Surrounded by death
“She’s just angry. Everything makes her mad,” says Mardie Sonnier, 67, about her granddaughter Destiny Sonnier, 9, as the two sit outside their Ferguson home in October. “She’s been through a lot, and she’s doing a good job taking care of herself,” Sonnier says. “I made sure she’s in with a counselor.” Destiny father was murdered in 2013 and her friend Jamyla Bolden, 9, was killed in 2015. Soon after Jamyla was shot, Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, a cousin of Destiny’s, was shot and killed by police. Sonnier would like to adopt Destiny, but she says that she could never raise the adoption fee.