Angel 23
Told by Shaykayarira DelRio-Gonzalez
Written by Laurie Grobman
When he was 14, Francisco Soto, Jr. (Franky), got into his dad’s car, backed out of the driveway, and hit another parked car. That teenage prank landed this young US Karate champion and talented budding musician in the juvenile justice system. Four years later, on February 23rd, 2021, he was murdered in front of his mother’s home just over a month shy from his 18th birthday.
Born on March 28th, 2003, Franky was, in his mother Shaykayarira (Shayka) DelRio Gonzalez’s words, her “miracle baby.” Shayka had previously endured eight miscarriages, so Franky, and then Emanuel in 2004, were her “miracles babies.”
At a young age, Franky had a passion for music. He’d say to his mom, “I hear music in my head.” Shayka encouraged his love for music in the most interesting way. To punish him, she would take away all the electronics – the Xbox, PlayStation, and the phone. So, he’d
play his conga drums and the piano and figure out songs on his own. At about 5 years old, “Franky made music by listening to whatever his brain said. And then he would look for it and make melodies.” Shayka began recording her son and then played his music back to him, saying, “papi, add more. And he would add more.”
Franky was a “super smart child” who was also obsessed with Elmo, Spider-Man, and Lightning McQueen. One morning, when he was about 2 years old, Shayka woke up to find Franky playing on the computer with an icon of Elmo that neither Shayka nor Franky’s father had made for him.
He also had ADHD and was very active. At times he couldn’t channel his own smarts. Franky went to Sacred Heart School in Reading but was expelled when he told the principal that she lived in a bubble and didn’t know what real life was about.
But as a Middle Schooler in St. Margaret School, Franky developed a very close connection with God. He often read the Bible. He was an altar boy. He read aloud from the Bible on Thursdays when he went with his school to church school. Franky “knew” God.
As a kid, Franky also played sports, starting with baseball. He was a pitcher, and he was ambidextrous and pitched with both arms, which interested his coaches. But Franky wasn’t as interested as the coaches. Instead, “he would sit on the base and play with the sand.” Franky also swam, boxed, and did gymnastics. He also dove, which scared his mom.
But ultimately, Franky was passionate about karate. Shayka brought 7-year-old Franky to karate school because karate cultivates discipline and self-control. Franky was good! He participated in all kinds of tournaments, and in 2012, he placed first in his division in the U.S. Open international event in Orlando, Florida. Franky was an 8-year-old world Karate champion. And he was proud of himself. For the next several years, Franky continued to play and excel in sports.
Franky was also very giving and very loving. He hated abuse. He hated to see women going through anything negative. He was very protective of his mom.
Then, on an ordinary day when he was 14 years old, Franky got into his father’s car, backed out of the driveway, and hit an empty parked car. Charges were filed. Franky, a kid with a deep connection with God, made a mistake, and fortunately, no one was hurt or killed. But Franky ended up in the juvenile system, going from placement to placement. “And it was like the end of him.”
Through the next four years, he’d tell her, “mom, it’s worse here and you learn more things than being outside.” Once, Franky explained to the judge, “I’m learning worse things in here than I am at home. My mom is strict, my dad is strict.” The judge gave him house arrest rather than detention.
But Franky frequently violated his house arrest by coming home late from school or being late for curfew, which meant the probation officers were always out looking for him. He ran away from detention. Franky went back and forth between homes and placements and running away from probation officers until he was around 17. He made choices that Shayka doesn’t understand.
Franky’s parents tried everything they could to keep Franky out of trouble. Shayka “used to run around the city behind him, figuring out where he was and trying to save him. Franky thought he owned the world. And he walked that way.” Whenever his dad worked, Franky disappeared. Shayka ran after him and was usually the one that found him and turned him in. Franky asked her, “how do you always find me?” Shayka didn’t know. “It was just, I would find him. I would drive and God would take me there.”
