‘She was in her glory’: Young woman who died in fire just after Christmas remembered as role model, entrepreneur

TAMARAC — Keera Brabham had just returned home from visiting her family in Vero Beach on Christmas night, friends say, an unusual time to travel for some, but not for the young entrepreneur who was always on the go.

Hours later, the 29-year-old would be found dead after a fire at a Tamarac apartment complex, the cause of which remains unknown. Broward Sheriff’s Office homicide detectives were investigating her death early on Tuesday and released no new information Wednesday.

The news shocked friends and family, who had watched Brabham’s career take off, her dreams coming true in the months before she died. She worked as an esthetician, running her own salon in Sunrise, a growing business that served people from all over the state and even from other countries, according to her father, Curtis Brabham. She had a 4-year-old son, Niko.

“She was the best mother, business owner and friend,” Arnitria Mcfadden, one of Brabham’s best friends, told the Sun Sentinel on Wednesday. “The only selfless person I ever knew in life.”

The family moved to Vero Beach from New York in 1997, according to Curtis Brabham. Keera Brabham went to college in Tallahassee, then graduated from cosmetology school in 2018, her website says.

At first, she worked out of her family’s home in Vero Beach, her father said, but realized she needed to move to South Florida to grow her business.

So she moved to the area on her own and started her business “from the ground up,” said Mcfadden, who moved to the area about the same time. The two met in college and later helped one another in their careers; Mcfadden is a hair stylist and graphic designer.

The two were together on Christmas night, the night before she died, Mcfadden said. They had gone out to see one of their favorite artists and celebrate their success, a “celebration of life” before they knew it would be the last one.

“Everything about her was positive,” Mcfadden said. “There was no bad besides the situation that happened.”

This past August, Brabham had just opened a bigger salon with her company’s name, Shaded Aesthetics, printed on the front door, according to her Instagram page. Her social media pages, which documented her company’s skin care and beauty treatments, reached thousands. She often wrote about making her clients feel comfortable no matter their background, including those who don’t speak English.

Last year, Brabham wrote on Facebook that she had just seen a client who drove all the way from Pahokee. This past November, she shared a message from a follower in Pakistan, asking for skin-care advice.

“Last year I taught someone from the Bahamas how to do lashes and now this! Grateful and growing!” she wrote.

Esthetician work was Brabham’s passion, her father said. With the growing clientele, a newly opened salon, and a loving son, “she was in her glory.”

“She touched a lot of people’s lives,” he added. Addressing his daughter, he said, “you have been loved, and you are loved, and you will be deeply missed.”

Brabham set an example for those around her, friends said, a woman who had built her own business from nothing and still encouraged others along the way.

“I always knew she was going to do something that would leave a mark,” said Lavonne Scott, whose family grew up right by Brabham’s family in Vero Beach. “That people would remember her.”

Her younger brother and Brabham were best friends since grade school, she said, so Brabham was “the little sister I never had.”

“Even with the business she started, she really inspired a lot of other people to follow suit,” Scott added. “Not necessarily to do the same thing, but that you can basically pave your own way. That you don’t always have to go the route everyone thinks you should go or do what everyone thinks you should be doing.”

Brabham was the first person to tint Lakanjala Adolphe’s brows, the first person to give her a facial.

“One thing I know she was definitely living out her dreams and I was so proud of her,” Adolphe said in a text, describing her as “the sweetest girl ever.”

Outside of her career, family and friends remembered her as kind-hearted and loving, with what her father called a “zest for life.” A doting mother, she worked as hard as she did to give her son a better life.

“That was her main goal,” Mcfadden said. “To break generational curses, make sure her son lived the life of luxury and wealth and no struggle at all, whatsoever.”

In an interview with Canvas Rebel last year, Brabham said that she loved being a business owner because it allowed her more flexibility and time to spend raising her son.

“This was my little baby girl, and I’m yet to fathom the circumstances around her death,” Brabham’s aunt, Alma Black, wrote on Facebook. “She was passionate about her profession (a licensed esthetician), very ambitious. She was an amazing Mother to her beautiful four-year old Son. He was her life, and her world revolved around him. She loved life and she lived her short life to the fullest.”

Scott believes that Brabham wouldn’t have wanted people to feel sad, but to remember the good times, and, most of all, to “keep hustling.”

She had just seen Brabham the day before, on Christmas, at her own family’s home in Vero Beach. Scott had gone out into the garage and saw someone talking to her brother outside.

“I yelled and said ‘who’s that?'” Scott said. “She just looked and turned around, she’s cheesin’ and smiling, so bright, just like how she always is, no matter what. That’s the memory I have of her.”

Anyone with information should contact BSO Homicide Unit Detective John Curcio at 954-321-4210 or submit a tip through the SaferWatch app. If you wish to remain anonymous, please contact Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477), online at browardcrimestoppers.org, or dial **TIPS (8477) from any cellphone in the United States.