BUCKEYE, AZ -- No one will deny Anaiah Walker had a tough last couple of years before she was murdered in May 2020 at the age of just 16 with her partial remains dumped on an Arizona interstate median. Anaiah had fallen victim to the Phoenix area’s pernicious sex-trafficking industry as a young teen, and was in and out of juvenile group homes by the age of 14, but that certainly doesn’t mean she deserved to die the way she did.

By all accounts things were starting to turn around for the troubled-teen when she went missing for the final time from one of those group homes in December 2019.

Around the time Anaiah went missing, she was due to appear in court as a key witness for a pair of brothers who had been found guilty of previously trafficking Anaiah and at least one other girl. While the brothers were in jail at the time Anaiah went missing and was subsequently murdered, Anaiah’s Father Adrian Walker believes they could have possibly used street connections to have his daughter murdered. As a result of Anaiah’s death, the case against Jamal King Pennington, 33, and his brother Kamil Pennington, 26, could be weakened -- giving the brothers a strong motive to have Anaiah murdered.

“They’re getting close to [the Pennington brothers] possibly getting out because they’re trying to find solid evidence to keep them in there and they’re really struggling with that right now,” says Adrian.

Despite the turbulent last few years in which the two were distant because Anaiah was healing from the trauma of having been held hostage for five days by her traffickers, Adrian hangs onto the joyful memories of life with Anaiah.

*ADRIAN WALKER II WITH HIS DAUGHTER ANAIAH WALKER (SOURCE: FACEBOOK)*

“She was very artistic as my mother was… she was very vibrant, she was also funny just like me,” recalls Adrian. “We used to cook together, every time around Christmas we would bake cookies from scratch... kind of our thing, and she would lick the dough.”

“When she was a baby, I used to take the dictionary and read words to her; her vocabulary was just insane by the time she got older... she was talking in full sentences at the age of nine months.”

ANAIAH’S DISAPPEARANCE + MURDER

Of Anaiah’s disappearance at the end of 2019 and subsequent murder, Adrian tells me, “What I can say is that when she was in the group home, she was contacted by one of those [Pennington] brothers’ girlfriends and they said if she testified they would kill her and that was what prompted her to run away the last time...they tracked her down.”

“Adrian says, ‘her insides were gone, I had to see her in that state of decomposition, it messed with my head….you don’t want to find your kid in that situation...it’s tough, it’s really tough.’”

The Pennington brothers were initially convicted in 2018 of assaulting Anaiah, then 14, and a 13-year-old girl and forcing them to sell drugs and sex from motel rooms near 24th and Van Buren streets in Phoenix. According to a report from ABC News, “They said they were advertised on 'Backpage.com' and if they didn't earn $250 per day, they would be beaten.”

After receiving that fateful call from the girlfriend of one of her attackers in December 2019, Anaiah fled the safety of the group home in fear for her life, but went back to the only option she knew at the point -- the street.

“What people don’t realize,” says Adrian, “is even if [these girls get out], they go back to it because it’s all they know, so she was back in the lifestyle, she was involved with another pimp and two other individuals, and it’s the assumption that they may have been in communication with the guys that were in jail.”

Ultimately, it is believed that the Pennington brothers used street connections to have 16-year-old Anaiah killed by those she may have trusted most at the time.

The Buckeye police investigation remains ongoing and Adrian says he feels confident in the police department investigating Anaiah’s murder.

According to AZCentral, which has reported on Anaiah’s ongoing case, “Arizona is a known hotspot for human trafficking, with year-round sunshine, sporting events and conferences that draw visitors and sex customers from afar… The average trafficking victim in Arizona is 14 years old when they enter the sex trade, and many underage victims are approached online.” Arizona’s border with Mexico also makes it an appealing area for sex-traffickers who target vulnerable individuals from every background imaginable.

Adrian wants other parents to know: Sex-trafficking could even be happening under your own roof.

“I find a lot of people don’t even know sex-trafficking exists and that’s crazy to me,” says Adrian, on his mission to inspire others to educate themselves about sex-trafficking and how traffickers find their victims. “Be that helicopter parent, it may seem like you’re doing too much but you’ve got to be involved in their social media, there are text messaging codes that these sex traffickers use that are pivotal in their trafficking.”

Police said Anaiah’s initial autopsy shows she died from a high-velocity impact, likely from being hit by a car. Investigators speculate Anaiah’s body may have lain in the freeway median for days before a driver called police. “Officials were forced to rehydrate the skin of her fingertips to use the prints to find her name,” according to AZCentral. Anaiah’s body was found in May but it took until June for her remains to be identified.

Though the coroner could not rule on it, Adrian said he heard from other girls in the group home who knew Anaiah that she may have been pregnant at the time she was killed. “The coroner wasn’t able to prove it because she had nothing,” Adrian says, “her insides were gone, I had to see her in that state of decomposition, it messed with my head….you don’t want to find your kid in that situation...it’s tough, it’s really tough.”

Anaiah’s memory has inspired Adrian to launch a clothing line, Judah Clothing -- which he says is meant to make you "feel like royalty" -- to spread the message of positivity.

If you have any information regarding the unsolved homicide of Anaiah Walker, please contact the Buckeye Police Department at 623-349-6411.