Only Two Weeks: The Killing of Vontisha “Sway” Williams

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My little sister got stuck.
My little sister got stuck.

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Your little sister shot.
Yes, yes, yes.

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She's bleeding out side in her
head.

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Before anybody says her name in
a headline, this is how the

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public first meets what happened
inside that house.

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Not through her smile.
Not through the stories her

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family tells about the way she
loved.

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Not through the business she
built or the people she fed or

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the children she carried.
Through panic.

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Through a voice inside a home on
Northwest Blvd. begging somebody

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to come fast enough to interrupt
a nightmare.

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It is just before 1:40 in the
morning in Warren, OH.

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Somebody from inside that house
calls 911.

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A little sister has been shot.
A mother has been shot.

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By the time police arrive, two
people are wounded.

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A woman named Vantisha Monique
Williams will not survive.

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Imagine this.
You finally get a place that

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feels like it might hold some
peace.

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Not perfection, not fantasy,
just peace.

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A home where your children can
exhale, where your grandchildren

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can visit and feel warmth
instead of tension.

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Where the next chapter of your
life can begin without already

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being shadowed by everything the
last one took from you.

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Boxes still half unpacked, small
things finding their place.

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Food, laughter, birthdays,
family noise already taking

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shape in your mind.
For the first time in a long

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time, this address feels like it
might mean safety.

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You have already survived more
grief than most people should

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ever have to carry.
Already know what it means to

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bury a child and still wake up
the next morning with people

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depending on you.
Already know how to keep showing

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up while part of your heart is
still buried with the daughter

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you had to lay to rest.
Even with all of that pain,

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there is still the work of
living, Still the work of

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mothering, Still the work of
loving, Still the stubborn

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decision to make room for
something softer than the life

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that has tried so hard to harden
you.

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Then the middle of the night
comes.

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Everybody inside that home is
exactly where they are supposed

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to be.
Resting, breathing, existing

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under the same roof you work to
provide.

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Then a sound cuts through the
dark.

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Then gunfire enters a place that
was supposed to keep danger out.

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Then screams.
Then confusion.

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Then blood.
Then a child trying to speak

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fast enough to save the people
she loves.

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In a matter of seconds, your
family's life is split in two.

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Before the shots, After the
shots, before your mother is

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alive.
After you realize she may not be

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This is no tears for black girls
the cases they ignored I'm

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Samantha Paul.
She was a hard working mom,

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grandma, friend, my other
daughter.

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And this was not at all right.
She was.

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The type of woman who handled
everything she needed to.

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If she wanted something done,
she make sure she got it done.

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That's where I got most of my
independence from.

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Yeah, the community is in the
uproar.

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We're in the uproar.
You know, we, we got to wake up

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every day with her not being
here and they're walking around

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breathing and it's.
Not right.

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Her name is Vantisha Monique
Williams.

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The people who loved her called
her Sway.

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And like so many black women
whose names enter public memory

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through violence, there was an
immediate danger that who she

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was gets crushed beneath how she
died.

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A woman becomes a headline.
A mother becomes a case.

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A life becomes a timeline.
A full human being becomes a few

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details read in a clipped voice
over footage of patrol cars and

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yellow tape.
But Vantisa Williams was not a

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detail.
She was not a headline.

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She was not a paragraph brief
enough for the public to consume

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and forget.
She was a 46 year old black

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woman from Warren, OH, whose
life had shape and labor and

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history and tenderness long
before gunfire turned her home

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into a crime scene.
According to her obituary,

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Vantita Monique Williams was
born on March 26th, 1980 in

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Warren.
She died on April 16th, 2026 at

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Saint Elizabeth Youngstown
Hospital.

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She was a mother, a grandmother,
a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a

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friend.
Her obituary says she owned

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Sway's Kitchen for five years,
and that one detail says more

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than people might realize.
Sway's Kitchen was a business

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built around celebration.
The public page for it described

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her work simply.
I make and decorate cakes for

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all occasions.
All occasions, birthdays, baby

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showers, graduations,
anniversary tables, family rooms

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full of laughter.
That was part of her work in the

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world.
She helped people mark joy.

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She helped shape the moments
families wanted to remember.

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There is something especially
cruel about that.

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A woman who helped other people
celebrate life is introduced to

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so many strangers through death.
A woman whose name belonged on

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cake boxes, family tables and
happy gatherings is pushed into

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public consciousness through
panic, blood and a desperate

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phone call from inside a home
under attack.

