He Showed Her What Real BD$M Really Means | True Crime Documentary

“Um, basically, I was sitting in my room, and I saw my mom and my dad arguing in their room.”

“Um, I just saw my dad holding a shotgun. My mom ran into my sister’s room, into her… into the closet.”

“And when your mother ran into your sister’s room, what did your father do? Did he go after her?”

“Yes. My sister was sitting on the bed, and then my dad told me to walk around and say, like, some words a lot.”

“Was there a time when your mother was able to get out of the closet?”

“I just saw her, like, she was… like, she was stumbling outside, and then I just saw my dad chase her.”

“Did he do something to your sister?”

“He… He dragged her, like, put… dragged her into the parent… my parents’ room.”

The 18th of March, 2018. Riverview, Florida, just before midnight. A 911 call comes in to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department.

“What’s the address? What’s the address of your shot?”

“Help me, please.”

“What’s your address?”

“Help me! Help me, please!”

A male voice could then be heard coming in and out of the background, and at one point, the dispatcher heard the man shout, “She killed me! She killed me! Allahu Akbar!”

“Ma’am? Hello, ma’am?”

“Right now, come out here and help me kill it!”

They got a partial address from the woman, but after 4 minutes, the call ended. Authorities set off to the house in question, 13248 Pike Lake Drive. As they were on their way, neighbors were calling in, too.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Yes, my neighbor is beating up his girlfriend next door.”

The woman who made the call ran to a neighbor’s house and banged on the door before being followed out by the man holding a shotgun.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Hey, I just been attacked by some white demon inside with Kiki. Kiki, her name is Kiki, and she tried to kill me, huh?”

People started coming outside, too, as they heard the commotion. One man watched in horror as the man grabbed her and started beating her with the gun. James Gray awoke to the same screams. He looked through the peephole and saw the man standing over the woman who was now lying face down on the ground just outside his house. He told his fiancee to call 911 and asked if she knew them. She said she recognized the man as Ronnie O’Neal.

James walked outside as O’Neal was standing over the woman, gripping her arm. Before James could say anything, O’Neal started yelling at him that he didn’t understand.

“She killed me! She killed me!” he kept saying before dropping the woman’s arm and walking back inside.

Deputies arrived at the house at 11:49 p.m. to find her still lying in the yard. She was pronounced dead at the scene. As they turned around into the neighboring house, they saw that flames were starting to build inside; the house was on fire. As they approached, the garage door started to open, and O’Neal stepped out and started walking towards them. They ordered him to stop and get on the ground, but he ignored them. They eventually had to taser him and force him into the police car.

While inside the car, he was agitated and shouting about Kiki being the devil and said, “The kids are the devil’s kids.”

As they started forcing entry into the burning house, a young boy came staggering out. Blood was coming from his mouth, and he was covered in stab wounds. He was smoldering from the fire, and one detective said it looked like he had been disemboweled because the injuries to his torso were so severe.

He said, “My dad killed my mom,” as he collapsed to the ground.

Paramedics right here in the front yard. One firefighter finally got inside and started sliding along the wall, using his hand to guide him. The smoke was so thick he couldn’t see an inch past his face. Suddenly, he slipped and fell to the floor. It was totally soaked in blood, and knives were scattered around everywhere. He put his hand out slowly and suddenly felt someone else. It was a young girl, bleeding heavily and on fire. He carried her outside and placed her on the ground before another firefighter rushed over to him. The girl had been attacked so badly, she was totally unrecognizable and was almost decapitated. The firefighter said he just burst into tears, having to be held up by his colleague.

Detective Mike Blair was now hurrying to the call out. He’d been in the force for years and had responded to hundreds and hundreds of these, but this one would completely change his life in so many ways. When he got there, the 7-year-old boy, who they now knew as Ronnie Jr., was being airlifted to hospital, and the medic said there was a high chance he wasn’t going to pull through. He had been stabbed 20 times, and the two people that were dead were his mother and sister: 33-year-old Kenyatta Baron, who went by Kiki, and her daughter, 9-year-old Renevie O’Neal, who people called Nivei.

The man in handcuffs and on his way to the station was Ronnie O’Neal III. 33-year-old Kiki was his on-off girlfriend, and Nivei and Ronnie Jr. were their two children. Kiki had been stabbed, shot with a shotgun, and beaten, her cause of death being listed as blunt force trauma. And Nivei had been attacked with a hatchet, shot in the neck, and set on fire. He had also stabbed his son repeatedly before setting him on fire and pouring gasoline everywhere else.

