,
and then taken off.

Thrown her in a car,
and then taken off.

In the days after Alyssiah
Wiley goes missing,

investigators are looking
into the possibility

that she was abducted
after her boyfriend

claims he dropped her off on
Saturday night near campus.

If, in fact, he did
drop her off there,

some random sex offender
could have grabbed on to her,

thrown her in a car,
and then taken off.

After searching on campus,

investigators look
for possible suspects

in the neighborhoods nearby.

We checked with our
sex offender registry,

the local PDs, every police
department in that area.

We spoke to all of them.

Everyone was alibied out.

Then investigators
get their hands

on Alyssiah's cell records
and begin studying the data.

Working with the cell phone
towers and triangulation

where the phones would
plot and kind of gave us

almost like a breadcrumb of
where her activities were.

In addition to those locations,

we also had text messages
back and forth with Alyssiah

and her friends, and her family.

There was text messages
from Alyssiah's phone

bouncing off the towers
right around the university.

Based on the time
stamp of her texts,

investigators discover

that Alyssiah was
communicating with Sade

while she waited for
Jermaine to pick her up.

So for the first time,
state police seek out

Alyssiah's best friend.

A week after alerting
campus police

that Alyssiah was missing,

Sade is anxious and confused
and in a state of denial.

A lot of it was happening
when I was, like,

still trying to attend
classes or when I was,

like, locked up in my room,
like, trying to process it all.

But I didn't realize
it was serious

until I got pulled out of
class to speak to a detective.

And I just like, well, you're
pulling me out of class,

this is serious.

So I'm just, like, my head is
just nowhere at that point.

Like, my head is numb,

I don't know what
to think anymore.

Detectives ask Sade
about the text messages

she and Alyssiah exchanged
on the day she went missing,

which started that
Saturday around noon.

It was normal for
me and Alyssiah

to text all day every day,

'cause we always had
things to talk about.

I was letting her know
how everything was going

and we were just like
kind of cracking jokes.

Alyssiah then reveals
something unexpected.

Then randomly she said

that she was like
over the relationship

and she wants to be
done with Jermaine.

The text wasn't odd to
me because I feel like

I knew Alyssiah was going to
break up with Jermaine soon,

I just didn't know when.

What caught my surprise
was not the fact

that she actually was
breaking up with him,

just that she did it
sooner then I expected.

According to Sade, once
Alyssiah started college,

her relationship
with her long-term

high school boyfriend
began to change.

As me and her became closer
and the more we hung out

and the more I started to
bring her around the friends

I was around, she started
to meet other guys.

And of course they're
more studious,

they're upstanding guys,
you know what I mean?

They're in college,
Jermaine is somewhere else.

So I feel like that opened
her eyes a little bit more

to, like, the world.

There's more to life
then just Jermaine.

I feel like she
started to have, like,

a self-realization moment.

And, over time, I noticed that
she was more open to dating

or talking to other guys,
and that's what let me know,

okay, Jermaine's gonna be out
of the picture pretty soon.

I think she just said she
was just, like, over it,

like her patience is
just through with him.

Sade tells police

that she didn't hear
from her friend again

until later on that
night, around 11:00 p.m.

She's telling me that
she's at Dairy Queen

and she's walking,
she's coming to me

and the text said,

"It's over, I'm coming
over, I need a drink."

And I just replied
with, "okay."

Anxious to hear
about the breakup,

Sade anticipates Alyssiah's
arrival, but she never shows.

It's weird that she didn't
reach back out to me.

She said she was coming
and never showed up.

Something's not right.
Something's off.

The 11:03 p.m. text to Sade

is the last communication
from Alyssiah's phone.

Alyssiah's phone is
bouncing off the towers

right around the university
in the town of Willimantic.

But then the phone stops
and nowhere to be found.

However her phone
offers another clue,

a series of texts
to an unknown number

that begin that
Saturday at 4:43 p.m.

There was a former boyfriend
that she was speaking with.

She had made arrangements
to meet with him that night.

