By all accounts so far, Latisha Frazier’s last hours were brutal. Accused of stealing from a neighborhood friend, the 18-year-old mother was beaten, stomped, bound, taped, gagged, prodded and choked. Her head was covered with a sheet. She was tossed into a closet. When she finally died, her body was moved from room to room while her killers discussed how to dispose of her. They decided to dismember her, but her killers could not bring themselves to complete the job because of the stench of her flesh.
In her press photo, the same one used on the missing persons fliers that were distributed in the weeks after her August disappearance, Frazier is a beaming teen in a royal blue dress. In a Washington Post report, her family said there was no indication that she had any trouble in her life. Frazier, a Crossland High School grad, was working fulltime at McDonalds, thinking of going back to school, and was a dedicated mother to three-year-old daughter Diamond.
Said her sister, Latoya Frazier,
I keep wondering to myself: Was there something I missed? Was she in danger? Was she unhappy? It just doesn’t make any sense, because she would never leave her daughter. They were attached at the hip.
Over the past two weeks, Metro Police have arrested five people and charged them in Frazier’s death. Though her body has not been found, police believe she was killed on Aug. 2, the day she disappeared. Criminal complaints against four of the defendants include confessions to the killing.
Frazier’s friends and family, who only weeks ago were spending their evenings passing out fliers and begging for information, now spend their time in courtrooms; four of the five defendants were arraigned just this week.
Accused in case are three teens and two adults: Johnnie Sweets, 17; Cinthya Proctor, 18; Anneka Nelson, 16; Laurence Hassan, 23; and Brian Gaither, 23.
Prosecutors allege that Frazier was at Sweets’ apartment when she was last seen alive.
On August 1, 2010, “Tish” arrived at 1787 Trenton Place, S.E. However, because [Frazier] was not alone and had arrived with a friend, [Nelson] told her to leave and return the next day… On August 2, 2010, the day of the murder, [Frazier] arrived at 1787 Trenton Place, S.E. and was invited into the residence.
What followed was an increasingly violent beating, prosecutors allege, with the defendants at times striking, stomping on and choking Frazier. According to charging documents in the case, Frazier was ultimately bound by her legs, her mouth taped over with a shirt and a sheet taped around her head before being “thrown” into a closet.
[Sweets] stated that he had not planned for [Frazier] to be killed, but rather just for the girls to beat her up “to teach [Frazier] a lesson: ‘Don’t take my money.’”
All five of the defendants are expected in court Friday, Feb. 11 at 9:30 a.m. for a preliminary hearing.
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Taunts on Facebook Help Police Solve Murder of Latisha Frazier : MyFoxDC.com
Three teens charged in slaying of District woman
washingtonpost.com | Feb 3, 2011
A District teenager orchestrated the slaying of Latisha M. Frazier by luring her to his apartment and ordering his friends to beat and choke the woman before trying to dismember her in the bathtub, according to charging documents filed Thursday in D.C. Superior Court.
Man arraigned in D.C. slaying
washingtonpost.com | Jan 25, 2011
A District man allegedly told homicide detectives that he choked a woman and threw her body into a dumpster behind a Southeast Washington apartment building last summer, according to documents filed in D.C. Superior Court. It was the first time that family members of Latisha Frazier, 19, heard details of what happened to the young mother, whose body has not been found. Family members reported Frazier missing Aug. 4 and have been posting fliers throughout the city with her picture in hopes of finding out what happened to her.
