SaskatoonCathleen Balon testified Wednesday at the trial of the man accused of murdering her 20-year-old daughter, Nykera Brown.Cathleen Balon says daughter Nykera Brown was looking for a way outDan Zakreski · CBC News · Posted: Oct 29, 2025 7:26 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesCathleen Balon says her daughter Nykera Brown had recently stopped using drugs and wanted out of the Terror Squad gang in the days before she died. (Dan Zakreski/CBC)Cathleen Balon says she came within hours of saving her daughter, Nykera Brown.Not weeks, not days. Hours.Balon said her 20-year-old daughter had been calling detox centres the week before her death in 2022, trying to get admitted for treatment. She learned on Nov. 13 that a spot had opened.”[On] the 14th, she called me,” Balon said in interview Wednesday.”I missed her call so she called my mom and said, ‘I’m in. Tell mom to come get me. I’ll be ready in the morning,’ I never got the call.”Nykera Brown died of a gunshot wound to the head on Nov. 15, 2022, dying in the Avenue P South apartment she shared with Andrew Rosenfeldt, 28. Rosenfeldt is on trial at Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench, charged with second-degree murder in Brown’s death.Nykera Brown was trying to get to get into addictions treatment in the days before she died, her mom says. (Nykera Brown/Facebook)The trial began Oct. 20. Witnesses have testified that Brown and Rosenfeldt were both in the Terror Squad street gang and, the night she died, Brown was planning to head out on a mission to punish a fellow gang member.A friend testified that Brown left the apartment with them on the mission, but then turned back to go get something. That’s the last she saw her alive.Balon did not dispute that her daughter struggled with drugs and gangs. But she said that Brown recently had stopped using drugs and wanted out of the gang.”She wanted out of that. She wanted her son. She wanted to be a loving mom. And we talked about furnishing her first place — we were excited,” she said.”I knew that I was winning. I was seeing the old Nykera come back, the giggling when I’d have coffee with her. A week prior to this, there was hope.”Prosecutor Elizabeth Addabor entered in evidence texts between Balon and her daughter from the weeks before Brown’s death. Brown referenced wanting to go into rehab, and being ready to go on Nov. 15.She also referenced her relationship with Rosenfeldt, sending Balon a six-second video showing a black eye.Balon said that her daughter was not going on a gang mission, or “lick,” that night — she was leaving an abusive relationship.”She was leaving, and that’s the most dangerous time in domestic violence situations. She had her boots on. She had her shoes on. And if she was going to do that ‘lick,’ why did she turn around,” she said.”Because she turned around to call us.”Balon said she has a simple message for other women in domestic violence situations.”If you’re in a domestic violence situation, end the silence. We’re here. We’re listening. Don’t become Nykera.”The trial continues all week.ABOUT THE AUTHORDan Zakreski is a reporter in Saskatoon.
‘Don’t become Nykera’: Mother speaks of daughter’s fight to leave gangs, drugs, bad relationship
