Genesis 1:3 in the bible states…”And let there be light”. That is the hope most look for in the darkest of times. Praying that light appears in the darkness is craved, even if it is just a sliver through a crack in the floor. Light to most people represents hope. Most children can remember their parents telling them to close their eyes and go to sleep, behave themselves and stay in bed, for the “Boogie Man” would surely appear if they didn’t. Growing up, most of my childhood I can remember parents keeping their children in check with a threat of the “Boogie Man” appearing. He was a creature of the night that stalked his prey with threats of unknown harm. This mythical being that our parent’s had also been threatened with by their parents seemed to hold particular weight since darkness itself brought a level of uncertainty all it’s own. As kids we would will ourselves to sleep. None of us wanted to be awake should the “Boogie Man” appear. Who wanted to befall being left at the mercy of a monster that no one, not even our parents could beat? That is the overwhelming theme that resonated with me when watching the Falicia Blakely story on TV One. The movie “When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story” aired, I was captivated by it. Not so much on how it was written or who the actors were in the movie. But I was captivated by the story itself. Falicia Blakely was a young nineteen-year-old single mother and murderer. As I began to dive into the story, looking for court documents, statements from sources and articles, I began to walk with Falicia along her journey that led her to commit these heinous crimes. Choices. We are the sum of our choices is my firm belief. Falicia Blakely made terrible, life altering, and life ending choices. But one thing for sure, those choices were made as she navigated through a life of steady darkness. Not only was the threat of the “Boogie Man” always at hand, there were many, many other monsters in the room. There are absolutely no excuses for taking the lives of people that are caught in the cross hairs of someone else’s destructive lifestyle. However we must examine what happens to our young girls that we fail to protect from so many monsters in the room. Dating back to childhood, for Falicia, the “Boogie Man” was real. Her mother for various reasons couldn’t care for her and so the young Falicia lived with her grandmother in Jacksonville Florida. The “Boogie Man” wasn’t just a perceived threat to make her obey and go to sleep at night. He was actually a real person(s), that raped her at a young age that eternally destroyed her belief that just because the light shone on the earth during the day, that all was well. Young Falicia was first molested at the age of six. Being sexually abused at such a young age took away an innocence that we often take for granted. She was molested during these pubescent years a total of three times by three different people. When someone you trust and adhere to takes away your innocence and exposes you to a dark cloud that may never dissipate, it’s hard to rejoice over such things as the Easter Bunny, and Santa Clause, and the Tooth Fairy as most children do. Even in a child’s body with a child’s mind, you are thrust into adulthood. Ill equipped to navigate; Falicia is now walking this earth trapped between heaven and hell. Just two weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday, Felicia moved with her mother to Atlanta Georgia. Fairytales would make one hope that this would begin a healing process for both mother and daughter and set the tone for a new beginning for young Falicia. However, just the opposite occurred. It would seem that now you have two grown women living in cramped quarters trying to navigate around their “monsters”. Both of them were looking for love and acceptance. At times it came from each other, but mostly from the streets. Even friendships had monstrous consequences. Using a fake ID Falicia along with her stepsister, got into stripping for a “lick”. That’s what they called it. Whenever faced with a challenge, the perceived solution was a quick fix (a lick). Fast company and fast money in the strip club was exactly that, a quick lick. However, what Falicia did not anticipate, as do most of our young girls when they resort to the fast life is that the monsters in the room become so big that once in their grip its almost impossible to escape. Sure there are a FEW success stories of young women who used the fast allure of stripping to pay their way through school, further their education and move on to a better life. But what happens to those young girls who never had those values instilled in them from the beginning? What happens to the young girls who throughout their entire lives its been one monster after another stamping out their hopes and their dreams and extinguishing any light that there could have been if things were different? What happens to the loveless, the ones with no self-esteem, no sense of worth, no guidance and no plan? What happens is that “quick lick” becomes a long succession of mistakes that compound into the ultimate disaster that we read about in the articles and saw on the television screen as Falicia Blakely’s story. What happens to our young girls when there are just too many monsters in the room? When they fall prey to a Michael Berry who promises to wash away all the remnants of the past degradation and pain and in the beginning he does just that. But alas, he has his own monsters that he hasn’t conquered. So now you have two wounded people who only know how to survive through more lies, degradation and mayhem. At one point Michael gifted Falicia with a prized possession. In fact when she was arrested and charged with murder she was wearing it. It was a gold chain with a padlock on it. In her eyes that represented that someone finally loved her and wanted to take care of and acknowledge her. But if you closely look at the mug shot as I did, you see someone who has been shackled. Shackled to what would be the beginning of the end for her. Hurt begets hurt. Everyone in their circle, friends, enemies, family, no one had any light to lend to the darkness that they all dwelled in. There was no one around that could decode their actions as dysfunctional. Because of that the already destitute situation swelled. Those running from their monsters became monsters themselves. Everything and everyone became prey. Through a dysfunctional upbringing and a horrible start to adulthood, Falicia Blakely became shackled to her demise. Michael Berry whom she loved (for all intents and purposes), and feared even more, not only used her body for profit, he used her mind as a weapon of mass destruction. Along with stripping, Michael had convinced Falicia that prostitution along with stripping was a “better lick” for them. Eventually he had cultivated a stable of girls just like Falicia. All of them had the same thing in common, hopelessness. Yet the more they did to prove their loyalty to Michael, the more they needed to do. In August of 2002, three men were murdered in cold blood at the hands of Falicia Blakely and her friend Ameshia under the orders of Michael Berry. At the time Falicia was nineteen years old, a single mother of a two-year-old son, stripper, prostitute, murderer, and unbeknownst to her HIV positive. She is now serving the rest of her life in prison. Michael Berry continues to reside in Atlanta Georgia, albeit in and out of jail himself for random things. Although there are several variations of Falicia Blakely’s story out there for the world to see, only one piece of work is in her own words. The catalyst for this article was the written work by Author, Serenti Hall. Ms. Hall was connected with the imprisoned Falicia through a mutual friend. As an author I can attest to her probable curiosity in wanting to get a first hand account of the story. Ms. Hall and Falicia began a long and detailed correspondence which led to Falicia trusting Ms. Hall enough to give her the first hand, up to the moment account of her life story and the monsters within it. There are things of course that are not in this article, court documents, or the movie. To dissect all of the details of this tragedy, one would have to get the autobiography written by Ms. Hall. “A Treacherous Hustle: Hitting a Lick for The Love of a Pimp” is currently available on Amazon or you can get a copy of the both books “A Treacherous Hustle” and “Letters from Her Pimp” they can be purchased at 7figurepublications.com.
According to Ms. Hall and Falicia Blakely, the book serves a tool to give insight to the dangerous devices that can and will corrupt our youth and the domino effect that life can have on our communities as a whole. Remorseful and forever in debt to the victims and their families Falicia Blakely’s story is not one to give excuse to her actions. It’s more of a rallying cry for us to protect our youth from falling prey to what can become an unassailable plight. We have to save our youth and our communities from having too many monsters in the room.
Felicia L. Hamilton
Tags: #FaliciaBlakely #ATreacherousHustle #SerenitiHall #WhenLoveKills #TryingToHitALick