After seven years, the murder of 16-year-old Chanel Petro-Nixon is still unsolved, leaving her murderer at large.
A community of outraged citizens and her family will not give up the hope and efforts to find who has committed such a treacherous act of crime. With a march, vigil and prayer on June 29, they will continue to draw attention to this case.
“We haven’t finished what we started,” said Petro-Nixon’s mother, Lucita Nixon, about seeking justice for her daughter. “Our march is to get justice for Chanel and to get the community to realize that the family is hurt, and the family needs their help in getting answers as to who murdered Chanel.”
The march, which occurred annually from 2006 to 2011, is back in “efforts to re-activate the community and re-organize on the basis that there is a new city government coming in January,” said the Rev. W. Taharka Robinson, founder and CEO of Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition.
“We don’t know who the next council member, mayor or City Council is going to be,” added Robinson. “Therefore, we wanted to bring to every prospective new legislator in city government that we are not going to allow this case to go into the cold case file of unsolved crimes. We want this case to be on the agenda for when someone takes government in January.”
The march will begin at 11 a.m. at 1605 Fulton St. (between Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Lewis Avenue) and end at 212 Kingston Ave. (between Park Avenue and Sterling Place). The prayer vigil will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Petro-Nixon, who was a straight-A student, left her home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Father’s Day in 2006 to fill out a job application at a nearby Applebee’s. She never made it to Applebee’s or back home to her family.
Four days later, Petro-Nixon’s body was found in a garbage bag in front of 212 Kingston Ave. in Brooklyn.
“I personally feel that there is someone out there who knows what happened to her, who murdered Chanel and they won’t say anything,” said Nixon. “They are just as responsible as the person who did it. The NYPD did as much as they could. Since the body was moved, there wasn’t enough evidence, so we just need someone to come forward with something.”
“Somebody out there knows what happened to Chanel Petro-Nixon, and they should come forward with the information,” said Robinson.
Nixon plans on representing her daughter every year until justice is served. “It doesn’t have to be a march. It can be something in the community to honor her name. I’m just asking everyone to keep us in their prayers,” she said.
For more information about the march and rally, contact Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition at 347-210-8954 or email bavcinc@aol.com.