‘I FORGIVE SIMONE’S KILLER’

THE grieving mother of 14-year-old schoolgirl Simone Pierre, who was fatally stabbed on Saturday at home, yesterday declared that she forgave her daughter’s killer, who is also a relative and is pregnant. “Just like the Almighty can forgive his people and although I am grieving in my heart, I too forgive my daughter’s killer, for she is also family,” stated frail Jennifer Ross, a mother of six. Pierre, 14, who was a Form Two student of Curepe Junior Secondary school, was stabbed in the left side of her chest while picking up clothes from a clothes-line at her Bally Street, Thavenot Road, Tacarigua home. Arouca detectives have arrested a seven-month pregnant relative, in connection with the murder. A bloodstained ice-pick has also been seized. Recounting the life of her second child, Mrs Ross told Newsday that Simone, contrary to earlier media reports, was not one to pick a fight, but rather was a loving and jovial youngster. “If you and she fall out...in the next five minutes she coming to you to make up. That’s the kind of person she was,” Ross said as her other children gathered around her. Ross told Newsday that today would be a bitter-sweet day for her. “You know tomorrow I celebrate my thirty-eighth birthday. But it is also the day I have to go to the mortuary to see them cut open my daughter. Boy, what a way to celebrate a birthday, eh.” According to police reports, around 2 pm on Saturday, Pierre went to pick up clothes from a clothes-line at the back of the house when a 20-year-old relative ran up to her from behind, “locked” her neck and stabbed her once in the left side of the chest. “I was not home at the time but I hear that Simone ran out of the house and collapse in the yard. She eyes had already start to roll up into her head. When she reach the hospital, I hear she did done dead already,” Ross said as tears welled up in her eyes.

Moments after the fatal stabbing, Arouca police arrived at the house and detained the suspect, who had locked herself in a room. “I feeling sorry for she. You know she is pregnant and I hear she real taking on Simone’s death while she is being kept at the police station,” Ross said. The grieving woman told Newsday that all day on Saturday, Simone had been singing a song by top US recording artiste 50 Cent entitled “Many Men.” The song’s chorus reads: “Many men wish death upon me. Lord I don’t cry no more. Don’t look to the sky no more. Have mercy on me.” “Like she foresaw her death, because she was only singing that song,” Ross said. She told Newsday that her daughter wanted to be a policewoman when she left school and was also looking forward to next term, since she had missed some weeks last term because she had to have her appendix removed. “I don’t know how...but I will get through this. I must get through this, if only for my other children,” Ross said. An autopsy will be done today on Pierre’s body at the Forensic Sciences Centre. Detective Sgt Beepath Samai of Arouca CID is continuing investigations.