MILWAUKEE COUNTY

'Our hearts break every time we think of them': Loved ones remember slain mom, daughters

Ricardo Torres
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Photos of Amarah Jerica Banks' children were displayed during the memorial service Saturday for Banks and her two daughters.

Amarah Jerica Banks always put her children before herself, always making sure her daughters Zaniya Rose Ivery, 5, and Camaria Banks, 4, had everything they needed. 

“She was a young woman with a passion, who loved her kids,” Antoinette Mensah said. “She loved dressing them up in all the things you dress your kids up with. Celebrating them.”

Mensah, a family friend, said Bank's children "were always smiling." 

Mensah was among the family and friends who gathered Saturday at Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church to celebrate the lives of Banks and her two children who were killed Feb. 8 in an apparent case of domestic violence.

“Our hearts break every time we think of them,” her brother, David Fields, told the mourners. 

“Their deaths cannot be in vain because our lives will never be the same,” he said.

Zaniya R. Ivery, 5, and Camaria Banks, 4, were found dead Feb. 16 along with their mother, Amarah Banks.

"I want you to hug, kiss and hold your loved ones each and every day because life is too short and you never know what you have from one moment to the next.”

Banks and her daughters were found dead in a north side garage on Feb. 16, a week after they were reported missing. They had been strangled and their bodies were partially burned.

Arzel Ivery, Banks' former boyfriend and Zaniya's father, has been charged with three counts of first-degree intentional homicide and is being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on $1.5 million bail.

According to the criminal complaint, Ivery and Banks began arguing in the early hours of Feb. 8, a day after burying their 21-month-old son, Arzel Ivery Jr., and it turned violent. After strangling Banks, it said, he woke each of her daughters, kissed them, told them he loved them, and strangled them, too.

During the memorial service on Saturday, Banks was remembered as a selfless person but also someone who cared for music and played the violin and was dedicated to education.

Amarah Jerica Banks was in the string ensemble when she was a student.

When Banks was 5, she was adopted by Acklen and Valeria Banks.

Fields recalled how, during their first Christmas together, Banks was so excited to see Santa Claus she fell asleep underneath the Christmas tree waiting for him.

He remembered carrying her to bed. It would not be the first Christmas she would fall asleep waiting for Santa, he said.

The Rev. Greg Greiten struggled to find the words to ease the pain of those in the congregation.

“Today, death has left its sting on us,” Greiten said. “And our sorrow is great because of the loss that we have experienced. And I know that no words that I can say today in our reflections can ever erase that deep sorrow in your hearts. No words that we speak can lighten that loss. And I can only imagine the rollercoaster of emotions that each and every one of you has been going through this week.”

The death of Banks and her children has caused many in the community to look closer at domestic violence.

Mourners look at photos during the memorial service for Amarah "Jerica" Banks and her daughters,  Zaniya Ivery, 5, and Camaria Banks, 4.

“Domestic violence is not something that happens to somebody else,” Greiten said. “It happens to us. It has affected us.”

Shawnee Daniels-Sykes, a family friend and professor at Mount Mary University, said more public resources need to be applied to reducing and preventing domestic violence.

“That’s something that as a city, as a community, as a society, that we need to put a deeper stronger emphasis and resources in women and children,” Daniels-Sykes said. “We’ll get reactive about this, but then it’s going to get quiet. I want us to be proactive. I want Mayor (Tom) Barrett or whoever the new mayor is to put money towards helping mothers and children. I also want fathers to deal better with their mental health challenges, anger management so we won’t keep having a repeat of this.”

Banks wanted to do one last thing for her 21-month-old son, Arzel Ivery Jr., she wanted to make sure his funeral was as good as it could be.

Family and friends remember Banks said it would be the last good thing she would do for her son.

A few weeks later, many of those family and friends who attended the funeral for that little boy gathered again at Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church to mourn again.

Fields said he knows baby Arzel “is playing with them in heaven."

"But," he said, "do they know how much they are missed?”