Investigators in
the Alyssiah Wiley

disappearance case
discover that while she was

spending the weekend with
her boyfriend Jermaine,

she was communicating
with another man.

There are some text messages
later in the afternoon

between Leelee and a young
man that she had known

before becoming
involved with Jermaine,

and in that set of
texts she suggests

that perhaps he could
come over that night

and asks what time
he's getting off work.

And they went back to
talk to him just to see

if he had any information
on where she could be.

The young man tells police
that Alyssiah's text messages

stopped late Saturday afternoon

and he has not heard
from her since.

He showed some real concern
for Alyssiah's whereabouts.

I mean, he really seemed
that he wanted to know

and wanted to help.

He gave us a story, we
followed through with it,

and his story checked out.

That young man worked at
a restaurant in New Haven

until 11:00 at night.

According to Jermaine
Richards at 11:00 that night

he had just dropped Leelee
off back in Willimantic.

So in effect Jermaine himself

rules that young man
out as a suspect.

When investigators learn
that Alyssiah had reached out

to an ex the same weekend

she had planned to
break up with Jermaine,

detectives reexamine
the relationship

with her long-term boyfriend.

That was very concerning to us.

We're looking for help here.

We want to gain as much
information as we can.

But when detectives try
to find out more details

on their relationship,

they're surprised
by what they find.

Her friends didn't really
know much about him.

Occasionally she would let
slip some little thing,

but he was her big secret.

A lot of her friends really
didn't understand why.

It definitely was something
that she kept under wraps.

She was in another world
when he came around.

It was like nobody else existed.

She was in love with him.

To further probe the
details of Alyssiah

and Jermaine's relationship,

detectives speak with Alyssiah's

closest ally and confidant,
her sister Chaharrez,

and she reveals an
alarming incident

that occurred a month
before Alyssiah disappeared.

She called me and she said,

"Can you please just come get
me, come get me right now.

I need you to come
get me right now!"

And then she's,
like, whispering,

and she was like, "I'm
in one of the bathrooms.

"I'm at one of his clients'
house with Jermaine

and I don't want to be here."

And I was like, "Oh, my gosh,
I'm getting up right now."

At the time the guy I was with,
I woke him up and I was like,

"We have to go get
my sister right now."

Sometime after midnight,

the couple drove 45 minutes
to pick up Alyssiah.

Leelee came out of the house.

She appeared to her
sister and brother-in-law

to be very nervous, very
upset and very fearful.

They took her home that night.

And I'm like, "What happened?"

And she's like, "I was
just trying to talk to him,

and he just got so mad,

and he put me on the bed, and
he was like smothering me.

He was, like,
choking me and, like,

he started fighting me and
I don't even know why."

She said,

"I want you to know this isn't
the first time this happened."

And I was like,
"What do you mean?"

And she was like, "This
isn't the first time

that he's, like, put
his hands on me."

And I said, "Well you don't
have to tell me everything.

You don't have to if you don't
want to, but I'm here for you."

And she just got up and walked
back into the living room,

and we went to sleep.

Despite the encounter,
Alyssiah had difficulty

breaking the alleged
cycle of abuse.

There was a night that she
stayed with me during that week

and we woke up and she was gone.

She came back in the
house and we were like,

"Where did you go?"

And she said she went to
go meet with Jermaine.

At that point I was so
pissed because I'm like,

"This guy was suffocating you,
like, he's trying to harm you

and I don't want you
to go down this road."

She didn't want to hear that.

I think a lot of
people remain silent

when it comes to
intimate partner violence

and domestic violence
and teen dating violence

because they love the
person that they're with,

there is this thought that
this person will change

and they will make changes and
it will never happen again.

The violence will
never happen again.

And so they hang their hopes
on that particular thought,

"You know, that it did
happen, I know it happened,

but, you know, he said
he's going to change."

I didn't want to lose her
to me running my mouth.

Like, I didn't want her to
think, "Okay, now I told her

"and now she's going to
go and tell everybody else

and then now I'm just going to
go back to the same situation

because who else can I
trust?" So I kept it.

What she told me I kept...

until one day she was gone.

