When an intimate partner threatens you with violence, don’t shrug it off. Believe him. | Jenice Armstrong

The last thing Marla Phyars wanted to do Friday morning was meet me at a funeral home and rehash a horrific double murder/suicide committed by her mother’s ex-boyfriend more than two decades ago.

But she showed up because she has a message to share: When someone threatens to kill you, believe them. In other words, don’t shrug it off when an intimate partner says he will harm you. The ex-boyfriend, John Ayoung, had repeatedly warned her mom: “If I can’t have you, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s how it began,” recalled Phyars, who was just 15 when Ayoung killed her mother and sister, and critically wounded her brother. “He never showed no violence towards my mother, but he used to threaten her. We used to say, ‘He’s just angry.’"

“I feel as though, if we had taken it seriously, we could have gotten out of there," she said. "And we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

Where we were that day was in the lobby of the Francis Funeral Home in West Philly, where her brother’s funeral is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday. Gregory Samuel, 53, died last month following complications from being shot 23 years ago after rushing to the aid of his mother, who was fatally wounded in the attack.

“It was the worst day of my life. … I was the only one that actually got out of the house," recalled Phyars. “Everybody else was either dead or injured," except for two babies.

As she talked about her late brother, tears streamed down the face of his only daughter, Karisha Quashie, 23. She was just 2 weeks old and mercifully not there the day of the bloody rampage.

It happened early on June 13, 1996. Phyars, Gregory Samuel, and their late mother, Vernie Samuel, had spent the previous evening in their downstairs living room because it was the only air-conditioned room in their West Philly rowhouse — except for the master bedroom where Vernie’s ex-boyfriend slept.

The couple, who had dated in their native Trinidad before reuniting months earlier in Philadelphia, were estranged. Vernie had repeatedly asked Ayoung to move out of her home on Rodman Street near 57th, but he refused.

On the morning of the shooting, Phyars and her brother awoke to the sound of their mother’s scream, followed by a gunshot. They rushed upstairs to help their mother, who had been taking a shower. Gregory, who was 30, arrived outside the bathroom door first.

“He was calling his name, ‘John, John,’" Phyars recalled. “I saw [Gregory] grab his neck and go down, and that’s when I ran.”

The teen mother grabbed her 1-year-old and her sister’s toddler as she made her escape. But by the time police arrived, there was not much that could be done. Her mother and 22-year-old sister, Alicia Phyars, were dead on the bathroom floor. Her brother was critically wounded, paralyzed from the waist down. Ayoung was in a bedroom, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Afterward, Phyars grew up quickly. She returned to high school and was married by 19. These days, she’s the mother of four. Outwardly, she’s bubbly and outgoing, with a ready smile that comes in handy at her job as a customer service representative for American Airlines at Philadelphia International Airport.

Phyars hopes that by speaking out, she can prevent others from being victimized. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of all female homicide victims are killed by a current or former intimate partner.

The worst time is when a woman tries to end a relationship.

“From my experience, what I will say to people is never to take a threat lightly. That’s how it began,” Phyars said. “From the first time somebody threatens you, take it seriously.”

Wise words from a survivor.