Zymiren Best had a special yet unexplainable nickname for his mother: Slime.
“Out of the blue, he’d text me, ‘What’s up with you, Slime? Cash App me ten dollars,” Bianca Best remembered with a smile in her voice.
It’s the little, everyday things like this that she misses most.
Zymiren was a senior at Camelot Charter School and planned to attend a six-month program for welding after graduation. He had done some research and found it to be a lucrative career with good benefits, Bianca said.
Those plans were shattered when Zymiren was shot and killed in the 1500 block of North 28th Street in Brewerytown on Feb. 26, 2020. He was 19 years old. Police have not made any arrests.
“Everything about him was special,” Bianca said. “His personality, his smile. He was caring and he was always there for me. He always helped me.”
Zymiren as a child
Zymiren, who went by “Zee,” or “Zeebo,” was born Nov. 10, 2001 in Philadelphia and grew up in North Philly. He was Bianca’s first child, and they grew up together. His siblings are 14, 13, 8 and 5 years old, and they meant the world to him. Zymiren was happy to help out with his youngest brother and often picked him up from school.
He was social and funny, a real people person, and others flocked to him. That included his girlfriend of about a year, Kaniyah Lewis. They were both born under the sign of Scorpio, and she was drawn to him in part because of his laugh, which she describes as “like a girl’s laugh.”
They loved watching movies together, especially “Paid in Full,” hanging out at the park, just talking and eating.
“Zee was an outgoing person, and he worked hard for the ones he loved,” Kaniyah said.
Eddie McNeely was Zymiren’s stepfather and watched him grow up. Zymiren was eager to spend time with Eddie and used to knock on his door and follow him around, but in recent years, they began having more adult conversations.
Zymiren and Kaniyah
Eddie recalled that one day when he was feeling low, Zymiren noticed and tried to cheer him up.
“I was down on myself and he saw it in my face,” Eddie said. “He just grabbed me and hugged me and said, ‘Everything will be cool, we’ll get through this together.’ I just took that and ran with it. He could motivate you. He was funny and a good listener.”
For fun, Zymiren played video games and basketball, and he also went with some friends into the studio to rap.
“He would try to rap, and even though he couldn’t, he would try to do it and be funny about it,” Bianca said with a chuckle.
Zymiren was a member of the Class of 2020 and he was awarded his high school diploma with his class in June. Bianca knows that if he had been alive, it would have been the proudest moment of his life.
“What happened shouldn’t have happened to him. It wasn’t officially for him and I feel like lives are being taken for the wrong reasons,” she said.
Bianca and Zymiren
“He was a person who was special to us and he was taken. People need to know that this is serious and it’s getting worse. Young lives, black males, are being taken, and there are so many other people who are going through what I’m going through.”
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 person responsible for Zymiren’s murder. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
Date: 2020-02-26
Location: 1500 N 28th St, Philadelphia, PA
