Every Sunday, Lakeisha Lee would get together with her younger sister Brittany Clardy to watch their weekly marathon of “Law and Order: SVU.” They’d have their lunch and dinner planned, ready to binge their favorite show. The two of them wanted to be like Olivia Benson, one of the lead detectives and characters of the show.
Looking back on that time, Lee shared how fateful it all seemed following the murder of her sister Brittany. Lee was five years older and protective over her younger sister. They grew up in a middle-class family first residing in North Minneapolis before their move to St. Paul.
Lee had her own townhome, when Brittany was 18, and still living with their mother. At the time problems began to arise because of Brittany’s association with an older man.
“We were really worried about her and watching her transition out of her job. She worked at a recreation center with kids every day and she was such a loving and caring person for the kids there,” Lee said. “The person that she connected with, he started to take her away from a lot of that.”
One morning, in early 2013, Brittany left home, telling her mother she was heading to the corner store. She never returned home.