Shavar Jeffries was born in Newark in 1975, the son of a 19-year-old mother who was unprepared to take care of him. He spent the first nine years of his life shuttling between different relatives. Then his mother came back into his life and moved him to California.

Shortly after they moved to Los Angeles, there was a problem with the lock to their apartment door. Jeffries’ mom called the locksmith and soon began a relationship with him. One evening the locksmith was looking over her phone bill and found a number he didn’t like. He smacked her in the head and sent her hurtling across the room. The beatings continued from then on.

Once his mother picked up Jeffries from Little League wearing big sunglasses, her eyes blackened underneath. Another day she tried to bar the locksmith from their apartment, but he kicked through the door. She moved to Burbank and got restraining orders, but on Nov. 25, 1985, the locksmith stalked her workplace and killed her with a sawed-off shotgun.

Jeffries was brought back to Newark and lived for a few months with his father. But one day he came home and his father had vanished, without leaving a note. By this time, he was numb; he just figured this was the way life is. His grandparents took him in and he spent the rest of his childhood with them, living on a street called Harding Terrace in the South Ward of Newark.