Life on the streets that claimed Jenna Lord

Jahira stood beneath a blazing sun on Broadway in Camden recently, talking openly about her evolution from dealer to doper and how she won't negotiate when selling her body for sex.

The 25-year-old Philadelphia native wore her tattoos like a suit of armor, the gang symbols, rosary beads and various names each adding another layer of toughness to protect her in this tough city.

But one word changed her demeanor as it made a painful journey from memory to mouth. Her nervous smile faded, her eyes rimmed with tears, and she took a deep breath as it rested on her lips.

"Five," she said in a soft, wavering voice when asked if she had children. "They took them all away from me."

Family and friends of another young mother, 23-year-old Jenna Lord, think Camden's streets took her from them when she walked out of a busy, downtown PATCO station with two men on July 5. Despite her criminal record and past drug use, Lord's family said she was sober and believed she had been abducted or worse.

On Sunday, Lord's family scoured those streets and quickly found her decomposed body behind some tree stumps in a lot near Broadway. Sources told the Daily News that a man who led the family to Jenna's body, and was also seen at the train station with her, admitted he had done drugs with Lord and left when she passed out. Authorities don't believe foul play was involved, but haven't determined exactly how Lord died.

Lord's story, police and outreach workers say, is a microcosm of what happens in Camden every day. Some girls catch the train back home, some disappear and are never seen again, and some, like Jahira, stay for years.

Jenna Lord's missing-person flier was one of many Bill and Brenda Antinore, both former addicts, had in a folder recently when they made their way down Broadway with cold bottles of water in a cooler. The couple, along with their daughter, Brittany Stewart, run an outreach ministry called "She Has a Name" that offers troubled women access to social services, a few prayers and, if they're ready, a shot at sobriety. They never give them money.

The Antinores allowed a reporter to accompany them on condition that the Daily News not print their clients' last names.

"Have you got deodorant?" Brenda asked Unique, a 29-year-old prostitute. "When we come back Friday, we'll have shirts and shoes. You need new flip-flops?"

Unique, wearing worn flip-flops and a lace miniskirt, stood in front of a vacant lot where a sign that said "Heal Camden" sat among the weeds. She's been on the street for four years.

"The game, depending on what girl it is, can be harsh," she said.

On any given day, dozens of women of every race and color shuffle over to motorists who tap their brakes on Broadway from the bustling blocks downtown to desolate waterfront warehouses to the south.

The Antinores say they've met with more than 200 girls since they started about four years ago. They get up to a dozen new missing-person fliers a week and always see new faces on Broadway.

High on heroin, Sharon, 29, of Woodbury, giggled while recalling being raped and having a gun put to her head.

"You name it, it happened," she said, smoking a cigarette.

A little kitten stuck its head out of Yvonne's pocketbook as she walked on Broadway with a little Pomeranian she had found. The 39-year-old Lindenwold native said she never gets mistaken for a prostitute and that her needle marks are new.

"I just started shooting up," she said.

To make money, Yvonne said she cleans a relative's barber shop in Camden. She talks to her 12-year-old son by phone.

"I tell him I don't want him to see me like this," she said, wiping tears from her eye. "I tell him to be a good boy for me."

For all of the prostitutes, addicts and other lost souls who eke out an existence on Camden's streets, it's drugs that cause the pain, and for brief moments every day, when they can scrounge enough money, the drugs make it go away.

"These people made, unfortunately, a choice to take drugs on a certain level," said the Rev. Michael Mannion, who works with both Camden police and the Antinores to help troubled women. "But then the monster takes over. The drugs control their reasoning and it often leads them to the gates of a living hell."

Mannion said he's working with the Antinores and city and county officials to develop immediate, long-term treatment for women after they're arrested to take advantage of sobering weekends in the county jail in downtown Camden.

"Now [after being arrested] they go back to what they know, and that's just a few blocks away," he said.

Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson spent years in a specialized drug task force busting dealers and said the addicts need more than handcuffs.

"We will continue to arrest them and their johns, but all the while realize we are spinning wheels," he said.

If the streets are a "living hell," the Walter Rand Transportation Center on Broadway is a purgatory, a mass of people amid the roar of diesel bus engines and screeching trains. It's where Jenna Lord was last seen on surveillance video and where others arrive for college, work or treatment at Cooper University Hospital.

Some use the station to stay cool or warm, and others venture off to buy heroin, crack and cocaine.

Sgt. Michael J. Crowther, of the Delaware River Port Authority police, said his department deploys plainclothes officers to scope out potential drug sales and loitering.

"If someone's here and they're not catching a bus or train, we're going to find out what they're doing," he said.

Some buyers have their own rides, driving into North Camden or other areas, looking for "the source," "60secs," "grave digger" or whatever other nickname dealers stamp on their packets of heroin.

Capt. Mark Nicholas, of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, said the buyers who commute from the suburbs will eventually wind up staying until they have nothing but their habits.

"You would think overdosing would be hitting rock bottom but I've seen people get hit with a shot of Narcan [a remedy often applied to addicts who've overdosed] wake up right up, and get right back out there," he said. "A lot of times, rock bottom is cold and blue."