Victim of ‘gruesome’ crime finds home

Eight-year-old Ronnie lay helplessly in a hospital bed in Tampa, Florida, his small body barely visible beneath layers of gauze.

Mike and Danyel Blair sat silently on either side of his bed as the movie “Power Rangers” played on a mounted TV screen. They carefully held his wounded hands.

Mike Blair, a detective with the Hillsborough County Sherriff ’s Office, was at the scene the night it all happened, the night Ronnie was nearly killed by his father.

It had been only two weeks since the brazen March 18, 2018, attack when Ronnie’s father, Ronnie Oneal III, killed his girlfriend, Kenyatta Barron — Ronnie’s mother — and his daughter, Ron’niveya, 9, Ronnie’s sister, prosecutors in Oneal’s trial said. Oneal soaked his son in gasoline, lighted him on fire and stabbed him multiple times. Ronnie was the sole survivor of the horrific family massacre.

Mike Blair, 45, was part of the law enforcement team called to the family’s home in Riverview, a community south of Tampa.

“It was extremely gruesome,” Blair said. “It was chaotic. It was violent.”

After that night, Blair was involved in the case on a limited basis, but the troubling scene stayed fresh in his mind.

Blair visited Ronnie at Tampa General Hospital on March 30, 2018. He was the last to leave the room, and as he started walking away, Ronnie grabbed his hand and gingerly asked, “Hey, can you stay and watch a movie with me?”

Blair explained that he had to go to work but promised to come back later that evening.

At the hospital, Blair and his wife — married for 23 years with

five children, ages 15 to 23 — felt a strong connection to Ronnie, whose sedation medicine was wearing off while they were there. He was itchy and uncomfortable and seeking comfort.

“As a mom, just the act of caring for a child immediately felt maternal and was a bonding experience,” Danyel Blair said.

Ronnie’s guardian ad litem, who was appointed by the state to represent his best interests during his father’s case, was there that evening, too.

“We exchanged pleasantries, and I gave her my number and said if there’s ever anything Ronnie needs to please call me,” Mike Blair said.

Five months later, she did. In August 2018, the Blairs got an unexpected call and were told that Ronnie was in dire need of a foster home after two failed placements.

“Do you know of anybody that can take him? There’s going to be a lot of medical appointments,” Ronnie’s guardian told Mike Blair.

Without hesitating, Blair said: “Just bring him to our house. We’ll take him.”

Ronnie arrived at the family’s Hillsborough County home at 6:30 p.m. with only the shirt on his back.

By the end of that first evening, “we made the decision to adopt him,” Mike Blair said. “The biggest thing that we wanted to give him was stability and a place where he knows he’s safe. Whatever we needed to do to move toward that, we were willing to do.”

The transition was an adjustment for the whole family, but especially for Ronnie, who had to adapt to a new environment with new people as he reeled from extreme trauma.

“I was sad and confused because I didn’t know what was really going on,” said Ronnie, now 12.

He repeatedly asked the Blairs the same questions: “Am I going to have to move again? How long am I going to stay? How long am I going to be here?”

“We assured him that he would never move again, that he would be permanently part of the family,” Mike Blair said. “Danyel and I told him that we don’t ever expect to replace his mom and dad. Ronnie does have fond memories and remembers times before that night that were very positive.”

Ronnie still reminisces about his mother pushing him on a swing, he said, and eating Oreos with his big sister. He was forced to process the pain of suddenly losing them in a frightening way while also facing his father’s inexplicable actions.

“He has a daunting question he thinks about every single day, which is, ‘Why?’” Mike Blair said. “It’s the unanswerable question.”

Through regular therapy sessions, though, Ronnie steadily started feeling more stable, and within only a few weeks of living with the Blairs, he started calling them Mom and Dad.

“He did it on his own. We told him he could call us whatever he wanted to,” Mike Blair said. “It was a pretty similar feeling to hearing your infants learning their first words.”

During difficult moments, the Blairs sit with Ronnie and recite a mantra they learned in counseling: “I am safe, I am loved, and I am part of this family.”

“It has become our go-to on everything. It’s just something that we repeat,” Mike Blair said.

While it took some time to get there, the message has resonated with Ronnie. “They take care of me,” he said. “They’re really nice. I feel happy.”

But even as Ronnie grew more comfortable in the Blairs’ home, his father’s criminal trial, in which he was set to be a key witness, loomed.

“Until trial, it was like he was stuck there, knowing that he would have to go and talk about it and testify,” Mike Blair said.

Oneal represented himself at the trial and was allowed to question his son on the stand.

“Did I hurt you the night of this incident?” Oneal asked Ronnie.

“Yes,” Ronnie replied. “You stabbed me.”

On June 25, Ronnie Oneal III was sentenced to life in prison.

Now that the trial is over, “the chapter is closed,” Mike Blair said. “He is much lighter. He is not carrying the weight of this trial and having to be stuck in this singular moment of his life.”

“They got me through the trial, and they were always there by my side if I cried or needed help,” Ronnie said. “I could share my feelings with them, and I felt like I could explain everything to them and it would get better.”

One recent evening before bedtime, Mike Blair stood by his son’s door and said, “Hey, remember, what are you?”

Following a classic preteen eyeroll, Ronnie smiled and said, “I am safe, I am loved, and I am part of this family.”

FAMILY PHOTO Ronnie (right), who survived a brutal attack by his father in 2018, has fun with his siblings on Seth Blair’s wedding day in 2019.