The fairy lights in Jazmyn Roderick’s bedroom were meant for late-night study sessions and whispered dreams, not for casting shadows over a nightmare that would claim two lives and leave a young woman forever marked by the “bright white” flash of near-death. It was a Monday evening like any other in the fading glow of autumn—November 3, 2025—when the 19-year-old community college freshman tried, one last time, to sever the toxic thread binding her to Sean Rivera, her ex-boyfriend of months. He had lingered in their modest Woonsocket apartment long after their late-October breakup, a ghost in the hallway, sleeping on the couch that once felt like temporary mercy. But mercy has limits, and Jazmyn’s ran out that night.

What unfolded in the span of four heart-pounding minutes inside 185 Clinton Street would etch itself into Rhode Island’s collective conscience: a double murder-suicide fueled by rejection, obsession, and the cold lethality of a stolen .380-caliber handgun. Kimberly Pieranunzi, Jazmyn’s 40-year-old mother and a beacon of unyielding determination on the cusp of nursing glory, crumpled in her bedroom doorway, her protective arms outstretched in a final, futile embrace. Donald Roderick Jr., 45, the steadfast boyfriend who whistled up the stairs with grocery bags of meatloaf dreams, fell in the threshold, his keys still jingling like a cruel echo of normalcy. And Sean Rivera, 24, the man who couldn’t let go, ended his own spiral with a self-inflicted shot, leaving behind a survivor whose screams pierced the night and a community now ablaze with grief, rage, and resolve.

Sixteen days later, as frost etches the mill-town windows of Woonsocket—a resilient pocket of 43,000 souls where Cambodian markets mingle with faded textile ghosts—Jazmyn Roderick stepped into the flickering candlelight of a vigil and broke her silence. Her voice, raw and resolute, carried over purple ribbons and tear-streaked faces: “I know that none of us were supposed to live that night.” In those words, laced with the tremor of unprocessed trauma, Jazmyn didn’t just recount horror; she ignited a reckoning. This is her story—not as a footnote in gun-violence statistics, but as a visceral testament to survival’s sharp edges, a mother’s legacy of ferocity, and a call to shatter the silence that lets monsters like Rivera thrive in plain sight.

The Unraveling: A Breakup That Refused to End

To grasp the cataclysm of November 3, you must first trace the fragile fault lines of a family pieced together from hard-won victories. Kimberly Pieranunzi was no stranger to reinvention. At 40, she was a single mother turned warrior, her days a blur of clinical rotations and flashcards at the Community College of Rhode Island. Graduation loomed just 28 days away—a registered nurse’s pin to crown years of night shifts, ramen-fueled cram sessions, and the quiet steel that raised Jazmyn alone after a messy divorce. Friends like Candace Wilkinson remember her not as fragile, but as fire: “Kim was the one who’d drop everything for you, laugh through the storm, and pull you up with her.” Her apartment, a cozy second-floor haven on Clinton Street, hummed with her energy—lavender candles flickering beside stacks of anatomy texts, the scent of simmering clam chowder wafting from the kitchen on weekends.

Into this orbit came Donald Roderick Jr., the 45-year-old anchor Kimberly deserved. A construction foreman with callused hands and a wrestler’s build from his high-school days, Donny found joy in the simple: casting lines into the Seekonk River at dawn, firing up the grill for neighborhood barbecues, or coaxing smiles from Jazmyn with his “secret” lobster roll recipe. Widowed young and battle-scarred by loss, he had met Kimberly three years prior at a mutual friend’s cookout, their connection sparking like flint on steel. To Jazmyn, he became more than a stepfather—he was the dad who showed up, the one who taught her to spot a liar’s tell and bait a hook with patience. “He put family first, always,” his sister Tracy Murphy would later say, her voice thick with the weight of what-ifs. “Fishing brought him peace. Travel lit him up. He deserved decades more.”

Jazmyn, at 19, was the bridge between them—a whirlwind of freckles, quick wit, and the wide-eyed curiosity of early adulthood. A freshman navigating community college’s uncertainties, she had tumbled into her romance with Sean Rivera in the hazy freedom post-high school. He was 24, charming in flashes, with a spotty job history and a temper that simmered beneath the surface. What began as passion curdled into possession: jealousy that choked conversations, arguments that echoed through thin walls. By late October, Jazmyn pulled the plug, but Rivera didn’t leave. He lingered, a fixture on the couch, his presence a grudging tolerance born of Kimberly’s empathy and Donny’s hope for redemption. “We tried to help him,” Jazmyn would reflect, her words a fragile autopsy of hindsight. Unbeknownst to them, in the breakup’s bitter wake, Rivera had armed himself—a stolen .380, its origins tangled in Maine’s black-market shadows, now a ticking bomb in his jacket pocket.

The apartment’s rhythms masked the gathering storm. Neighbors like Joseph Cabral, one floor below, caught muffled spats filtering through the vents—”life’s not perfect,” he’d shrug—but nothing screamed danger. Kimberly shuttled to classes, her backpack heavy with dreams. Donny clocked out, whistling up the stairs. Jazmyn texted friends about midterms. And Rivera? He stewed, the gun’s weight a constant companion, his obsession festering like an untreated wound.