At 4:00 a.m., O’Neal went into his first interview with police. He was being held without bond, and police needed to determine what on earth had happened. He was very vague and not really present. He couldn’t tell them the day or the time, and questions like, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” seemed very confusing for him. He had joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps and was working odd jobs as a truck driver and in a gaming house.

In 2010, he joined the Build Your Community, also known as BYC, a local social work group. BYC worked in impoverished neighborhoods, mentoring the youth. Realistically, based on everything everyone had seen and heard on 911 calls, they already had enough to charge him, but they were hoping he would give them more as they carried on talking to him.

Back at Pike Lake Drive, it was just a sea of yellow tape and flashing lights. Kiki Baron had recently gone back to school and was enrolled at Hillsborough Community College. Her son, Ronnie, said she was a great mom, always saying how proud she was, always playing with them, especially football in the garden. She was a great cook, and he said that she made the best bean pie and chicken wings. Kiki’s mom, Carrie, said that she was her children’s biggest cheerleader. She doted on them, and every wall in the house was absolutely full of photos.

After a tough few years, she ended things with O’Neal, but against Carrie’s wishes, she had offered him a place to stay for a few months while he sorted himself out. 9-year-old Nivei had been born prematurely and had autism and cerebral palsy. She couldn’t walk and was non-verbal, relying on a wheelchair and bits of sign language that she knew. Her brother learned some sign language as well to be able to talk to her and said his sister was regularly being recognized in school because of how happy she was and how hard she always tried. She was obsessed with eating Oreos, loved colorful clothes and earrings, and had a different bow for her hair every day of the week.

Detective Mike Blair was gathering information, and with five children of his own, he said everything about this hit…

“And that 911 call, which captured truly all of it. You’ve heard, and everyone who’s heard that 911 call heard a death scream. If anybody ever wants to know what it sounds like before a human being dies, knowing that their death is imminent, that’s exactly what it is.”

“What happened to little Ranivia and to little Ron… But I’m going to focus on Ranivia, because she was special. Little Ranivia, she couldn’t scream, she couldn’t run away. She already had a life where she was born with challenges, but the pain and suffering that she suffered that night at your hands, unspeakable.”

“That first time you struck her with that hatchet, and little Ronnie testified that all he could see was tears coming out of his sister’s face at that moment. That child knew. She knew she was being betrayed in the cruelest, most tragic, and sorrowful way that a child could ever be betrayed.”

 

“She was being betrayed by her parent, the one person that should be there to protect their children and love them and keep them from harm. And that was the last thing that child felt before she passed on from this earth was your utter, cruel betrayal to her.”

 

“I’m going to look you in the eye and tell you this is the worst case ever, ever in my life. And I have seen some horrors, but this is it.”

O’Neal later appealed for a new trial, but this was denied and his conviction was upheld. The staggeringly cruel events of that night back in March 2018 is frankly hard to think about. Carrie said Kiki and Nivy were the light of so many lives, lights that were dimmed far too early and in the most barbaric way. She said:

“My family are my life, I breathe for my family, and now you’ve got me gasping for air.”

Their lives came to an unbelievably terrifying end, and Ronnie has been left with a trauma that is just not able to be understood.

That being said, it is here that we end today’s episode with a silver lining amidst such a stormy sky. Ronnie O’Neal is now officially Ronnie Blair, and he is doing amazingly well in his new home with Mike and Danielle. His new older brother, Hunter, said he quickly became like any younger brother.

“He’s an extremely strong, funny kid. It’s hard to picture our family without him.”

Ronnie said:

“They are the best mom and dad, and they really take care of me. There is no one else better than them. It means a lot to me to have a family that can always help me get through the things I need to get through. I feel loved.”

“They got me through the trial and they were always there by my side. If I cried or needed help, I could share my feelings with them, and I felt like I could explain everything to them, and it would get better.”

Ronnie loves performing and films and hopes one day to become an actor. He loves playing with the family dog, swimming, and traveling with everyone as well as the Blair to help him. He is finding his feet again with regular therapy sessions. Whatever lies ahead for Ronnie, we want him to go after it and do it, said Detective Mike Blair. They all know that nothing can ever replace what Ronnie lost. Mike said Danielle and I told him, “We don’t ever expect to replace his mom and dad.” Ronnie does have fond memories and remembers times before that night that were very positive. They always make sure his mother, Kiki, and sister, Nivia, spoken about all the time and are regular names in their house.

And every time Ronnie has moments of stress, anxiety, or anger, they have a family mantra, something Mike says to him every night before bed:

“Hey, remember, what are you?”

And although the now teenage Ronnie will sometimes smile and roll his eyes, his answer is always the same:

“I am safe, I am loved, and I am part of this family.”