Jensen La Vende

Oma­dav­ee Lavia shed tears for both her son and her daugh­ter yes­ter­day as she had ear­li­er learnt one would be in court to­day for the death of the oth­er.Mur­chan­nah Lavia, 14, was killed last Wednes­day, al­leged­ly at the hands of her old­er broth­er, who po­lice said was play­ing with an il­le­gal gun, while she sat read­ing a book at their home at Sto­er Dri­ve Ex­ten­sion, Pe­tit Val­ley.

Dur­ing Mur­chan­nah's fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, pas­tor of the Pe­tit Val­ley Pen­te­costal Church, Fabi­an San­di­ford, chid­ed the po­lice for tele­phon­ing Lavia on the day of her daugh­ter's fu­ner­al to tell her that her son was to be charged with manslaugh­ter.The fu­ner­al be­gan short­ly af­ter 1 pm with Mur­chan­nah's fa­ther, An­tho­ny, wheeled her pink cas­ket to the front of the church.Mourn­ers flocked to the church, a few min­utes walk from where Mur­chan­nah lived, fill­ing it be­yond ca­pac­i­ty, some hav­ing no choice but to stand out­side.

In­side the church men and women, both young and old, wept for the child, who was re­mem­bered as bril­liant, straight­for­ward, de­ter­mined and hum­ble.One of Mur­chan­nah's sis­ters, Menisha, called on the fam­i­ly to grow clos­er to­geth­er and to for­give but nev­er for­get.She wept as she called the boy's name and said he would now be the ba­by of the fam­i­ly. She added that the fam­i­ly had for­giv­en him and it was time that he for­gave him­self and got clos­er to God.

Her broth­ers–An­dre, An­dell and An­tho­ny–all spoke of their love for their younger sis­ter.An­dell en­cour­aged mourn­ers to show in­ter­est in the youths, par­tic­u­lar­ly those be­tween the ages of 12 and 17, as those were the age groups tar­get­ed by crim­i­nal el­e­ments. He al­so called on those in au­thor­i­ty to pay at­ten­tion to those liv­ing in im­pov­er­ished ar­eas.He added that liv­ing with­out his sis­ter was like hav­ing a face with­out a nose and would be hard.

Among the mourn­ers was MP for the area Dr Amery Browne who told the par­ents the na­tion was mourn­ing with them.In his ser­mon San­di­ford said the fam­i­ly had lost not one but two chil­dren, adding he was god­fa­ther to both of them and sent a mes­sage to Mur­chan­nah's broth­er that he was not all re­spon­si­ble.San­di­ford added that too many peo­ple had been keep­ing qui­et con­cern­ing ills in so­ci­ety and the time had come to speak out.

He en­cour­aged all to let Mur­chan­nah's life be a re­minder that life was short and they should turn their lives over to God while they had the chance.He added that for Mur­chan­nah's killer to live, she had to die and in the end there might be a pos­i­tive out­come from all that had hap­pened.Mur­chan­nah's fa­ther had ear­li­er said he hoped some­thing pos­i­tive would come out of all the at­ten­tion that his griev­ing fam­i­ly was now re­ceiv­ing.