The Four Minutes: From Whispered Demand to Deafening Silence

November 3 dawned crisp, the Blackstone River glinting under a reluctant sun. By evening, as shadows stretched across Clinton Street’s brick facades, the air in Jazmyn’s bedroom thickened with finality. She was cross-legged on her bed, fairy lights haloing her resolve, when Rivera knocked—soft, insistent. She cracked the door, words of closure on her lips, but his hand jammed through like a vice, the .380’s muzzle blooming cold against her temple.

“Have sex with me right now,” he said, voice eerily even, “or I kill you.”

The demand wasn’t roared; it slithered, practiced, the product of a mind unraveling in rejection’s grip. Jazmyn’s world imploded into survival mode. Adrenaline surged, a primal roar drowning reason. She feinted, bolted—bare feet slapping hardwood down the narrow hall, screams tearing from her throat: “Mom!” Rivera pursued, gun raised, a predator denied his claim.

Kimberly, in her sanctuary of dog-eared novels and clinical notes, heard the terror like a maternal alarm. She flung open her door, arms wide to cocoon her daughter—and met the bullets head-on. Multiple rounds ripped into her chest and torso, the lavender scrubs she still wore from afternoon rotations blooming crimson. She crumpled in the threshold, a human barricade, her gasp a dying plea: protect her, always. Jazmyn, inches away, recoiled as the “bright white” flash erupted—a blinding void swallowing sight, sound, sensation. “I couldn’t see anything for a second,” she would later recount, voice hollow with the echo. “Couldn’t hear. Didn’t even feel like I felt anything. So I thought that was it—I was dead.”

But death, mercifully, released her. The white receded, revealing horror: her mother’s body, limp and leaking life, Rivera’s silhouette wheeling toward the front door. That’s when Donny’s key scraped the lock. He stepped in whistling—grocery bag swinging, meatloaf ingredients promising normalcy—smiling at the family he cherished. The door hadn’t fully swung when Rivera’s fury pivoted. Two shots, point-blank to the chest. Donny collapsed, keys skittering across the floor amid tumbling potatoes and beef, his whistle silenced forever.

Less than four minutes from ultimatum to oblivion. Rivera, cornered by his own carnage, turned the gun inward—muzzle to temple, trigger pulled. The apartment exhaled into silence: blood dripping like accusatory tears, shell casings glinting under the fairy lights, the faint sizzle of a forgotten stove burner in the kitchen.

Jazmyn didn’t process; she propelled. Over her mother’s form, past Donny’s splayed hand, down the creaking stairs—barefoot, pajamas blood-flecked, screams propelling her into the November chill. Surveillance footage from Social Street Smoke Shop, 200 yards away, immortalized the dash: a frantic silhouette, ponytail lashing like a whip, hands outstretched as if warding off pursuit. She slammed into the door, bell jangling wildly.

Dominique Domingo, 28, was mid-shift behind the counter when the blur burst in. “The first thing I was screaming was, ‘It’s not mine,'” Jazmyn gasped, collapsing, blood—her mother’s—smeared across her arms, face, clothes. “‘It’s my mom’s. My mom’s shot!’ And then I said, ‘Hide me, help me, my mom!'” Dominique locked the door, pulled her behind the counter, dialed 911 with shaking hands. “Stay with me, baby,” she murmured, hoodie draped over trembling shoulders. Sirens wailed in the distance, red-blue strobes fracturing the night. Jazmyn huddled, convinced Rivera would follow. He never did—his body cooling upstairs, the .380 beside him like a discarded confession.

The Vigil’s Flame: Jazmyn’s Voice Pierces the Grief

By Sunday, November 9, Woonsocket’s Bernon Park transformed into a sea of flickering candles and purple ribbons—the hue of domestic violence awareness, now a banner for the slain. The vigil, a spontaneous swell of community anguish, drew hundreds under bare oaks: mill workers with callused palms clutching photos, Cambodian elders murmuring prayers, college kids with signs reading “Break the Silence.” Hymns mingled with sobs, the air thick with the scent of melting wax and resolve. It was here, amid the glow, that Jazmyn spoke—her first public words since the white flash.

Flanked by her aunt Tracy Murphy—Kimberly’s sister, now her anchor—Jazmyn gripped the microphone, voice steady but eyes haunted. “I know that none of us were supposed to live that night,” she began, the crowd inhaling sharply. She recounted the knock, the crack in the door, Rivera’s hand and the gun’s gleam. The refusal, the pursuit, the shots that felled her mother. “From what I know, he picked it up after I broke up with him,” she said, the words a quiet indictment of obsession’s arsenal. The escape: bloodied screams at the smoke shop, the blur of lights and pleas. “The first thing I was screaming was, ‘It’s not mine’…”

The park fell silent, save for stifled gasps. Tracy, arm around her niece, added, “We will forever lean on each other as we navigate this new reality.” The duo’s embrace—a tableau of fractured family forging forward—drew applause laced with tears. Vanessa Volz, CEO of Sojourner House, Rhode Island’s domestic violence lifeline, took the stage next: “This wasn’t random. It was intimate partner terror. And it ends when we refuse to look away.” Candles waved like a luminous tide, purple ribbons fluttering as names—Kimberly, Donny—were called into the night.

