CRACK LOOSED DEMONS IN HER SOUL

After an agonizing adolescence -- parenthood at 16, failed marriage,
bouts of drug abuse -- Cheryl Ann Knierim had made a life for herself.
She was raising her son, working as a saleswoman and living in a nice
Lauderhill apartment.

Last Thursday morning, on a Dania Beach side street, that life went up
in smoke. An apparently cocaine-crazed Knierim emerged from a crack
house, shouting and shooting a .22-caliber range pistol, barely
missing 11-year-old Charles Ward Jr. as she stalked through the
neighborhood in a frenzy.

A volley of shots from a Broward sheriff's deputy ended her
rampage.

She was 29.

Knierim left behind a grieving, bewildered family, including a
12-year-old son.

"I'm going to miss her. I'll never get to see her again." said Andrew
Stack, the freckle-faced, red-haired boy who doesn't know for certain
who will raise him.

"We don't want to portray her as a saint," said Knierim's dad,
Richard, who owns Countywide Printing in Plantation and employed his
daughter as a sales representative. "But she wasn't a bad drug user.
She wouldn't steal or take advantage of people.

"But she had a demon inside that couldn't be controlled, and when it
reared its head you couldn't talk to her."

Deputies tried. They told her to drop the gun. She kept firing. Deputy
Terry Leonard pulled his cruiser between Knierim and those she was
shooting at. He lay across the seat to protect himself while another
deputy fired the shots that felled Knierim.

Officers had no choice, her father says ruefully.

The "demon" first reared its head when she was 18, her family
says.

That's when she began experimenting with drugs, first marijuana, then
graduating to cocaine powder and finally to crack.

Two rehab stints

In 1993 she served one year of probation for possession of
cocaine.

She did at least two stints in drug rehab, one at a Fort Lauderdale
center called Stepping Stone.

Relatives believe she had been clean for five years and had settled
comfortably into the role of single mom. She went on camping trips
with Andrew's Boy Scout troop, even taking a weeklong training seminar
to be a camp leader. Andrew was an avid baseball and soccer player,
and his mother went to his games to cheer him on.

She loved to cook his favorite dish, lasagna.

Caring friend

As a saleswoman for the printing business, she was always willing to
stay extra hours and work on the weekends.

Earlier this year, a co-worker, Ed Kalafsky, suffered swelling in the
brain and was forced to stay in the hospital for nearly a month. He
lost his motor skills.

Kalafsky's family lives in New Jersey, and Cheryl Knierim didn't want
him to be alone in the hospital.

She became a regular at his bedside, visiting him before work, during
lunch breaks or after work. Always bringing something to inspire a
smile.

"She brought me everything," he said. "She brought me cards, a radio,
jello, ice cream. Although we had our differences, I will never forget
her."

Neither will her sister, Maureen Totten, 28. The two were
inseparable.

After work, Totten and her 5-year-old daughter, Sterling, would visit
Knierim at the apartment she had rented in the Inverrary section of
Lauderhill.

She remembered Knierim's passion for bingo, fishing, blackjack in
Atlantic City and shooting off her water pistol.

"She was the only sister I had," Totten said. "Now I'm an only
child."

Victim of sexual assault

A incident in Knierim's past may have caught up with
her.

Her relatives say that in 1993 she was sexually assaulted by a man
during a period of drug abuse.

She ended up in the hospital with two black eyes, a broken nose and
bruises all over her body.

Recently she had received a letter from the state saying the man was
due for release from prison. On the calendar in her apartment, his
scheduled release date is circled, Andrew said. She was frightened.

"She started carrying a gun," said Richard Knierim. "She was afraid of
this guy. She thought this guy was going to kill her."

Family members believe the anxiety eventually led her back to
drugs.

Several days later she had her first drug relapse in five years,
family members say.

She would have two more relapses, they believe, including the one on
the morning of her death.

A father's fears

Last Wednesday she called her dad and told him she had overslept and
that she'd be in later. She never made it in.

Her father knew something was up.

The following day he contacted Children & Family Services to remove
Andrew from the home.

That morning Richard Knierim went looking for his daughter at a crack
house she had frequented in the past. He found her car parked in
front, but she wasn't inside.

About one hour later, two Broward Sheriff's Office detectives entered
the family business at 928 NW First St., and gave him the bad news.

"They didn't even have to say a word," said Cheryl's mom, Mary Ann
Knierim. "You could see it on their faces."