When Destiny Gonsalves-Charles was a child, she had a crush on a boy six years her senior named Damier.
She was friends with his little cousins, and every time she saw him, she’d wait for him to glance her way, then she’d give him a look and a smile.
“I took notice and I thought, ‘This little girl is crazy,’” Damier said. “But I never associated with her because she was so young and we were in completely different age groups.”
Destiny eventually moved to Delaware County and the two didn’t see each other for years.
Destiny Gonsalves-Charles
At the end of May, Damier was walking to Walgreens on Germantown Avenue at Chelten when he ran into a woman he knew who was with a friend.
The other woman was Destiny. She was 19 and was back living in Germantown.
“I didn’t know it was her at first, and I was shocked,” said Damier, who is 25. “I took down her number and she was so excited.”
They started talking and before long, she moved in with him because she needed a place to stay. They quickly became a couple. They were still in the early stages of their relationship, but they were planning a long-term future together.
Their dreams were cut short on Sept. 5, when Destiny was the victim of a drive-by shooting while sitting on the front porch of a home with some friends in the 6300 block of Cherokee Street in Germantown. She died five days later. A man was also shot and he is now paralyzed.
Destiny was born March 5, 1999 and was educated in Delaware County. At the time of her death, she worked at Shake Shack in King of Prussia.
Damier, whose friend Niam Johnson-Tate was also a victim of homicide in July 2017, is still trying to process that Destiny is gone.
Damier Carter
“All of her stuff is still where she left it,” Damier said. “I haven’t brought myself to touch anything.”
Destiny was his destiny, Damier said. They had a once-in-a-lifetime relationship.
“She was so affectionate and so loving and so happy to finally be with me,” he said. “She’d say, ‘You’re really perfect, you’re really special,’ and I’d say, ‘I’m not even all that’ and we’d go back and forth like that for a nice little five minutes about this. She got her hands on me and she was not letting go.”
Destiny wrote songs about him, he said, and was writing a book about their relationship called “That Look.” Sometimes she couldn’t get over the fact that her childhood crush was now finally her boyfriend, and she’d pinch him to make sure he was real.
They were best friends, Damier said. They’d talk for hours about the future — they both had some interest in joining the military together, but she was more interested in becoming a midwife — and they’d play video games together and spend time with Damier’s dog.
“We’d play like little kids, just happy,” he said. “And that’s the happiness she brought me that I always hoped to have.”
Damier describes Destiny as selfless, positive and trusting and, above all else, completely devoted to him. She’d do anything to make him happy, and vice versa.
Damier Carter
She had the power to draw him out out of his shell and get him to open up, something he was always reluctant to do. And now that she’s gone, he doesn’t think he will ever find anyone like her ever again.
“It was unconditional love — that’s exactly what it was,” he said. “That’s the one thing you hope to find in life.”
A candlelight vigil and balloon release took place Sept. 21 on the block where the shooting occurred.
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for Destiny’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
A portrait of Destiny is included in the latest exhibition of Souls Shot: Portraits of Gun Violence.
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