Nakia Venant, 14, of Miami Gardens, Florida was found hanging, Sunday, Jan. 23. She posted her final goodbye on Facebook Live. A foster child, Venant hanged herself on the door frame in the bathroom. Her custody case is managed by Florida Department of Children and Families. According to a brief incident report released by DCF to the Miami Herald, Venant tied a scarf to a “shower glass door frame” for the purpose of killing herself at 3:03 a.m., Sunday as her foster parents slept.
A seventh grader, Venant attended Young Women’s Preparatory Academy and is a native of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. One of her friends alerted police of what she witnessed during the two-hour livestream on Facebook.
When officers arrived and found the scarf fashioned into a noose around her neck, they tried to resuscitate her, but without success. She was rushed to Jackson North Medical Center in North Miami Beach and pronounced dead by doctors.
Mourners who expressed their condolences on Facebook included a woman who identified herself as Venant’s mother give a testimony that shares sorrow and disappointment and sheds light on why Venant was in foster care in the first place: “I was showing you tough love when u misbehaved. You wasn’t supposed to even have access to Internet as part of your case. The system has failed us …, ” the woman shared.
She also mentioned Venant had been locked up in jail twice, gotten expelled from two of three schools, was sexually active, smoked weed and drank alcohol.
“We are absolutely horrified and devastated by the news of this young girl’s death,” DCF Secretary Mike Carroll tells the Miami Herald. “We will do everything we can to support this family and all those who cared for her as they begin to heal from this tragedy. We will conduct a comprehensive, multidisciplinary special review to examine this child’s history and the circumstances related to serving the child.”
Nearly a month ago, a Georgia teen committed suicide on Facebook. On December 30, Katelyn Nicole Davis filmed her death by hanging from a tree in front of her Cedartown, Georgia home, reports say. In a video taken prior to her suicide, Davis alleged she had been physically and sexually abused by her stepfather. At marker 21:24 of the 42-minute clip, Davis tells the world, “Goodbye.”
