Shocked and devastated family and friends came together Saturday evening in story, song and prayer to remember a woman who gave much of herself to help others in the Kent community.<\/p>\n
Linda Sweezer was “a special soul, a wonderful spirit, a compassionate human being … someone who reached beyond herself to help others, someone who encouraged others to help others,” said Gwen Allen-Carston, a friend, colleague and executive director of the Kent Black Action Commission (KBAC).<\/p>\n
“She was a very proud resident of the city of Kent,” Allen-Carston told a crowd huddled for a KBAC-led candlelight vigil to honor the late woman at Burlington Green Park. “She believed in folks getting along here in this city of Kent.”<\/p>\n
Sweezer, 64, was killed earlier in the week – strangled to death, according to authorities – in her East Hill home.<\/a> Her body was found early Tuesday morning along a road near Lake Tapps in Pierce County.<\/p>\n The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department arrested one man for investigation of second-degree murder. Detectives are looking for a second suspect.<\/p>\n Active in her cul-de sac-shaped neighborhood and wider community, Sweezer joined KBAC – a small grassroots group working to shape, support and advance conditions of the African-American community – several years ago.<\/p>\n She was a smiling, warm personality who helped coordinate events, including KBAC’s annual Juneteenth Celebration and Festival at Morrill Meadows Park.<\/p>\n Sweezer believed in harmony, faith, family, hard work and good causes, friends said.<\/p>\n As Allen-Carston pointed out, Sweezer made and hung a banner in her neighborhood that said, “Love thy neighbor, no excuses.”<\/p>\n Her loss, as one friend described at the vigil, is “a punch to the gut.”<\/p>\n Another friend recalled how she and her infectious smile “lit up” those around her.<\/p>\n Sweezer’s tragic death left others angry, calling for an end to the senseless violence.<\/p>\n “I am so mad that somebody could do that to her,” said Richard Johnson, a KBAC board member in charge of marketing and media relations.<\/p>\n “… You criminals want to pounce upon our women, it ain’t going to happen,” he added. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of it … these criminals tearing lives apart, robbing us of our treasure, which was Linda.”<\/p>\n Ex-husband Larry Sweezer, accompanied by family and supporters, thanked those who came out to express their sorrow at the vigil.<\/p>\n “The family, Linda’s mom and sister (who live in the Flint, Mich., area) are devastated,” he said. “We are all devastated.”<\/p>\n Linda Sweezer left behind a family, who said she was in the process of adopting her 4-month-old granddaughter.<\/p>\n KBAC is organizing an account on its website<\/a> and Facebook page<\/a> to help the family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Community holds vigil for Kent woman who was killed in her East Hill home <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":31172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31149"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}