F O R E V E R R A E
About Rae
Rae was a Christian, mother, business owner, stylist and much more. She was truly a woman of many things, but a Master of them all! Raolatu Oladoyin Alowonle (Rae), 28, was born April 22,1984 to Odette (Fox) and Ashimyu Alowonle I. Rae was a loving, devoted sister, daughter, mother, and aunt. On January 7, 2004, she was blessed with a son. Two years later, on August 1, 2006, she was blessed with a daughter.
In 2008, Rae decided to make her home in Louisiana. Rae enjoyed spending time with family and friends. She loved Bible studies with her family, keeping them close to the Lord. She was truly a strong and beautiful woman of God. Rae was such a kind-hearted, caring, and loving person. She was always willing to help her fellow man in any and every way. She always took the time to share the Gospel, and she was a contributor to her community. Rae was a woman of style and grace, and lived as a child of God.
Rae loved cooking and caring for her children. She was a very devoted mother, working hard with her children in every area of their lives, doing what she could to provide for them. Rae was reunited in Heaven with her mother Odette Fox; brother's Tubate Fox & Matthew Fox; nephew Gianni Cohenotti, grandfather and grandmother: Keith and Laura Fox; uncle, Julian Fox; grandfather; Nurudeen Omotayo Alowonle and uncle, Edward Joseph St. Cyr, III.
She is survived by her two children, father, Ashimyu Alowonle I; grandmother Rabiatu S Alowonle;15 Siblings: 18 nieces and nephews, step mothers, Essie Jenkins and Cynthia Harris, as well as numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.
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Ms. Rae ( Raolatu O. Alowonle)
This is not, nor will it ever be, an easy story to tell or relive. But I know we have family , friends, classmates and people who loved my baby sister, Rae, for who she was. I will explain briefly who my sister was for those who don't know her. Rae was a hands-on aunt, mother, full time Christian, business owner, entrepreneur, teacher, lover, forgiver, sister, comedian, best friend, and lover of all things, especially the word of God! With an attitude only she could possess for those of us who knew her, my sister would have Bible study with our children and myself faithfully, something I know as a mother and older sister I should have been doing myself. That, in itself, taught me things and showed me things that I can admit I lacked on as an individual. Everyday I wake up I'm grateful for that and her!
Now, as a family, we decided to share pieces of her traumatic murder for several reasons; one being that the media, and the things that one may read through social media, can leave out and exaggerate the facts. They tend to leave out important facts, or completely get things misconstrued. This we have learned through this tragedy. Because we still have not received Justice for Rae and our time in court, there is limited information we can share. However, we want to share this with you in hopes you will understand and share the fact that we still need Justice for Rae.
On July 25, 2012, my sister and her son were on their way home from the store, only to be confronted by a guy who had been stalking her and was now standing in her living room. He kicked in her front door and was waiting for her and her son with a gun. He held them hostage at gun point in her home for approximately 30 minutes. He held the gun to her and her 8 year old son, stating that he was going to kill them both that day. After Rae pled with him for her and her son's lives, she stated "God, forgive him for he knows not what he is doing" (these are the words her son remembers her vividly stating) before she grabbed her son and they both ran out the back door.
My sister lived only a block away from me and it was only God that had me and my daughters outside that day. While I was getting my tire fixed, my daughters were running around playing up and down the street. This is the same street this stalker was chasing my sister and her son down shooting at them trying to kill them both. Mind you, this is at broad daylight 4 p.m. in a family neighborhood with children and families outside enjoying the day. I was standing outside calling my kids to come get in the car, when I heard popping but I figured it was the kids in the neighborhood still letting off fireworks. Then a sudden silence came over the neighborhood. I then noticed a lady and a young child running and when I focused my eyes I saw this stalker shooting at my sister and nephew. I yelled and told him "what the f*** are you doing? Stop!"
At that time, my daughter ran up from the street and told me she was shot, then I saw my baby sister hit the floor as he stood over her and shot her again. The rest was a complete blank after that. The next thing I remember was being in the back of a police unit at the hospital.
Even while I'm typing this, it is all incomprehensible. I can't believe I'm even having to share such an unbelievable tragedy. The majority of my family, including myself, have still not accepted the facts.
One thing I will let you know is that God is real, because without God's love for us I don't believe any of us would have made it this far. We struggle daily, but with that struggle we will come together and pray. And the grace of God gets us through daily!
Another reason we chose to share this is because this stalker met my sister the end of April 2012. In mid-May, he broke into her house. The first time he went to jail, he was released on July 2nd, and only because his family was begging her to drop the charges and they promised he would never bother her again. By July 25, 2012 he shot my sister and daughter and tried to kill my nephew (and could have killed other innocent children playing in the neighborhood ). After two major surgeries and being on life support for 2 hours, my sister died.
The last and final reason we decided to share this is to let men and women know how serious stalking and infatuation can be. This monster could not take "no, I'm not interested" for an answer. This was an incident that happens everywhere to men and women and if you know someone in a similar situation, please feel free to share this story. This insecure stalker didn't even know my sister for a whole 3 months, didn't know her real name, and didn't know her importance here on earth and to her family. This monster was so infatuated with what he wanted (Rae), that he coninue to follow, stalk and bother her even with all her rejections and pleads to leave her alone. This monster thought that if he got tattoos of her not even knowing her name, just knew her as Rae; that this could win her over and get her attention. If you have a friend, family member, classmate, neighbor or anyone you know that has a monster around them or in their life like the monster who killed my sister, step up and intervene PLEASE! Before it's too late! It's cute to crush, to be interested in, or even have love for someone. But when it gets to the point where you're uncomfortable and scared for your life or the life of your loved one, that devil has to be removed.