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That is how violence robs twice.
First it takes the person, then

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it tries to rewrite the meaning
of that person's name.

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But the people who loved Sway
have refused to let that happen.

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In local coverage, those closest
to her remembered her not as a

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victim first, but as a force.
One loved one described her as a

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hard working mom, grandma and
friend.

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Her daughter, Heaven Williams,
said she was the type of woman

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who handled everything she
needed to.

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If she wanted something done,
she made sure she got it done.

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That's where I got most of my
independence from.

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And that line is the kind of
line that tells the truth in a

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way a police report never can.
It tells you that she was not

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passive in the lives around her.
She moved things, she solved

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things, she modeled something.
She gave her daughter a version

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of strength to inherit.
That matters because when a

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black woman is killed, what
disappears is never just one

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body.
What disappears is a center of

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gravity, the person everybody
calls, the person who remembers,

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the person who organizes, cooks,
checks in, follows up, shows up,

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and makes herself useful.
In a world that often demands

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everything from Black women and
protects them the least, Black

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women, like sway, become the
invisible structure holding

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families upright.
And because that labor is so

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constant, people almost stop
noticing how much they rely on

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it until it is gone.
The Public Justice Force Way

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page says it is dedicated to
seeking justice for Vantita M

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Williams and keeping her memory
alive. 1 Remembrance says people

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knew Vantita as someone who
showed up no matter what she was

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personally dealing with.
Another says that through Sway's

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kitchen, family gatherings,
phone calls, and helping

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somebody in need, she made
people feel cared for.

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She made people feel cared for.
Sit with that.

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That is not decorative language.
That is not something small.

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To make people feel cared for is
to become relief in somebody

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else's life.
It is to turn your presence into

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comfort.
It is to make people feel less

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alone in whatever they are
carrying.

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And Sway was carrying her own
sorrow, too.

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Public records show she had
already endured one of the most

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devastating losses a mother can
know.

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Her obituary says she was
preceded in death by her

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daughter, Nokia L Warfield
Lowry.

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Public tributes say that loss
came only about 16 months before

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Vantisha lost her own life.
So when people say she was

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rebuilding, that word has
weight.

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Rebuilding implies that
something had already been

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shattered.
Rebuilding means life had

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already broken her heart, and
she was still trying to create

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something livable on the other
side of it.

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Still trying to make room for
family, still trying to keep

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going.
Still trying to make a house

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into a home after grief had
already taught her how fragile

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everything is.
That is what makes the move to

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Northwest Blvd. feel so
significant.

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Family and community accounts
describe her as trying to start

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over, trying to create a more
peaceful space for her children

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and grandchildren, trying to
settle into a home that could

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hold a little more comfort than
what life had given her lately.

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Local reporting says she had
only been there for about two

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weeks, 2 weeks.
There are details that hurt

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because they are dramatic, and
then there are details that hurt

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because they are almost too
ordinary to bear.

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Two weeks of unpacking. 2 weeks
of arranging a kitchen.

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Two weeks of imagining who would
sit where and how the house

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would feel once everybody
settled in.

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Two weeks of believing that this
new place might mean rest.

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Then April 14th, 2026 arrives.
WKBN reported that the shooting

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happened just before 1:40 in the
morning in the 2200 block of

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Northwest Blvd.
NW WFMJ placed it around 2:00 AM

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when a shooter targeted the
front door.

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Tribune Chronicle reported that
officers responding to the shots

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fired call found bullet holes in
the front door, a juvenile

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victim in the living room and
Vantita in the basement.

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Both victims were taken to the
hospital.

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WFMJ later reported that her
youngest daughter had also been

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shot and was recovering. 2 days
later, on April 16th, Vantisha

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died from her injuries.
That is the public timeline.

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But timelines have a way of
making terror sound neat.

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They smooth out what should
never be smoothed.

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They turn horror into sequence.
They turn panic into chronology.

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They turn the worst night of a
family's life into a few

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sentences that can be read in
under 30 seconds.

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What a timeline cannot hold is
what it means for a child inside

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that house to understand all at
once that a sister has been hit,

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a mother has been hit, and the
people she loves may be bleeding

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out faster than help can reach
them.

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What a timeline cannot hold is
how long those seconds become in

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the mind of a child.
What a timeline cannot hold is

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the feeling of a home becoming
dangerous while you are still

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inside it.
And the surviving daughter

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matters in this story.
She matters not just as a line

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in the report that says another
victim was wounded, but as a

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child whose life is now divided
forever by that night.

