‘Slickianna’ praised as genuine soul

Despite her high-flying, flamboyant image, late social-media personality Aneka 'Slickianna' Townsend has been hailed as a down-to-earth friend and committed mother.

The last photo Townsend posted on her Instagram page at a popular restaurant was taken while out celebrating her mother's birthday.

Three days later, on October 21, the 35-year-old influencer's partially decomposed body was discovered floating in the sea in Reading, St James.

Townsend had amassed more than 300,000 followers on Instagram and the news of her death shocked social media.

But although she was well known, no one felt her loss more than those who knew her personally.

“She was somebody who will always celebrate you. If you are even just an acquaintance, she'll celebrate you. She'll tell yuh just how proud of you she is. She'll come through for you at each and every moment, every birthday, anything you're celebrating,” her friend of 10 years, Kareem Weathers, more popularly known by his social-media moniker Kareem Bwoyatingz, told The Gleaner.

Weathers said that her fondness for caring for those around her was just one of the layers of the mother of one, who ironically, never considered herself an “influencer”.

“Outside of what everybody saw on social media – the life of the party, the fashionista, the strong person – Aneka was somebody that lived in her truth. She was somebody that was very much open about her past and her life and her past struggles and how she's just grateful to be in the position that she's in,” he said.

The police have launched a manhunt for Rushawn Patterson, who has been listed as a person of interest.

Patterson has had other run-ins with the law, including murder, attempted murder, and rape charges dating back to 2013.

That case crumbled four years later because of lack of evidence and a witness no-show.

Weathers said that he and Townsend shared a deep appreciation for life. The broadcaster remembers her as the person who would cheer him up in his saddest moments.

He is still in denial about Townsend's death.

“She was such a genuine soul and I just cannot understand why,” he lamented. “We would always joke that we'd get old and still be enjoying our lives. And I always joke and tell her that you're going to be that old woman weh look good that put themselves together and always a dress up.”

But as that dream fades, he has accepted that he will have to cherish the memories they created together - as well as a 12-year-old son who is now motherless.

Despite her easy-going nature on social media, Weathers said that Townsend was a strict mother who was actively involved in her son's life.

“She would go to the moon and back for him. She ensured that everything that she might not have had as a child, he would have.

“She was a very strict mother. She was an authentic Jamaican mother where her son had a particular time to go to bed, when it's homework time it's homework time. She was a very hands-on mother, and I just can't imagine what he's going through,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com