Once, after turning him in, Shayka watched through the glass as they handcuffed him. She began screaming through the glass because the officers were being rough with Franky. “And he’s looking at me. And I’m looking at him and I’m telling him, I love you. I love you. But we have to do this. But I love you.”
Franky returned from detention in June of 2020 but began getting in trouble again, hanging around with other teens and young men who were doing the same things. Franky also began posting on social media, despite Shayka’s pleadings with him to stop. “I’m like, kid. You don’t know what you’re doing to yourself. Stop putting stuff on social media because you don’t know what it’s going to do for you.”
Franky was murdered eight months later, on February 23, 2021.
Earlier that day, Franky, his girlfriend, and her baby arrived at Shayka’s home for a visit. Franky “felt super accomplished” and acted as if it “was the happiest day of his life.” He’d bought his girlfriend’s baby milk – three gallons, as he emphasized – and he felt like a man, taking care of his little family. He was happy and felt accomplished. Franky’s girlfriend left for work, and he took the baby in his arms and smiled. Throughout the day he’d run to the bedroom to check on the baby.
Because of that baby, Franky was ready to change his life. He was about to turn 18, which meant his juvenile record would be dropped. He was planning to go to TempStar, a job agency, on his birthday and look for a good job. Shayka and Franky talked about his birthday plans and danced around and were being silly. Shayka cooked his favorite meal of rice, chicken, and beans.
But that joyful time together was about to turn tragic. Shayka didn’t know it, but “Franky had a lot going on in the streets.” Yet Shayka felt it coming.
Shayka had plans to go to Philadelphia with a friend. But when 5:30 came, Shayka had a bad feeling, one she’d felt all week. She knew in her heart she shouldn’t go. She gave Franky a hug and kiss and invited him to join her. But he was watching the baby. Shayka told him how much she loved him. Franky said, “I love you more.” Shayka closed the door to the house, but the look in his eyes went through her soul. Shayka opened the door again and told him she loved him. She left, but she didn’t want to leave.
And then it happened.
On her drive back from Philadelphia, Shayka got a call from Franky’s girlfriend; the police called her and told her to come to the house to pick up the baby. Shayka was afraid: “Because I just knew it wasn’t good. It just knew it wasn’t good, but I didn’t want to believe that it wasn’t good.”
As she pulled up to the house, she saw police, an ambulance, and yellow tape. She frantically tried to call Franky, but he didn’t answer. She saw a lot of blood.
And I’m standing there, and I hear people just talking to me and talking to me and talking to me, but it wasn’t clicking and I kept on calling him, calling him. After what
felt like hours, the police began taking people out of the house. I’m watching it. I’m watching it and just praying that I would see him come out. I was like, God, you got to come out. From where I was standing, I knew there was a body. I see the body down the street. I was so scared. I wanted to move because I wanted to run to where I knew there was a body. But at the same time, I was petrified, and I felt like I had cinder blocks in my legs. But I couldn’t move my legs as much as I wanted to move them. I couldn’t. In my heart, I was like, no, it’s not him. And again, when I saw the coroner, the bag, and the van, I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t move. I didn’t want to believe it.
Then Shayka saw the body bag put in the van, and she screamed. Someone drove her to City Hall. But still, she didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it was Franky. The detectives brought her to an interrogation room. “I was desperate. I was desperate. Like, I wanted to know and didn’t want to know.”
The detective asked about unique characteristics on Franky, and Shayka told him about her name tattooed on his arm. The detective left, and then came back in, telling Shayka they needed her to identify something. She recalls, “I didn’t know what I was identifying because at that point, they were still not saying that it was my son. I kept on telling him about the tattoos. I said, he has my face on his arm. He has my name on his arm.” It felt like forever while the detective came in and out of the room three times. On his third trip, the detective stated, “I’m sorry, ma’am.” Shayka remembers screaming “no, no, no” and falling to the ground. “I hated the world.”
