5-year-old Amarie Kennibrew was staying with a family member near St. Clair Avenue when a group of boys lured her into a nearby field. What followed sent chills down the whole city of Cleveland, but justice is yet to be served.
On Sept. 13, 2025, Antavia Kennibrew left her daughter, Amarie, at her cousin’s house near East 145th Street and St. Clair Avenue while undergoing a medical procedure. However, she soon received a call from her family member, saying Amarie had walked out of the house earlier and had been missing since. Panicked, Antavia immediately left for their place, but was met with an EMS truck carrying her daughter as soon as she arrived.
When Antavia looked inside to check on her daughter, she was heartbroken and filled with rage. Her innocent little girl was lying unresponsive, fighting for her life, brutally injured, and covered in blood, almost as if a monster had caught hold of her. But it wasn’t any monster or an animal; all of it was caused by the brutality of young boys, younger than 10 years old.
While Amarie was still alive, she had gone through the kind of unimaginable that could’ve broken even an adult’s spirit. But she hung in there, waiting for her mother to find her and bring her assailants to justice:
“I found my daughter unresponsive, bloody with her hair pulled from her scalp her body covered in bruises her fingernails filled in dirt her eyes filled with blood her neck showing signs of strangulation her mouth and lips bloody her private area filled with debris and dirt and a big lump on her head. I couldn’t believe what I saw in front of me.”
What happened to Amarie?
On her Facebook, Antavia shared what truly went down that day, seeking help and calling out the Cleveland police department for failing her and her daughter. According to her, a group of kids, around ages 8, 9, and 10, walked up to Amarie posing as friends and took her by her hand to a field far away from the residence. There, they beat her, ripped out her hair, raped her, and even “shoved sticks down her throat and down her private area.”
One of the boys also urinated on her and “ingratiated their teeth” on the little girl’s buttocks “to hold her still as they sexually assaulted her.” They then “stripped her naked” and even tried to strangle her with her own shirt. After the little girl was unconscious and unresponsive, the boys left her there, “thinking they succeeded in killing her.”
How was Amarie found?
The kids also denied having seen Amarie when her family members went around looking for her. However, as the authorities were informed of her disappearance, they came back with their mothers, claiming that they knew where Amarie was, and took them to the same field where she was lying unconscious.
“If them two kids mother did not make them boys go back to my family member and let her know where my daughter was at my baby wouldn’t be found right now my baby wouldn’t be alive. They literally tried to kill my daughter. These are not normal kids their selves and their parents need to be held accountable.”
Antavia and Amarie are still fighting for justice
Antavia is now completely traumatized, and she wrote how those kids have broken her daughter’s spirit. She did not initially want to get the media involved to protect her child’s privacy and mental health, but is now seeking help because the authorities have failed to get her justice. According to her, the Cleveland police department has said that two of the kids who assaulted her daughter cannot be legally charged because they are only 8 and 9 years old.
In desperate attempts to get justice, the distraught mother has reached out to the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and rape crisis centers for legal help. She also contacted the Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, but to no avail. She wrote in detail about her daughter’s miserable mental health, and is still struggling to get punishment for the monstrous kids who tortured Amarie.
You can support the fundraiser for Amarie here.
