We had become best friends that summer she left me. Over at each other’s house every day, playing “Barbie”, dress up, and games together. She was like a sister to me. She and I had been playing all day long with that wretched ball. I had thrown the ball to her and she didn’t catch it. We both ran after it, but my dad called me in to eat dinner. I stopped, watched her and the ball turn the corner. I never saw her again. Being only six years old at the time, I didn’t bother to wait for her to come back with the ball. I thought she might have just gone straight home, so I went inside to eat dinner. That night we got a knock the door for her mom. She asked us if Taiyisha was there. That’s when I knew something was wrong. We searched for hours and hours. Then I remember there was this gu

y who had been watching us all day. I didn’t think anything of it because I knew he lived in our apartment complex. But as I thought about it more and more, I knew it was him. It had to have been. He lived around the corner where the ball went. But then I realized he finally had his chance; so he snatched her, as she was fetching the ball that turned the corner. He took her to the local gas station, after he kidnapped her, a few blocks away, to get an Icee. This horrible man, took Taiyisha back to his apartment, molested, then strangled her to death. The Barstow Police Department searched for her for four days until they found her in the Mojave Desert. It was an innocent body, lying there, naked and lifeless. She was only seven years old.

They found him and he was sent to prison, for life. I was so mad at him for doing this to her. I was so hurt and I couldn’t let go. I was mad at myself. I thought it w

Some topics in this essay:
Mojave Desert, , Taiyisha That’s, Police Department, knock door, corner ball, eat dinner, ball corner,