With agonizing grief, Shayka feared that she might commit suicide. “I was scared. I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with anyone either. Nothing made sense.” She told her doctor she needed help:
I’m going to end up in the hospital. I’m going to end up killing myself. Although I wanted to die, I didn’t want to die. I don’t know how to explain that. I wanted to die because my life was taken from me. But I didn’t want to die because I had to be strong for my younger son.
For the next few days, Franky’s father hid the funeral arrangements from her because “he didn’t want the gangs to be around. He didn’t want other people to come into the funeral home.” Then he called Shayka and told her to buy Franky’s clothing. She remembers going to a store, searching for clothing that Franky would have liked. Franky was, Shayka says lovingly, “a pain in the rear when it came to his clothes. Likes things a certain way.” At that moment, Shayka felt sick to her stomach. The saleswoman asked whether she was okay. Shayka didn’t answer at first. But when pressed, she pointed to the clothing and said, “that’s for my dead son.”
A day before the funeral, Shayka went to Royer’s flower store to purchase flowers for the service. When the store clerk brought out a book of flower arrangements, Shayka threw up. “I was alone. I was alone. I went there were alone.” Shayka picked out the flowers and then noticed her mother and sister in the parking lot. She ran into her sister’s car. “And I became
a ball.” At that moment, Shayka forgave her mother. Shayka realized for the first time that as parents, “we have to make choices. On my mother’s lap, I kept telling her, I don’t think I could do this.”
Shayka doesn’t remember a lot about the funeral because of the medications she was on to prevent suicide. But she remembers driving up to the front and people surrounding the car to share their condolences. “I couldn’t get out of the car.” Then one of the funeral directors, a customer from her years working at a bank, asked everybody to move away and he helped her out of the car.
I got to the steps. My mother was on one side. My dad was on the other side. My sons’ dad was at the door. Like a sergeant. And my other son was on the other side. And I said to my son, come with me. I can’t go in there. I felt like I had cinderblocks on my legs. I remember getting to Franky. He looked so handsome, like he was smiling. I was afraid to touch him. I didn’t want to feel his cold hands. I didn’t want to leave his side. The funeral director gave us a cross to make a prayer. We kept half of the cross, and the other half we gave to Franky to take with him.
Franky’s father told her “Let’s cover him for one last time.” They went to close the casket. Shayka started singing to Franky “you are my sunshine.” As the casket was closing, Shayka screamed,
Make them stop! I said don’t let him go, don’t let him go. I screamed his name and screamed his name. I was scared because Franky’s afraid of the dark. Always has been. I felt it then. I feel it now. When I go to the cemetery, I try to always keep it lit so he’s not scared. When he was little, we used to buy balloons and put lights in the balloons. Franky would decorate his bed with the balloons.
She remembers the sound of that casket coming down.
She remembers how alone she felt as everyone walked away from the gravesite. ~~~~
Franky used to write, record, and produce music. His songs often included his experiences, including in the detention centers.
Every time Shayka listens to the song “They put me in shackles,” she sees vivid images of the time she witnessed how rough the officers were when they handcuffed Franky: “He was just a boy.”
They put me in shackles. They put me in chains. You’re eating fried chicken. I’m living grace. I called my mama, she asked if I’m healthy, said I’m a make it ain’t no one gonna help me.
I asked God why he do this to me. Who I do it for. I do it for three. My mom and my brother, my shorty will see.
~~~~
Angel 23
“During my journey of healing, I found myself questioning why my son had to leave. I longed for a siding that would assure me that he was still with me. One day, while looking at dates, I noticed something peculiar. My son Franky was born on (3-2)8 – (2)00(3), which equals 23.
He passed away on 2-(23)-21. I wasn’t present when his prayer card was selected, but his father picked Psalm 23. This couldn’t have been a coincidence. I began to believe it was a message from my son, urging me to find my divine passion and follow it until the end. Angel # 23, which signifies following one’s divine purpose, resonated with me the most. I stopped questioning why my son had to go and instead focused on his message to me. Mom, don’t give up because I’m gone. Fight harder for those who are alive.
Franky is gone from this Earth, but he is with God.
He is “Angel 23.”