Saturday, March 19, 2022

Friday night marked four years since the horrible night in March 2018 when Riverview, Florida saw one of the nation’s most horrifying, most heinous familicides in modern US history. There are no words to describe how traumatic and painful it must have been for Ronnie IV, who was only eight at the time of the attacks, perpetrated by his biological father. Now, Ronnie IV is 12 and thriving. One hour, Ronnie was having a normal second grade weekend Sunday, a Sunday that had presumably been pretty good up to that point. For 98.8% of that Sunday, the third Sunday of March 2018, he had a normal day. He was sitting in his bed in his room with his 9-year-old sister when all of a sudden, he heard his parents arguing loudly about religion. Ronnie IV described this as the worst argument he had ever heard between his parents, so this was his first clue that this night was about to take a terrible turn. But it is highly unlikely he could foresee the sheer magnitude of what would happen over the next twenty brutal minutes.

At 11:43 p.m. EDT that night, Ronnie IV’s parents, Ronnie III (father) and Kenyatta Barron (mother) got in an argument, and Ronnie III smacked Kenyatta with the side of a gun. Kenyatta ran into a closet in the sister’s room for shelter, but this did not last long. Ronnie III then chased Kenyatta into the front yard, where Ronnie III shot her to death. Ronnie III ran back into the home. Ronnie III, Ronnie IV, and the boy’s sister were in the garage when Ronnie III axed the sister to death. Ronnie IV saw tears and blood in his sister’s face. The sister was disabled; she was mute, so she could not scream. Seconds after killing Ronnie IV’s sister, Ronnie III turned on him. Ronnie III went to the kitchen to get a knife and stabbed him many times, leaving him critically injured. Then, the father set the home on fire, leaving both kids there to die. Ronnie III’s motive for the fire was to destroy all evidence of their existence, as Ronnie III considered Kenyatta to be the “devil” and the kids “the devil’s kids” when Kenyatta refused to convert to Islam. However, Ronnie IV, despite his pain, managed to escape the house in time and flag down a police officer and say, “My father shot my mother.” Ronnie III was arrested, while his son Ronnie IV was transported to a hospital. Despite extremely serious injuries, Ronnie IV miraculously recovered. Even the cop that saved his life was surprised, after visiting later that month, that the boy was even still alive, given the extent of the stab wounds and burns. By November 2019, when he was ten, he was adopted by the cop and his wife. The cop was named Michael Blair, so Ronnie’s current name is Ronnie Blair.

The criminal proceeding for the boy’s abusive father began on June 14, 2021. On June 16, 2021, Ronnie III cross-examined Ronnie IV.

• Father: “Did I hurt you that night of this incident?”
• Son: “Yes.”
• Father: “I did? And how did I hurt you?”
• Son: “You stabbed me.”

On July 23, 2021, Ronnie III was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Judge Michelle Sisco, upon handing down this sentence, called this the worst case she had ever seen in 19 years of being a judge. Michelle has seen stabbings, drownings, and DUI manslaughter cases, so she is not saying this lightly. Ronnie IV, the sole survivor of the March 2018 family massacre, is determined to move forward in life and not let the horrific events of that night define him. Although he has two new adoptive parents in a new home he now calls “home”, he will never forget his mother. And as much as he loves his adopted siblings, he will never forget his sister. Looking back to before the March 2018 tragedy, he has many memories of his mother and sister that are very positive.

“She was just a good mom. We did like a lot of things together. She was nice, pushed me on the swing, made me some good wings,” Ronnie said of his mom in the video.

“My sister, she couldn’t talk but she could still move her head, so I learned sign language,” he added. “She was very nice.”

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