Rapper 40 Cal and his family dispute claims that their missing daughter Saniyya Dennis died by suicide.
In fact, they say that they have evidence that proves otherwise. In an exclusive interview with the New York Amsterdam News, Mom Latisha Dennis is asking for the search to continue.
“Saniyya Dennis is still missing. Her family and loved ones want her found!” Latisha Dennis said.
After only a few days of searching, the Erie County District Attorney John Flynn released to the public that his team working on the case believed that the 19-year-old traveled to Niagara Falls to take her life.
He reported that the college student, according to sources close to her, had broken up with her boyfriend and had frantically called him 59 times.
On the 60th engagement, she texted him, stating that she was going to kill herself. Despite what investigators have suggested, John Flynn promised to not close the investigation until her body was found.
Her body was not found … but Almost two weeks after the D.A.’s press conference, the family has addressed what appears to be not only callous, but disrespectful behavior.
The AmNews reports that the statement says: “Upon careful review and consideration of the allegations presented by District Attorney Flynn regarding the issues surrounding the disappearance of Saniyya Dennis, we respectfully disagree with his presentation and were shocked by his assertion that he shared information with our family regarding her disappearance and his findings of suicide.”
The family has enlisted the support of the African American Juvenile Justice Project (AAJJP) to find justice for their daughter or find her wherever she may be.
The executive director of AAJJP, Sherri Jefferson said, “If in fact, she went to Niagara Falls, one of those cameras would have picked her up.”
“Are they suggesting that in an area that has 12 million tourists annually not one person saw her there?” Jefferson continued. “Not one person can attest that they saw her there? How is it with all of these entities there nobody had one piece of evidence to produce to this family to show this is where she is?”
Jefferson added context to the family’s grief stating: “What the family is going through is described in three words: shock, disbelief, and betrayal. Shocked they had to learn about allegations of suicide and death by way of social media and media representatives contacting them for a statement, disbelief that they would not have had the opportunity to be invited to participate in and confer with the prosecutor prior to him making a statement about alleged findings and betrayed by a justice system and the university system who were supposed to provide their child with protection and to ensure for the family that this search would be done with due diligence.”
The Erie County District Attorney’s Office maintains that they shared their discovery with the family on May 5 and believe that there “no evidence of any criminality” can be found regarding her disappearance.
Saniyya Dennis was last seen on April 24 around 11 p.m., leaving her SUNY Buffalo State College dorm. Her phone was last pinged at the nearby Niagara Falls State Park.