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There is no clean way to survive
something like that.

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There was only the burden of
continuing afterward, continuing

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with the memory, continuing with
the fear, continuing with the

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knowledge that the place where
your family was supposed to be

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protected became the place where
safety failed all at once.

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We are often so quick to count
the dead that we fail to imagine

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what the living are forced to
carry after the cameras are

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gone.
That is another reason this

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story should not be told as just
another local homicide.

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It is a story about what
violence does to the

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architecture of a family.
A mother is gone.

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A daughter survives with trauma.
Grandchildren lose a

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grandmother.
Relatives now have to speak her

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name in the past tense.
A home, instead of meaning

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shelter becomes forever tied to
panic and gunfire and blood.

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One act of violence does not
just end a life.

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It tears through the emotional
order of many others, and in the

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aftermath, the burden shifts
exactly where it too often

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shifts in cases like this.
On to the family, on to friends,

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on to community members who now
have to mourn and advocate at

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the same time, pray and organize
at the same time.

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Grieve and keep pressure on the
case at the same time.

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That is why the justice for Sway
Page matters.

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That is why vigils matter.
That is why balloon releases

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matter.
Those acts are not only

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memorials, they are refusals.
Refusals to let Vantisha

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Williams become one more black
woman folded into the background

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noise of local violence.
Refusals to let her name vanish

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after a few days of coverage.
Refusals to accept remembrance

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without accountability.
WFMJ reported that police

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believed Vantisha may not have
been the intended target.

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The same coverage said people
close to her believe the

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shooting may have been connected
to an argument between

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juveniles.
But in the public reporting

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reviewed for this episode, no
confirmed suspect names had been

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publicly announced in the
mainstream local coverage we

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found.
And that distinction matters

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because Black women's stories
are buried not just by violence,

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but by chaos.
Rumor, speculation, half truths,

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names passed around before facts
are established.

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Communities often know things
before the public record does.

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But when a woman's life is at
stake, rumor can become another

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way her humanity gets crowded
out.

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So what we hold onto here is
what is solid, what is

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documented, what is supported,
what is true enough to say with

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care.
What is true is devastating

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00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:38,280
enough.
Vauntisha Williams was a mother

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00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:41,120
and grandmother.
She owned Sway's Kitchen.

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She was remembered as hard
working, loving and dependable.

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She had already endured the
death of her daughter.

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She had recently moved into a
home where she hoped for more

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peace.
She had only been there two

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00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,440
weeks.
In the middle of the night,

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00:14:56,520 --> 00:15:00,480
gunfire tore into that home.
Her younger daughter was also

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00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:03,560
shot and survived.
Vauntisha died from her

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00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:06,120
injuries.
Her family and community have

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00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,400
had to keep her name alive
publicly while waiting for

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00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:12,200
justice.
And that last part should

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00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,440
disturb us more than it often
does.

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Because why must Black families
become campaign managers for

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00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:22,360
their own grief?
Why must daughters, cousins,

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00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:26,640
friends and neighbors build
tribute pages, circulate Flyers,

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00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:31,680
contact media and beg platforms
to care just so a murdered black

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00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:34,960
woman's name does not disappear
from the public eye?

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00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,160
Why is memory so often labor for
us?

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00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:43,960
Why does accountability so often
require the family to become its

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00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:48,400
own press office, investigator
and publicist while still trying

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00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:53,080
to survive the loss itself?
That is not a small burden.

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00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:56,560
That is the system revealing
what it assumes about whose

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00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:00,080
lives will receive sustained
attention on their own, and

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00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:04,560
whose lives will need to be
insisted upon repeatedly in

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00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:08,960
order not to vanish.
And maybe that is part of what

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00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:13,440
makes this case ache so much.
Everything about Sway's public

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00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,000
memory suggests a woman who
spent her life making things

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00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:22,040
easier, sweeter, softer, and
more held together for other

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people.
Through food, through cakes,

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00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,840
through family gatherings,
through phone calls, through

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just being the kind of person
people knew they could lean on.

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00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:37,240
Yet when it came time for the
world to return protection back

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00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:40,800
to her, even her own home could
not guarantee it.

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That is the cruel pattern too
many black women live inside.

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We are expected to be shelter.
We are not guaranteed shelter.

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00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:55,160
We are expected to absorb pain.
We are not promised peace.

