03/14/2025
Nikki, murdered just weeks after her fourteenth birthday, is ✨💫🕊️💕72 💕today.
This May 1, 2025, the brutal murder of Nikki is ***58 years still "unsolved."***
💫💔NIKKI ALEXANDRA BENEDICT
(March 13, 1953 - May 1, 1967)
Transposed from her funeral pamphlet 1967:
*[ Footnotes in ((brackets)) after original paragraphs, were added by her little sister Barbara Benedict in 2010]
Nikki Benedict was born in Chicago. When she was still a baby she moved to New Mexico where she lived with her family in small towns and villages — sometimes in a trailer in a mining*[1] camp. At pre-school age she lived and played in a camp in the mountains and waded in a stream which flowed by the camp.
((*[1] Uranium and Mica. When Nikki was small her father prospected Uranium in New Mexico and surrounding states, and later ran a Mica mine in Calif.))
Starting school in Fallbrook, Nikki overcame early hearing difficulties which held her back at first. She became interested in arts and crafts in the lower grades. She thought it was “terribly stupid that girls don’t take shop…” Nikki was interested in becoming an engineer, but she didn’t like being conspicuous and didn’t want to be singled out as a “girl engineer.”
Nikki took an Easter bunny and ran it into a rabbitry with a dozen does and over a hundred rabbits at any one time, which she sold every week as they became big enough to market. She managed this project for three years*[2] and made her spending money working at a commercial rabbity nearby, on weekends.
((*[2] A completely devastating house fire of her family home nearby, also devastated her entire rabbity. Cause of fire “undetermined.”))
Nikki accompanied her father on trips to camps for farm worker migrants*[3] in central California and in Arizona. She knew what poverty looked like and the week before she died she wrote to Senator Murphy in his hospital in Los Angeles to see if there wasn’t something he could do for hungry people in the South.
((*[3] Nikki’s father was directly involved with the John F. Kennedy for President campaign, then later was sent to Washington D.C. to be part of the founding team of The Peace Corp., and further on (Sargent Shriver’s) War on Poverty Programs (http://www.sargentshriver "dot org" /sarges-legacy/war-on-poverty) as well as many other Voting, Civil Rights, and Migrant Farm Worker and poverty programs. At the time of Nikki's murder her father was on visit in San Diego in support of a local impoverished Native American community. Nikki's Mother, while caring for her five young daughters while remaining in California, living and working in essence as a single Mom, was also active on all of the above, as well as the earliest days of Head Start and support for many local impoverished Native American communities. At the time of Nikki's murder Nikki's Mother was Editor of the San Diego Independent newspaper, North County & East County editions.))
Our daughter had a logical and skeptical turn of mind. She recently said that she thought capital punishment was ineffective but that “the people who make a fuss about the men on death row wouldn’t go out of their way to do anything for a starving man…”
Nikki was a doer, not a talker. She would become impatient with other members of her family –especially her father and older sister and once exclaimed “Talk, talk, talk! Why don’t you shut up and DO something?”
In our family she was a prime mover. And she was a volunteer. She worked with her mother on Sunday nights reading proofs at a newspaper office,*[4] she did so last Sunday night.
((*[4] At the time, Nikki's mother Julie Benedict, was Editor of The San Diego Independent newspaper, North County & East County editions.))
"This has been a highly fulfilling year for Nikki. She would highly deplore the fuss being made over her now, but she would want her friends to know it has been a good, good year."
-- her Father ((Russell Reed Benedict))
"Nikki learned to ignore the limits set for her. She didn’t believe in limits. 'It’s not your ability but your determination that counts,' she said."
-- her oldest Sister ((Tevina Benedict))
((End of bio.))
* * *
IT IS NEVER "TOO LATE," IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT me here on Facebook, and contact The San Diego County Sheriff's Department.
Nikki's COLD CASE INFORMATION link:
https://www.sdsheriff.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/167/252?npage=2
SD Homicide Department link: https://www.sdsheriff.gov/bureaus/law-enforcement-services-bureau/support-services/homicide
#1967
https://www.facebook.com/nikkialexandrabenedictunsolved?mibextid=wwXIfr
Help find justice for 14 yrs young Nikki Alexandra Benedict (COLD CASE MURDER May 1, 1967, Poway CA)
