Latisha's Children
A six-part series following the lives of four small children after their mother was murdered by her boyfriend, and of the grandmother who stepped forward to care for them. Originally published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN), in 2001.
Each year, the killings of Minnesota women by their husbands, boyfriends and other intimate partners are duly reported to the public. Rarely do citizens glimpse the wider costs of such crimes, particularly for the families grieving for mothers, daughters and sisters lost to violence committed in the name of love.
Over the past year, writer Maja Beckstrom and photographer Ginger Pinson have followed one such family. Since Latisha Barnes was killed by her boyfriend on Nov. 5, 2000, the lives of her mother, brother and four small children have been forever changed. A doting grandmother became mother to four traumatized children. A troubled boy was forced to share his mother's strained attention. And four small children are growing up in the shadow of violent loss.
Government programs sustain them. A murder trial sought justice. But the burden of healing the past and stopping the contagion of violence falls heaviest on a wounded family.
