On February 12, 1988, Sonya Lynaye Wilburn-Massey entered the world in San Diego, California. On July 6, 2024, Illinois police killed her. Who was she for those 36 years?
To her father, James Wilburn, she was a “daddy’s girl” who ended each conversation with “Daddy, I love you.” To her cousin, Sontae, she was a “very private person other than when she came around family.” To her 15-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son, she was a mother - a “lovable person” who “always helped people.”
Massey rented a three-bedroom house in Springfield, where she wanted to start a candle-making business. She sought help for her paranoid schizophrenia. She loved doing hair, and attending Second Timothy Baptist Church.
In her last few months, Massey was depressed, and expressed anxiety about being killed by police. After her death, authorities led her family to believe an intruder killed her, or that she had died from “self-inflicted” wounds. They soon learned the police who “found” her were the police who killed her.
The logic of the policing, prison, and legal systems tells us people are disposable. It normalizes dehumanization and exploitation. But as we remember Sonya Massey, or any victim of carceral violence, we must recenter their humanity. Let’s speak their names and invoke the lives they lived before they were stolen.