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00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:58,400
And this was not a woman
retreating from life.

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00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:03,600
This was a woman trying again.
That is what haunts me.

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00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:07,720
Not simply that she died, but
that she died in the middle of

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00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:12,160
repair, in the middle of trying
to begin again, in the middle of

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00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:16,480
making room for family, in the
middle of turning grief into

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00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:20,640
something livable.
There is a special violence in

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interrupting a black woman while
she is rebuilding and catching

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00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:27,000
her, not at the end of
something, but at the beginning

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00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:28,720
of what was supposed to come
next.

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00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:33,880
So when we say Vantita Sway
Williams's name, we do not say

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it as shorthand for a case file.
We say it as the name of a woman

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who should still be here.
A woman whose daughter should

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00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:45,800
still be able to call her.
A woman whose grandchildren

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00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:48,800
should still be climbing into
her lap or walking into her

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00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:51,360
kitchen.
A woman who should still be

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00:17:51,360 --> 00:17:55,720
decorating cakes, checking on
family, laughing at gatherings

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00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,160
and living inside the home she
barely got the chance to settle

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00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,200
into.
She deserved the ordinary

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00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:07,640
miracle of more time, more
mornings, more birthdays, more

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00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:13,080
holidays, more noise in the
house, more chances to heal from

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00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:17,600
what she had already endured.
More life than this.

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00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:22,240
Somebody knows what happened in
that house on Northwest Blvd.

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00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:26,280
Somebody heard something, saw
something, was told something,

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00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:28,360
or knows more than they have
said.

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00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:32,000
And silence in that kind of
case, is never neutral.

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00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:34,680
Silence does not just withhold
information.

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00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:38,000
It prolongs pain.
It keeps children waiting.

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00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:41,800
It keeps a family suspended
between grief and uncertainty.

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00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,520
It allows a mother to be buried
while the truth remains out

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00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:48,080
walking around.
That is not neighborhood

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00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:50,560
loyalty.
That is abandonment.

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00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:53,640
Vantisha Monique Williams was
here.

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00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:55,880
She mattered before the
violence.

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00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:58,400
She mattered before the
headlines.

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00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,000
She mattered before the prayer
vigils and before the justice

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00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:05,520
page and before strangers
learned her name through panic.

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00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:09,200
She mattered when she was
working, when she was mothering,

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00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:13,080
when she was grieving privately,
when she was helping other

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00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:16,840
people celebrate, when she was
trying to begin again.

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00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:21,240
Her worth did not begin with
tragedy, and it should never be

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00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:24,280
measured only by the way tragedy
ended her life.

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00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,480
If you know this case, say her
name with the fullness it

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00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:34,520
deserves.
Vantisha Sway Williams If you

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00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:37,920
know something, understand what
your silence costs.

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00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,800
A daughter is living on the
other side of survival.

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00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:43,680
Grandchildren are growing up
without the grandmother who

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00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:47,040
should still be here.
A family that had already buried

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00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:50,080
one child has now had to bury a
mother too.

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00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,400
Every day without answers is
another day that pain is asked

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00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:58,760
to endure without justice.
And if all you can do right now

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00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:01,720
is remember her correctly, then
start there.

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00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:05,560
Remember that she was not just a
woman who died in a shooting.

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00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,720
She was a woman who made people
feel cared for.

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00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,480
A woman who built joy into other
people's occasions.

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00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:16,160
A woman whose daughter says
taught her independence by

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00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:20,040
example.
A woman who kept showing up even

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00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:22,080
while carrying sorrow of her
own.

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00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,360
A woman who deserved more than
two weeks in that home.

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00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:33,200
More than fear, more than panic.
More than this ending, if this

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00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:35,840
episode moved something in you,
please share it.

332
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:38,520
Leave a five star review
wherever you listen.

333
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:42,200
Every review helps the algorithm
push these stories to more

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00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,280
people.
More reviews mean more families

335
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:49,280
get heard, more stories get
told, and more black women stop

336
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:52,720
being treated like footnotes in
cases that should have begun

337
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:56,400
with their names.
This is no tears for black

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00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:01,720
girls, The cases they ignored.
I am Samantha Paul, stay loved,

339
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:05,960
stay safe, and remember whenever
you are trapped in a World of

340
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:09,280
Darkness, never allow fear to
overwhelm you.

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00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,000
Believe in your inner spirit and
remind yourself of God's first

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00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,720
words.
Let there be light.