Family says girl's survival is 'a relief' amid sadness

WINTON, N.C.

Broken trees, tire tracks in the mud and a small spray of artificial red flowers were the only reminders Friday afternoon of the wreck the day before that took four lives.

Three-year-old Za'nyiah (Burke) Jones was the lone survivor in a Ford Tempo that collided with a logging truck. Za'nyiah, who was flown to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, was thought dead until about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, when her grandfather learned she had been mistaken for someone else.

"It was a relief," Pam Weston, Burke's aunt, said Friday. "We know the Lord knows what he's doing and he left her."

Za'nyiah suffered a skull fracture, spinal cord injury, broken legs and a bruised lung, Weston said. She was listed in critical condition Friday evening.

She was with family Friday. She squeezed her grandfather's hand and called out as if she were conscious, Weston said.

The family's relief at her survival was

overwhelmed by a sadness that silenced the small living room in Winton where Za'nyiah's mother, Trarica Burke, had lived with her children.

McKenzie Hart, 19, of Northampton County; Burke, 20, of Winton; her 1-year-old son, Zai'veyon (Jones) Burke; and the couple's 5-month-old son, Zamarius, died when the car they were in was demolished in the head-on collision.

"It's just hard. You hear talk of these things like this, but you never know until it happens how you'll... " Weston said, sobbing.

"We don't ask questions. He saw something in Za'nyiah. He knew what he was doing. We can never ask why."

What brought smiles to the family members' faces were the memories of Hart, Burke and the children. Hart and Burke acted like a married couple and treated all three children as if they were their own, Weston said.

The children were often shuttled between places by their relatives.

"They used to love seeing us drive up," Weston said.

Zamarius, the baby, had the prettiest smile and the sweetest temperament. Zai'veyon strutted around like a little man. And Za'nyiah spoke to her aunts on a "grown person's level."

"They were just comical kids," said Linda Schoolfield, Burke's great-aunt.

The children were their mother's pride, her aunt said. On her MySpace page, last updated in May, Burke posted pictures of her two oldest children but not herself - there was Zai'veyon at 3 months, chubby arms pulled up to his chest in one, and Za'nyiah, at 19 months old, wearing a cross and a smile.

"My beautiful children," she wrote.

Her page's background color is set to bright red, with strawberries and red-and-white swirls and a glittery phrase that says "money on my mind."

Burke especially liked R&B music, "but I do listen to Lil' Wayne and other rap artists." She was left-handed, had been in love and wanted to visit Africa. She preferred Sprite to Coke or Pepsi, vanilla ice cream to chocolate. She liked to be called "Re-Re."

She wrote that she feared snakes and spiders and death. On a survey that asked how she wanted to die, Burke wrote "in my sleep."

A funeral for all four victims is scheduled for Monday at 1 p.m. at the Soul Saving Station Evangelistic Center at 337 Ahoskie Cofield Road in Ahoskie.

Staff writer Kristin Davis contributed to this story.

Lauren King, (252) 338-2413, lauren.king@pilotonline.com