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‘Heinous Atrocity’: N.Y. Lesbian Couple, Two Children Brutally Murdered

Posted on | December 30, 2017 | 1 Comment

Left to right: Shanta Myers, Brandi Mells, Jeremiah Myers, Shanise Myers.

News from Troy, N.Y.:

Police are working to try and unravel the mystery of who killed a woman, her partner and her two young children, whose bodies were found in a riverfront apartment house the day after Christmas.
“After being in this business for 43 years, I can’t describe the savagery of a person who would do this,” said Troy Police Chief John Tedesco.
Police on Thursday identified the victims as Shanta Myers, 36; Brandi Mells, 22; Jeremiah Myers, 11; and Shanise Myers, 5. Shanta Myers, the mother of both children, was in a relationship with Mells, the police chief said. Investigators declined to confirm the method of death or any details regarding the scene of the crime.
Tedesco declared during a news conference that the killings were “not a random act,” but wouldn’t say why he believed that was the case.
A property manager found the bodies Tuesday after being asked to check on the welfare of the residents of the apartment, one of five in a house located in the city’s Lansingburgh section along the Hudson River just north of Albany, police said.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that a person who committed this crime is capable of anything,” Tedesco said, adding that police don’t believe there was an imminent danger to the public.
Police didn’t know when the slayings occurred, but Tedesco said he hoped autopsies being conducted Wednesday would provide clues. State police were involved in the investigation along with New York parole officials, Tedesco said.
“This will be a full-court press, if you will, until we bring someone to justice,” he said, adding that police were seeking any information the public may have about the crime. . . .
“This heinous atrocity is unimaginable, incomprehensible. I believe it affects the whole community,” said the Rev. Jackie Robinson, pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Troy, who did not know the family. “Kids are traumatized. A lot of adults are traumatized too, because this monster is still out there.”

The Albany Times-Union reported that “all four of the victims were bound, with their throats cut.” The basement apartment where this occurred was in a large home that had been subdivided into five apartments. We must ask how four people could be tied up and murdered — and no one in the other apartments heard anything at the time — if there was only one killer. The police say this crime was not “random,” but neither have police suggested that the murder of a black lesbian couple and their children was a “hate crime.”

When I was tipped to this story by my brother Kirby, my immediate suspicion was that this must be a personal crime, perhaps perpetrated by the father of one of Ms. Myers’ children. But then Kirby suggested another possibility: MS-13. Could this be gang-related violence? Earlier this year, for example, police say four men were hacked to death in a New York park by MS-13 in what was described as an “initiation” for gang members. And the Rensselaer County Sheriff warned in July that MS-13 could be a problem in their area. But this is only speculation, however.

What do we actually know about the victims? The younger woman, Ms. Mells, dropped out of high school in a town near Syracuse in 2013. Ms. Myers was originally from North Carolina, and moved to Troy in 2011:

Myers was described by friends and family as a “great mother” who took her kids to school and picked them up every day, once worked at a homeless shelter, and had been toiling at a fast-food restaurant to support her kids.
“She was just a very sweet, sweet girl,” Equasia Watson, 30, who lived on the same floor of a River Street housing complex where Myers and her children previously resided, told The Post.
“I knew her from when she moved here from down South,” she said. “My son played with her son. We had dinners together. She took her kids to school. She went to work. She got her kids from school. She was always with them kids. She was a great mother.”
Myers’ sister told Spectrum News that Mells, who began dating Myers three years ago after the two met at a bar, loved Jeremiah and Shanise very much and treated them as her own.
“[Mells] was a little person, but her heart was bigger than she was,” close pal Dria Hector told NBC News, noting how Mells had dwarfism.
“She was very real. She spoke the truth. She was a sweet person, but she could have her bad days, like we all do.”

Myers had an older son, Isaiah, 15, who survived because he was away at a basketball tournament at the time his family was murdered.

There is an element of mystery about this “heinous atrocity.” Who committed this crime and what was the motive? And why haven’t feminists called attention to this act of “violence against women”? We must await developments in the police investigation, but let me go on record with my own hunch: The perpetrators were not Trump voters.

UPDATE: TWO MEN CHARGED IN MURDER OF LESBIAN COUPLE, TWO CHILDREN

 

Category: Crime, Violence Against Women

Comments

One Response to “‘Heinous Atrocity’: N.Y. Lesbian Couple, Two Children Brutally Murdered”

  1. TWO MEN CHARGED IN MURDER OF LESBIAN COUPLE, TWO CHILDREN : The Other McCain
    December 30th, 2017 @ 1:07 pm

    […] As previously reported here, the victims were Shanta Myers, 36, her girlfriend Brandi Mells, 22, and two of Ms. Myers’ […]