I pray that God finds you all with peace and love on this day. Blessings to you all who took the time to read this and share it. My family will also be praying for you. To the family members, school mates, friends, associates and to anyone who has ever gotten the chance to talk or spend a moment of time with my sister, Rae, we ask that you continue to share her story until we get justice. We pray that her story will prevent this from happening to another precious life. Please keep our family in your prayers, praying that God's justice be done accordingly!
Love and Blessings from the Alowonle, Fox, WhiteTwin/Swifthorse, Balogun, Jenkins, Harris, and Shannon Families!
From:
Cass'Zonae Alowonle
My name is Cass'Zonae, Rae's closest niece. As I try to tell you all my side of the story my heart yearns to have my beloved aunt back. Two weeks before I came back from my summer vacation my aunt called me, she frequently calls and texts me but that entire summer I didn’t hear from her. She called telling me she loved me and asked how was my summer going, as this man was yelling in the background, I asked her what was going on and she said "nothing, we're just getting ready to get something to eat", and I knew something wasn’t right. She ended the call by telling me ''can't wait to see you'' and what she told me all the time ''love you more."
When we came home on July 23, 2012 I asked my mom if I could go to my aunt's house to visit. She would usually say she was busy or not at this time. On July 25th, while my mom was getting her truck tire fixed, my younger sister and I were playing in the street and then as the tire man finished, my mom told us to get in the car. While we were walking to get in the car, we heard popping noises resembling firework noises, so I didn't pay it any mind. But when a bush full of birds fled as the noises came closer, it dragged my attention to a woman figure and a young boy running extremely fast, along with a man following not too far behind, maybe 5 ft back.
Everyone was standing in the parking lot fixing their eyes and was frozen in shock. I heard screams but I couldn't make out what they were saying because their voices were going out but I focused my eyes on the man and his face was in complete darkness and wickedness. He was holding his pants from falling and in his other hand he had a gun raising it up and down shooting at this young boy and woman. I couldn’t make out their faces because I had not seen them in over two months time and my aunt had lost lots of weight; and then as I examined closely, at the last moment of her life I knew it was my aunt. I fled down the parking lot towards the street near the factory near my house to save them as she fell to the hot pavement and him hovering over her shooting her even more, and Justin racing towards my mom out of breath and exhausted; he turned towards me this evil man and tried to shoot me. I can’t recall how many times he shot at me just that a bullet hit me in the leg causing me to fall to the hot pavement. I heard yells and screams as I was mildly passed out from everyone around me. The whole neighborhood was covered in complete panic. I brought myself to complete consciousness as my dad came down the street from work and put me in his car and my younger sister.
Blood filled my left boot and my dad ran red lights rushing me to the emergency room. They took a major piece of the bullet out of my leg but there are still fragments from ricochet bullets. This horrible wound keeps the memory alive of that horrific and life changing day. My aunt was like a sister to me, we did absolutely any and everything with and for each other. My love for her is absolutely unexplainable and even if I tried to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand. She was truly a woman of God and as soon as you would see her you would notice her beauty inside and out.
My love & thoughts are with you! God is the Alpha & Omega!
From:
Rayshael Balogun-Scott
I was at home, with friends over for dinner, when my sister Tootie called me. When I answered the phone, nothing she was saying made any sense. Her voice sounded so eerie as she said “I need you to call Cash and tell him that Rae got shot 7 times and the doctor said she ain’t gonna make it”. I thought she was playing a weird joke on me or maybe she was mistaken, maybe she was talking about someone else. I was like “What?! Are you sure?!”. I hung up the phone and told my friends what my sister said and I asked them why she would play like that? They left soon after so I could figure it all out. As I tried to make sense of everything, I called the prison where Cash was at, hoping to speak to someone and relay the message to him. When he and I finally spoke on the phone the next morning, we barely exchanged any words. That was the first time I heard my brother cry and I could only sit on the phone and cry with him. Tootie and I talked periodically throughout the night and I finally understood that what she was telling me was real. It didn’t feel real, but I heard what she said and I understood that nothing was a joke. I stayed up all night crying, thinking, talking to Dominic and trying to understand what exactly happened.
I hadn’t talked to Rae since about April, so I had to process every piece of information at one time. When did this guy come around? Who was he? Had she mentioned him before? What made him think he had the right to take her life? How come he wasn’t dead yet? Is he going to get away with this? I had too many questions and the answers weren’t coming quick enough.
To this day, I’m in denial about what happened to her and why it happened. I’m sad knowing that she never got to meet my baby boy that we always talked about, and I’m hurt that I can’t remember the petty reason why we hadn’t talked since April. I still have a lot of unanswered questions and I’m still waiting for justice in her case, but her death actually brought my family closer together. We all appreciate each other more, we express love towards one another, and we refuse to let her death be in vain. We’ll never know why she had to suffer or why her life was taken so un-expectantly. We do, however, trust God’s will and we know that she fulfilled her purpose, whether or not we fully understand it yet.
WE WILL GET JUSTICE!
Rayshael