The race to find Alyssiah.

As time stretches on,

the chances of somebody
being found alive...

they're not good.

A family torn apart.

As a mom that was the
most excruciating part,

just because there's
just so much raw emotion.

And the chilling trail to
Alyssiah's final moments.

It wasn't a saw,
it wasn't an axe.

It was a knife.

My mind went completely blank.

I started to hyperventilate.

[c]

When Alyssiah's sister
Chaharrez tells investigators

that Jermaine tried
to strangle her sister

a month before she disappeared,

they are alarmed.

With the domestic violence...

Obviously, the story changed.

So we continued our
investigation then.

Police feared that
Alyssiah's intent

to break up with
Jermaine that weekend

may have triggered
a violent reaction.

When detectives
reach out to him,

he refuses to come in
for further questioning.

So that was very concerning
to us because here we think,

okay, you're the boyfriend.

You should show some type
of concern for her safety

and assist the police,

so that raised some
red flags with us.

- Then about two weeks
into the searches,

one of the detectives that
was assigned to our case

said to me, "You know,

Chaharrez had told us

she went to go and
pick up Alyssiah,

and, um...

and he tried to strangle her."

And as a mom, that was the
most excruciating part.

I wasn't aware of the whole
incident with Alyssiah

and Jermaine.

Alyssiah never
brought it up to me,

and it broke my heart
hearing about that situation.

I'm automatically thinking
that Jermaine is the culprit.

Maybe he took her.

With no concrete evidence,
police turn to the family

in hopes of putting
pressure on Jermaine.

The family of a college
student who has been missing

for more than a week

is reaching out to
the public for help.

The detectives,

they asked me to
talk to the media.

They wanted to set up
for a press conference.

We were all scrambling,
trying to figure out

how do we get to him and I said,

"Listen, I don't
know what to say."

And they were like,

"Just don't specifically
talk about Jermaine,

but you can talk as if
you're talking to him,"

and that's what I did.

We need for anybody
who knows something,

and I know there's
someone out here who does,

to come forward.

Please help us bring our
loved one, my baby, home.

To try and beg someone...

To try and beg someone
not to hurt your child...

So, yeah, I just...

But you do what you
have to do as a mother,

and I would have
done anything...

Anything...

For her to be able to come home.

Sorry.

People were out trying
to find Alyssiah.

But, as time stretches on,

the chances of somebody
being found alive are...

they're not good.

And in this case, I mean,

we were going from days
to weeks to months now.

I was just crying.

That destroyed me

'cause it made it feel like
she was never coming back.

To focus their efforts
to find Alyssiah,

investigators search
along the route he drove

on the night she disappeared.

She's last seen in Bridgeport
with Jermaine Richards.

And her school is
in Willimantic.

It's important to understand
that in figuring out

what happened on the
night she disappeared.

On May 17th, a month after
Alyssiah went missing,

a search party
summons Sergeant Ruddy

to a location near Bridgeport.

So we get down there,
it's like a cul-de-sac.

We walked into the woods,
observed what we had...

Partial human remains.

It was essentially
an arm and a leg

in substantial state
of decomposition.

And once you realize that
these are human bones...

Of course the question is,

"Well, what happened to
the rest of the body?"

A DNA test later confirms

the victim is Alyssiah Wiley.

While examining her remains,

investigators draw a
chilling conclusion.

The medical examiner
determined that

those remains had
been disarticulated

by an edged instrument.

It wasn't a saw, it wasn't
an axe... it was a knife.

That's a skill set that
one who knows human anatomy

would have to have.

Jermaine Richards completed
the course of study

prescribed for a
licensed practical nurse.

Among the things that he needed
to know was human anatomy.

The area where the remains were

was actually about a mile
and a half from his house.

This has now gone from
missing person case

to horrendous m*rder case.

Soon after the discovery,

investigators make
a difficult call.

They told me

that, "We're sorry to
inform you, but..."

"It wasn't a body
that we found."

My mind went completely blank.

I started to hyperventilate.

Not only did he m*rder her...

He threw my baby
away like trash.

