Mom wants death penalty for Nikita’s killer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Nordia Edwards, the mother of nine-year-old Nikita Noel, who died under tragic circumstances six weeks ago, wants the courts to impose the death penalty for persons guilty of committing heinous crimes, including rape and murder, against children.

“There will be no closure until he is down (dead). That is the only closure that will be done for me. How you do a crime like that and is sitting in jail, eating taxpayers’ money?” asked the distraught mother just before the pallbearers lowered the coffin with her daughter’s remains into the grave on Saturday.

“I am out here, crying, weeping for my child. That is not closure. That is not justice for me. One thing I ask for the Government change the law: you do a crime like that, they find you guilty, [lethal] injection. You die right there. That is justice,” Edwards said.

Nikita went missing on her way home from the Esher Primary School in Lucea, Hanover, on February 1.

Her body was found mere metres from her home in Kew district in the parish.

It is believed that the child, otherwise known as ‘Jojo’, was raped and strangled to death.

“Too much of this going on and an end needs to be put to this. JoJo did not deserve this. I don’t see any closure until that person is six feet down, just like my daughter,” the grieving Edwards said.

Nikita’s funeral was held at the old Jockey Factory in Lucea, where her former principal, Antoinette Wright; Member of Parliament Tamika Davis; Deputy Lucea Mayor Andrea Duhaney-Grant; and mourners converged to say farewell.

Wright, a passionate educator who has not held back since the death of her student, spoke of many social ills that the country has to face, pointing out that Jamaica needs to return to the days when the community looked after children.

“It is heartrending to believe that someone so close to her community would have caused her so much trauma and to have caused this great difficulty for everyone,” Wright said.

“Nikita led a short and impactful life. She was a good student, polite and looking out for the best interest of everyone. A good mathematician and good reader, she demonstrated good leadership skills, and had she gotten an opportunity, she would have excelled as an adult. We are deeply saddened. It still feels like a bad dream, [where] any minute now we are going to wake up out of this dream, but the reality says to us she is gone,” Wright added.

Meanwhile, Davis, who represents Hanover Western, said it was a sad occasion for the community.

“A nine-year-old girl was murdered, and today, her classmates, community, and well-wishers, we are all here to pay our last goodbyes and also to give support to the family because we know that even though we say and express condolences, the grief must be one that is overwhelming for the mother and grandmother and all the family members,” Davis said.

Forty-two-year-old Omar Green, who has been in custody since the incident, was charged with murder last Thursday. The construction worker, who is of a Barbary Hill address in Lucea, was once the partner of Nikita’s mother.

The police have indicated that there is strong forensic evidence that ties Green to the scene of the murder. He is to make an appearance in court this week.

Meanwhile, Duhaney-Grant lamented the crime being committed against the country’s children.

“When we start killing our children, we are killing our future,” the deputy mayor argued.

“I hope and pray that this is something that will not continue and this is something that all of us will look into and try to fight against in our society,” she added.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com