{"id":146482,"date":"2025-08-15T00:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T00:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146482\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T00:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T00:58:09","slug":"phoenix-school-hosts-celebration-of-life-for-murdered-10-year-old-rebekah-baptiste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146482\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix school hosts celebration of life for murdered 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Rebekah Baptiste<\/a> should be in fifth grade, but instead, her school hosted a celebration of life in honor of the 10-year-old girl, gone too soon.<\/p>\n

Family, friends, and teachers packed into Empower College Prep<\/a>\u2019s gym on Thursday to pay tribute to Rebekah while dressed in her favorite color, pink.<\/p>\n

An original song, decorated clothespins, flowers, photos and tears were part of the memorial.<\/p>\n

Her third-grade teacher read a poem she wrote in the little girl\u2019s memory and her fourth-grade teacher reflected on Rebekah\u2019s kindness and the warning signs that something was wrong at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was lucky because I got to show you love when the people you wanted to most refused. I loved you so much. You changed me in so many ways,\u201d said Phenicia Swalley, her fourth-grade teacher.<\/p>\n

Investigators said she was killed by her father and his girlfriend<\/a> in July after prolonged physical and sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

In addition to murder charges, Richard Baptiste and Anicia Woods are facing child abuse charges in connection with Rebekah\u2019s younger brothers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should never have happened. Never and because of her, there\u2019s going to be a lot of changes coming,\u201d said Sondra Hawkins, Rebekah\u2019s grandma. \u201cI believe God was with her and God is with her and she had to go home because she\u2019s more powerful there to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

School officials believe the system failed her<\/a>. They were worried about Rebekah and said they contacted the Department of Child Safety more than a dozen times.<\/p>\n

But a DCS spokesperson pushed back, saying the school only called the hotline five times<\/a> and most of the reports did not meet the threshold needed to investigate abuse or neglect.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmpower College Prep, you did your part. You loved her, you protected her here on campus. You gave her safety, joy and dignity,\u201d said Javi Casas, a chaplain.<\/p>\n

Her educators call the classroom her safe haven and say she dreamed of growing up to become a teacher herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you become a teacher, I think you\u2019re born a teacher and I think she was born a little teacher,\u201d said Penny Roubison, Rebekah\u2019s third-grade teacher.<\/p>\n

Although her life was short, Rebekah\u2019s legacy will be long-lasting.<\/p>\n

She is forever imprinted on the school\u2019s principal and assistant principal in the form of tattoos with her initials \u201cR.B.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s with me forever,\u201d said Becky Jones, Empower College Prep\u2019s principal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Rebekah Baptiste should be in fifth grade, but instead, her school hosted a celebration of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,79641,5643,1587,7182,86651,86649,86647,13160,3810,1589,7183,86650,79637,86648,22598,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-146482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-apache-county","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-azfamily","13":"tag-celebration-of-life","14":"tag-empower-college-prep","15":"tag-girl-killed","16":"tag-gym","17":"tag-memory","18":"tag-phoenix","19":"tag-phoenix-news","20":"tag-pink","21":"tag-rebekah-baptiste","22":"tag-richard-baptiste","23":"tag-teachers","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115030072007057604","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}