UFC heavyweight Walt Harris and his wife Angela Haley-Harris suffered unspeakable tragedy when their daughter Aniah Blanchard was kidnapped and murdered in 2019. Ibraheem Yazeed was arrested and charged with Blanchard’s murder; prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
In February 2020, the Alabama House of Representatives voted 104–0 in favor of Aniah’s Law, a reform of the state’s bail laws. And in July of 2020 Walt and Angela Harris launched Aniah’s Heart Foundation, a non-profit that provides resources and help for families searching for missing loved ones, and teaches families self-defense and awareness training.
After we found out what had happened to Aniah, the message came from her, explained Angela Harris to Gavin Porter for UFC.com. I could hear her saying to me, ‘We have to help people, and we can’t let this happen to people.’ I knew I had to do something to help save lives and prevent people from being abducted and becoming a victim of violence. That’s when we decided to teach people about all of this and start our foundation.
If this can happen to Aniah, then it can happen to anyone. No one is immune to being a victim. She was a normal girl, doing a normal thing and an evil person took her life, and we want people to be aware of that. My goal is to reach as many people as possible and help everyone implement a plan. Even before you leave your safe place, you need to have a plan to keep yourself safe. That’s crucial education.
We know we are working with Aniah on this. Walt and I know she would have loved helping people in their true time of need. She was the most amazing person ever and her death won’t be in vain. This is how we will honor her.
The couple are spreading awareness of abduction prevention methods, and are emotionally and materially supporting families searching for an abducted loved one. The Harris’s have worked directly on 15 abduction cases over the past few months, and daily receive communication from people in need. They feel blessed to be of service.
In the midst of all the turmoil we were going through, we didn’t know where to turn during those first hours of abduction, which are the most critical, said Walt Harris. An important aspect of our foundation is to help guide families and loved ones during those times, as everything is a whirlwind and it’s very traumatizing. From our personal experience, we might be able to comfort families and help point them in the right direction.
When a family member has a missing loved one, you really don’t know what you need to do. The contributions we receive for Aniah’s Heart will go towards lodging, food, travel, and other costs you just wouldn’t think about. We needed clothes on the fly, food, and a place to stay when everything first happened. It becomes very, very expensive very quickly, and we realized how much goes into everything in real-time. In those moments, parents aren’t even thinking of anything related to those things. You don’t think about renting a helicopter that costs $10,000 to search the areas from the air, you are just doing anything you can to try and find your child. We want to ease that stress as families are going through and those issues in the middle of that horrible process. We just want to be a buffer and blessing in that situation.
Aniah’s Heart Foundation’s Four Key Safety Areas of Service:
1. Safety and Awareness Education
Live Talks, taking place on social media, are information-driven sessions that disseminate tips, personal safety strategies, and heightened awareness of potential safety risks to those vulnerable to potential violent crimes.
2. Self-Defense Training
Local in-person and mobile sessions provide skills training from expert instructors to people of all ages.
3. Search and Rescue
Aniah’s Heart Foundation is a fundamental resource for organizing and providing support for search and rescue field operations that align with state and local officials.
4. Support Families of Missing Victims
Help families survive, manage, recover and, cope with the crisis of being victimized.
The UFC contributed $25,000 to help launch Aniah’s Heart, and has pledged ongoing support by raising additional funds and awareness on an annual basis.
