#RememberThem: Kelly
Kelly loved animals of all kinds, her son Kyle told me. He joked that they had all kinds of animals -- even barnyard animals -- around their house when he was a kid. And here they were living in the inner city of Detroit (!), where Kelly had met and married Kyle's dad years earlier.
Kelly had a legit life, off and on. People don't figure women living at risk on the street, doing sex work to feed a drug habit, ever had a legit life. But they tend to come from families that are what we consider traditional -- a mom, a dad, siblings, a stable home. But a wrong turn here or there throws them off course. So often, it is addiction. That's what puts them out there on the street, and it was in Kelly's case.
The truly heartbreaking thing about Kelly's case was that just before she was killed by John Eric Armstrong in April 2000, she had been in the hospital, and when she was released, her sister pleaded with her to come home, to the west side of Michigan where she was originally from, to let her family take care of her for a while. She made excuses but when it came down to it, she wouldn't do it. Right after that, Armstrong picked her up on Michigan Ave.
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| Kelly with Kyle, left, and one of his siblings. Image courtesy of Kyle; see note below. |
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| Kyle pays tribute to his mom with a tattoo by Chico of Tattoo Addicts of Allen Park, Michigan. Kyle has added to it a bit over the years. Images courtesy of Kyle; see note below. |
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| Image by the author; see note below. |
This post is part of a series on this blog that I am calling #RememberThem, a chance to honor the women who encountered the two Detroit serial killers I have researched, John Eric Armstrong and Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins. In this continuing series, with installments dropping every week or so, we'll first learn more about the women Armstrong was known to have killed in Detroit, then two of his survivors, then we'll turn to the women killed by Atkins. Click on the "Honoring the Victims" label on the left to see all of the parts in the series.
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