The discovery of a 13 year-old girl's body, bound and gagged, in her guardian's apartment, was shocking enough, but yesterday, two men were arraigned in the murder which seems to have been prompted by a non-payment for hair-braiding. Kennith Smith and Parris France, both in their 20s, went to collect the $100 but ended up killing her. Smith denied killing McCoy, implicating France in the actual murder, as he was led outside of the police precinct. This past weekend, as the police investigated the crime, the sad, heartbreaking life story of Tyisha McCoy was revealed: Many articles explained her upbringing, born in a prison, shuttling around voluntarily between her mother, grandmother, and guardian (who had thought she was McCoy's paternal grandmother). Today, the Times reports that McCoy wrote about her encounters with older men in her journal, with one investigator saying, "She grew up not being loved and this is the way she found love, and that's why she was attracted to older men. This was a secret in her life - it's there in the books. She would always express herself on paper. No one knew her life."
