Lies of a Real Housewife by Angela Stanton

Shaheed over and over again, I was connecting all dots. I had to figure out how I was
    going to explain all this to my unborn child.
    Maybe it was my sense of helplessness, but something about
    this dreadful situation pushed my mind back to the horror story my father and mother told me repeatedly throughout my life. It was one of the most shocking murder scenes which o ccurred in Buffalo, N.Y. The gruesome incident happened in 1978, and my family couldn’t get away from it. It made headlines throughout the east coast. No matter what television channel you turned to, it was on. And for the next several years, this terrible incident was
    the talk of the town. It left a bitter taste on the lips of my family members.
    October 31, 1978, was the day my first cousin, Gina, was violently
    murdered. It was a day that my family will never forget. At eleven years old, Gina was the pr ettiest child anyone would dare see. Her perfect milk, chocolate skin was accented by almond shaped eyes, and she had the perfect button shaped nose. Gina was a ballerina, and I was told how much she always loved me. My mother often told me that I was Gina’s baby. Gina ironed my clothes, fed me, bathed me, and played with me. I was only a year old at the time of her death. My mom, my dad, my brother, my Aunt San, my cousins Gina and Kevin, and I all lived in the same two-family house located on 27 Girad Street. We were a very close-knit family and nearly all of us were
    raised in this home.
    It was on a condensed street in Buffalo, New York. All the houses
    were right next to each other, separated by no more than six feet of yard space. If a fire was started in one home, the entire neighborhood would be burned down. On any day you could open your window and hear what your neighbors were watching on television. The houses were built the same way. They had the same height, foundation, and structure. They were just painted
    in different colors.
    The father of my aunt’s children, Lonzia Moss, practiced martial
    arts. He was a black-belt karate expert, who had perfected the art of his choice. Then one day he snapped, and decided that he was not only going to
    just kill himself, but take out everyone he had brought into this world.
    My father was at work, but the rest of the family was home on this
    fateful day. All of a sudden there was a loud knock on the door. Lonzia stood outside the door. He wanted to take his children to eat at McDonald’s. No one was aware of the shotgun he had hidden at the side of the house. My cousin Kevin, nine years old at the time, was asleep in the bed next to my brother, Lee. Even though Kevin was awake, Gina was the first one out the door. Then Kevin followed behind her.
    It was over as soon as she stepped off the porch. Gina was shot once
    in the chest with a double-barrel shotgun. She was murdered by the man who had given her life! She was fragile and her body could never survive a blow of that enormous magnitude. As her life was blown away, Kevin wasn’t given a chance to react. His father’s gun ran out of bullets, but that didn’t stop the deranged killer. With the butt of the murder weapon, Lonzia beat his nine year-old son, Kevin, into a coma.
    Aunt San, my dad’s younger sister, ran out the door with every bit
    of courage she could muster. Knowing she was no match for a black-belt, oh God, she put up a brave fight. Those were her babies! The man she once shared love with broke the shotgun on her face. Then he left the woman who had given birth to his children critically injured. She was lying in her own pool of blood right next to her children. My mother fought him off. Surprisingly she wasn’t harmed, but he wasn’t there to hurt her. Then the
    coward ran off before anyone had a chance to torture him.
    When my father returned home, Gina’s mangled body was still lying
    in the driveway. His niece was dead, his sister, and nephew were critically injured. My mother lost it, my brother was taken to a neighbor’s