The vigil wasn’t catharsis; it was ignition. GoFundMe campaigns erupted: “In Memory of Kimberly and Donald: Support Jazmyn” surged past $50,000 for funerals and therapy; “Aid for Kim’s Daughter in Her Time of Need” poured in for Jazmyn’s tuition, a lifeline to the RN legacy her mother chased. Strangers flooded inboxes: survivors sharing scars, donors vowing purple-ribbon runs. “Your story saved me,” one read. Jazmyn, poring over them in a borrowed Providence bedroom, whispered to Tracy, “Mom’s strength—she’s in me now.”

Fractured Reflections: The Unseen Scars of Survival

Jazmyn’s trauma unfolds in fragments, a mosaic of therapy sessions and midnight vigils. The “bright white” haunts her—a dissociative veil, per counselors at Sojourner House, where 10,000 crisis calls echo yearly. Nightmares replay the demand, the shots, the blood’s copper tang. “I haven’t processed it yet,” she admits, voice cracking in a follow-up with NBC 10. “But Mom… she got me through those first days. Her fight—it’s mine now.” At 19, she’s adrift: classes paused, friends orbiting warily, the apartment a yellow-taped tomb she visits only to reclaim textbooks, each page a ghost of Kimberly’s highlighter scrawls.

Tracy Murphy navigates the logistics of loss: autopsies, arraignments (none, with Rivera’s suicide), the grim choreography of caskets. “Donny was the quiet giant,” she shares, sifting his tackle box like relics. “He’d laugh at this fuss—tell us to cast a line, let the river wash it clean.” Kimberly’s CCRI cohort, heartsick, renamed a scholarship in her honor; classmates recall her lasagna-fueled marathons, her mantra: “We rise or we break—together.” Funerals loomed by mid-November: Kimberly’s under purple canopies, Donny’s by the Seekonk with fishing poles as pallbearers.

Neighbors like Cabral grapple with proximity’s guilt: “Heard the yells, but… who intervenes?” The smoke shop’s video—grainy, gut-wrenching—loops in news cycles, a viral dirge amassing millions of views. Dominique Domingo, the clerk turned savior, fields hero tags she deflects: “Just human. She’d do the same.” Yet, in quiet shifts, the bell’s jangle revives the slam, the screams.

The Broader Shadow: Gun Violence’s Intimate Inferno

This isn’t isolated apocalypse; it’s America’s domestic plague incarnate. Every 12 seconds, per the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a woman faces assault from an intimate. Three die daily. In Rhode Island, calls spiked 20% post-pandemic, Sojourner House straining under the load. Rivera’s .380—stolen post-breakup, traced to Maine’s lax trails—embodies the loophole: 80% of DV homicides involve firearms, Everytown Research warns, yet “red flag” laws stall in Providence’s halls.

Dr. Elena Vasquez, Brown University’s DV expert, dissects the pathology: “Rejection like Jazmyn’s triggers coercive control’s endgame—sex as submission, gun as enforcer.” Post-separation spikes claim 75% of victims; Rivera’s couch-lingering a textbook red flag ignored. Policy whispers grow: advocates push tracing reforms, escape drills in high schools. Jazmyn’s vigil plea—”none of us were supposed to live”—fuels #BreakTheSilence, TikToks recreating her dash, survivors stitching purple filters over scars.

Nationally, the ripple: 54% of mass shootings root in DV, CDC data chills. Woonsocket’s mills may hum anew, but this scar festers—a reminder that monsters don’t lurk in alleys; they couch-surf, whisper demands, pull triggers in fairy-lit rooms.

Whispers of Dawn: From White Flash to Fierce Light

November 19 dawns frosty, Woonsocket stirring under gunmetal skies. Jazmyn eyes finals, vowing to pin that RN cap for Kimberly. “Every day counts now—for both of them,” she says, steel edging her fragility. Tracy plans a spring fishing derby on the Blackstone, proceeds to Sojourner. The apartment? Vacant, but its echoes propel: workshops on spotting obsession, hotlines etched in phone screens.

The vigil’s candles may gutter, but their embers glow in purple-ribboned wrists, in GoFundMe tallies climbing toward healing, in Jazmyn’s first un-haunted laugh. This tragedy—a four-minute inferno—births a manifesto: speak the demands, flee the flashes, honor the fallen with lives unlived in silence. Kimberly’s ferocity, Donny’s whistle, Jazmyn’s dash—they scream into the void: we survive, we rise, we refuse the dark.

In Woonsocket’s resilient heart, the bright white yields to dawn. And in that light, a survivor steps forward—not broken, but blazing.