And I just remember I
just started bawling.

I just couldn't take it.

To build a case
against Richards,

investigators
reexamine his alibi

for the day Alyssiah
disappeared.

The discovery of Leelee's
remains exploded his story

about taking her
back to Willimantic.

Why would the defendant

drive her all the
way to Willimantic

only to leave her off two
blocks from the school?

The added twist to this is
that she had texted her friends

at college that she
was on her way back

after breaking up with Jermaine,

and that added to the mystery.

And we have no idea who
sent texts to Sade Burke.

In all likelihood,

it was not Leelee
sending those texts.

On May 17, 2013,
police issue a warrant

for Jermaine Richards' arrest.

Tonight police say Jermaine
Richards of Bridgeport

has surrendered to police.

- They say that Richards
is charged with m*rder

as well as kidnapping
in the first degree.

But district attorney
Joe Corradino

must overcome
daunting challenges

to secure a conviction.

There's no glove,
there's no knife,

there's no smoking g*n.

There's no blood
stains, there's no DNA.

All the things that
normally you would find

in a m*rder scene,
there is nothing.

There was a genuine concern
that Jermaine Richards

was going to get
away with this crime.

In the absence of
physical evidence

linking Jermaine Richards

to the m*rder of Alyssiah Wiley,

the prosecution zeroes
in on a trial strategy.

The prosecution took a
completely different tack.

Our focus was on the issue
of domestic violence.

It was important for the jury

to consider what was happening
in that relationship.

It's not easy to
leave a relationship,

it's not easy to get out.

When you're in it, you don't
truly understand the dynamics.

People forget that
intimate partner violence

is not just physical.

It's emotional,
it's psychological.

We all need to understand

that the most fatal time
for anyone getting out

of a domestically
a*usive relationship

is the leaving.

I didn't teach my girls that.

I didn't know.

After presenting their
domestic violence-driven case,

the prosecution rests

and the jury announces
they've reached a verdict.

I remember, I was sitting
with Corrinna, we were, like,

holding each other's
hands the entire time.

We were both super nervous,

we didn't know what
was going to happen.

And then the foreman
said, "Guilty."

And it was like a
breath of fresh air.

It was just, "Thank God,"
the entire time, like,

I was just so happy, I
prayed so hard, so much.

Like, that's all I
could do was be happy.

Like, finally.

Finally.

Jermaine Richards is
sentenced to 60 years

without the
possibility of parole

for the m*rder of
Alyssiah Wiley.

In the wake of the trial,
Corrinna sets out on a mission

to share her hardship and
honor her beloved daughter.

The horrific loss
of her daughter

didn't paralyze her.

It didn't numb her.

What it did was
it motivated her.

We started a
nonprofit organization

called "Mothers of
Victims Equality"

to bring up awareness

about different scenarios
of domestic violence.

Not just on those that
are going through it,

but also the family members
and the community as a whole.

Years later, Chaharrez
recalls the final moments

she spent with her sister,

a few weeks before
she was k*lled

and a heated exchange

about Alyssiah's
relationship with Jermaine.

We just got into this,
like, huge argument,

you know, and she was like,

"I'm so sick of this,
I'm so tired of this."

I couldn't understand
what was happening inside.

We were arguing and it was
like it was not something

that we haven't done
before and it was burning.

I've never felt like that
when I've argued with her,

and I was like, "I
don't feel right

letting her go, like,
us parting like this."

And I was like, "Okay,
well, I'm sorry,"

and she was like,
"I'm sorry too."

And we hugged, and
that was, like,

my last face-to-face with her.

For Sade, she
remembers the spirit

that radiated through the texts

Alyssiah sent in
her final moments.

She wasn't a victim.

She was a person that had life.

She was someone who was strong.

She was someone who was trying
to get out of the situation,

Which is why I
always tell women,

whenever they're dating men,

is to make sure you love
yourself first and foremost.

- She was driven.
Like, she was doing it.

She was going for the goal.

And for that to just...

so horrifically be
snatched away...

It just... it just hurts,
you know, it hurts, so...