The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

NEARLY two years after 12-year-old Adriel Moxey was murdered on her way home from school, her mother is attending the University of The Bahamas in her daughter’s honour, pursuing the college education she says Adriel should have lived to experience.

Sasha Moxey, an art education major who has been enrolled at UB for about a year and a half, said her daughter’s death pushed her to act on plans she had previously discussed to attend university.

“She would have been the next person going to college, not me,” Ms Moxey said. “When she passed, I say you know what? Let me just go to college.”

Adriel, a seventh-grade student at Anatol Rodgers High School, disappeared after leaving school on November 18, 2024. Her body was found two days later in bushes near Faith Avenue South along a route she routinely used to walk home.

Police reports indicated she died from strangulation.

In February, Chris Ferguson, 39, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty before Justice Guillimina Archer-Minns to murder, unlawful sexual intercourse and unlawful detention to have sexual intercourse.

The court heard that Ferguson followed Adriel along a bush path on November 18, 2024, told her he lived in the area and lured her into bushes, where he sexually assaulted her before strangling her with a belt. He returned the following day and moved her body.

Ms Moxey previously argued that Ferguson should have received a life sentence.

Speaking to The Tribune, she said his conviction brought an end to the court process but not to the grief of losing her daughter.

“In a way I feel closure because the trial done over with and I ain't got to see that man no more,” Ms Moxey said. “But in a way it’ll never be closed because she could always have been right here with me.”

The start of the new school year has also sharpened that grief.

Ms Moxey said seeing students prepare for their first day of school brought back memories of Adriel and the plans she had been making for another school year. She recalled that her daughter wanted a Sprayground backpack for the next semester.

A mother of three, Ms Moxey said there are still days when she thinks about Adriel and remembers their conversations and her daughter’s warm hugs.

She said she often keeps herself occupied with work, university classes and caring for her children so she does not dwell on her daughter’s death.

Art was something mother and daughter shared. Ms Moxey said Adriel would sometimes help her sell paintings to tourists.

Now studying art education, Ms Moxey said she is determined to complete her degree and better herself.

She had spoken about attending university before her daughter’s murder, but said Adriel’s death pushed her to finally do it.

“All I could do is take it one day at a time,” Ms Moxey said.

Although time has passed, she said she will never get over her daughter’s death and that a part of her life will always be missing.