The Roots

Family Tree

The people behind the music.

Grandma & Grandpa

Lovie & Dad

The grandparents who raised him.

Lovie and Dad sitting together at a table
Lovie and Dad outside on a sunny day
SIN cheek to cheek with his grandma Lovie

Uncle

Jody

Died January 4, 1991 · Age 16

SIN as a child with his uncle Jody

Jody was sixteen years old. Three weeks after he died, the Los Angeles Times published a story about him, and what fills it is testimony — his teacher, his probation officer, his elementary school principal and the staff who looked after him, all reaching for the same thing to say about the kind of person he was.

His principal could remember disciplining him exactly once. She had caught him climbing the schoolyard fence, on his way to buy hamburgers for himself and the other boys.

He was the one the other kids went to. Not the loudest, not the hardest — the one who listened.

  • His teacher, on why the other kids gravitated to him

    “He always had time to listen… He was always sharing. If he had enough money for chili and fries, then he bought them for everybody.”

    Shirley Neal, Norwalk-La Mirada School District

  • “He had a lot of heart, he had a lot of care for other people… I don't know what it was, charisma or something.”

    Dan Kennan, supervisor at Boys Republic

  • “He had a very high level of respect from other kids.”

    Dan Kennan

  • At the facility he'd been sent to, kids would queue to talk their problems over with him

    “There was almost a line of kids waiting.”

    Dan Kennan

  • “He was constantly reaching out for affection.”

    Ray Fimbres, his probation officer

  • On how he carried himself where other kids put up a front

    “He was not mean, he was not hostile.”

    Ray Fimbres

Quoted from “A Hole in His Soul” by Michele Fuetsch, Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1991. Read the full story

  1. R.I.P.

    STIX

    Gone but never forgotten.