Beatrice Fontenot (b. 1977; d. Nov 1993) was an honor student at Grant High School in Los Angeles. She had two older brothers and one younger brother. Her older brothers were involved in selling crack. She wrote an incisive essay on The Day of the Locust for Sylvia Moore's literature class. She was a popular student and a favorite student of Moore. She was shot in November of 1993 in a drive-by shooting on Normandie Avenue while she was at home babysitting her younger brother and reading The Big Sleep. She was rushed to Martin Luther King Jr Hospital where she died the next morning.