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‘My baby didn’t deserve such a cruel death’
– mom of murdered Sophia toddler
“My baby didn’t deserve such a cruel death,” the mother of 18-month-old Ronasha Pilgrim cried yesterday as she recalled when she received the news that the toddler had been buried alive by her own uncle on Friday.
Tandica Sanko said that she is separated from Ron Pilgrim, the father of her two children, but would visit the toddler on weekends.
“He (Ron) had Ronasha and I have the baby but I would spend time with her. Only Wednesday, I bathe her and comb her hair and played a little with her before she went back home,” the woman related as tears flowed down her cheeks.
The morning her daughter was murdered, Sanko said that her phone was on silent and when she got up around 06:00hrs on Friday morning, she saw two missed calls—one from her children’s father and another from a strange number.
“I called the strange number and the person told me to call Ron now, now because my daughter got murder.”
The 25-year-old woman said that she immediately informed her aunt and brother and they went to Pilgrim’s Lot 98 North Sophia, Georgetown home to confirm whether someone was pulling a prank on her.
“When I got there, I wasn’t allowed to go inside the yard and I see my children father crying and then I hear that his brother killed my daughter,” Sanko lamented. The woman related that she had a very difficult pregnancy with Ronasha and never expected such an ending for her.
According to Sanko, she almost lost her life when it was time to deliver the child because her pressure was always high.
When asked about the suspect, Sherwyn Roberts, the young mother said that she barely knew him. “One time I went by his mother and he went in my purse and stole my money and since then, every time he sees me, he would hide.”
“I don’t know why he would do this, I really don’t know. He is not mentally ill. Before he went to prison, he used to sell coconut at ‘B’ Field Sophia,” Sanko said.
Roberts is still in police custody at the Prashad Nagar Police Station and has not provided the police with additional information as to why he killed his niece.
Kaieteur News was informed that one of the suspect’s brothers is currently serving a 12 year sentence for killing his neighbour in 2011 over damage done to a fence that separates their home.
Sometime around 03:00 hrs on Friday, the suspect broke into the home of his brother and ripped off the gold earrings his niece was wearing before tossing her through the bedroom window and subsequently burying her alive in a shallow grave.
The toddler’s body was pulled from the three feet deep muddy grave approximately an hour after it was buried there—around 04:00 hrs. The grave was located just below the window through which the suspect had flung her.
Little Ronasha and her two older brothers—12-year-old Ryan and 10-year-old Ron Junior—were at home in their one-bedroom shack when their uncle gained entry to their home by breaking a louvre window in the bedroom.
The children’s father, Ron Pilgrim, who works as a maintenance worker in the day and security at night, was at the time guarding someone’s property when his children were attacked by his younger brother, whom he described as a “bandit.”
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