A recent photo of Necia on Capitol Hill (Image with permission to CHS)

The family of Necia McKendrick want people to know the face of a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a creative spirit as they search for answers in her death.

“She really was working towards something. She finally felt free to do the things that were in her,” Anne Wolfe-Andersen said. “It really looks like she was just getting started.”

McKendrick’s body was found on the afternoon of Sunday, May 30th in a small stream below Interlaken Park by a Montlake homeowner who called 911 about the sad discovery. Investigators have determined McKendrick died of “multiple blunt force injuries” around May 23rd.

SPD is asking anyone with information about the case to contact police and have said little publicly about the case.

McKendrick’s Texas family including sisters, her grown daughter, and her mother planned to travel to Seattle this week with their world turned upside down around Necia Marie “Q” McKendrick-Mendez, an artist living a new adventure in Seattle, a city she had visited on and off through the years and had settled into again.

(Image with permission to CHS)

(Image with permission to CHS)

Examples of Necia’s artwork (Image with permission to CHS)

(Image with permission to CHS)

(Image with permission to CHS)

(Image with permission to CHS)

Some of Q’s life here is a mystery for the family. Q had said she was selling her art on the street on Broadway near Dick’s Drive-in, another new start for the 45-year-old artist.

“She saw people busking weren’t treated like they were in Texas,” Wolfe-Andersen said. “She saw an opportunity even if she was living on the fringes.”

Despite worries about Q and struggles with mental health and addiction, there was hope in her work.

“It was the one thing that made her feel relevant: her art,” her sister said.

Other circumstances of her life remain part of the questions the family is seeking answers to. There is also the desire to know what happened around the May 23rd killing and to make sure their loved one’s memory doesn’t fade away in mystery.

While the family begins this next phase of finding answers and likely new questions, they will also be in Seattle to hopefully see and experience Q’s creativity first hand. Some of her artwork was also recovered in a bag near where she was found.

(Image with permission to CHS)

If you have information that will help, please call SPD’s Violent Crimes tip line at (206) 233-5000.

Statement from the family:

Necia Marie “Q” McKendrick-Mendez (she/they), believed in living as loudly, authentically, and celebratory a life possible. She was tenacious in her passion- a lover and a fighter, and above all- a prolific creator. Q’s innate love was boundless, a constant found in each of their artistic endeavors- in each painting, sculpture, and song.

A found object artist in every sense of the word, Q drew from their own trauma, deep emotional wounds, and sense of her own and other’s inequity, and wrought a life of service to others in need. From volunteering in food pantries, to mentoring at-risk youth and sponsoring others struggling with addiction, she was consistently and enthusiastically accepting- championing, and celebrating others as their weirdest, loudest selves.

From her great love of people, she boisterously created community. From found objects and paint (and sometimes a little glitter) she ceaselessly created beautiful, intriguing art that spoke to the deep heartache inherent to her unrelenting love. With the fierce joy of her soul, she created and curated her most beloved and favorite creations- her three wonderful children.

She had a large family- in addition to her children, she is survived by five sisters and two brothers; many, many friends, and is ferociously missed.

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