‘She made imprints on just about everyone,’ family remembers slain teen at ceremony
Everyone who knew Sanaa Amenhotep said she was impossible to forget.
Her fashion forward wardrobe that always included bright lip gloss and sometimes a fake nose ring illustrated her bright, yet bold, personality, her family and friends said at a memorial service Monday.
“Sanaa did not like funerals. Sanaa was not about anything low or somber or down,” said her mother, Saleemah Graham-Fleming. “And for those of us who love her, this is kind of hard not to do because we love her and miss her. And she made imprints on just about everyone.”
Sanaa spoke with conviction and liked to punctuate a strong opinion by saying “period” at the end of a sentence, family and friends said.
“The girl was light. When she walks in a room, you were going to know Sanaa was in the room,” said one of the speakers during a Monday remembrance ceremony.
Family and friends of Amenhotep gathered Monday evening for a ceremony at Leevy’s Funeral Home Chapel to mourn her death and remember her life. After that, a ceremony was held at Doko Meadows Park in Blythewood.
Amenhotep was reported missing April 5. After weeks of searching, her body was found in Lexington County, and authorities said she had been shot to death, The State previously reported. Amenhotep initially left her Columbia, S.C., home willingly with people she knew, but the encounter later turned into a kidnapping, police said.
Three people have been charged with murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, according to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. Two of those three are minors, one male and one female, and the third person charged is Treveon Nelson, 18. If Nelson is convicted, he could face the death penalty, The State previously reported.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott has said the case involved gang activity.
“Sanaa was going to be your friend even if you weren’t her friend,” Graham-Fleming said.
Amenhotep’s parents and other groups representing Black communities have said the Richland County Sheriff’s Office did not do enough to search for her, The State previously reported. Following her disappearance, Amenhotep’s father organized caravans, search parties and more, The State previously reported.
In response, family and friends of Amenhotep are pushing for a law that would require police to treat missing persons cases as kidnappings if the parents believe the child was abducted.
“Drug trafficking and sex trafficking and gangs, it’s time for our community to take back our community and to protect our women and our children,” said Gary Becton, who spoke during Monday’s ceremony.
Pushing through such a law would help parents who don’t have the same resources and networks to help rally a community to look for a missing child, Graham-Fleming said.
“Thank God for her father. I would have been lost. Thank God that she had people like my church. Thank God,” Graham-Fleming said. “But what about those other kids (whose) remains are now skeletons? We got to change this. We got to push law enforcement. We got to push (the) Amenhotep law. My baby will not die in vain.”
