Sudine Mason on Monday attempted to put into words for a Supreme Court judge how the abduction and murder of her daughter, eight-year-old Danielle Rowe, in 2023 has made the cemetery where the child is buried her “second yard”; has driven her eldest child to attempt suicide four times; and has left her six-year-old brother battling trauma and saving meals and toys for his dead sibling.

Emotions ran high as the victim impact statements from Mason and her two remaining children were read into the record of the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Monday during the sentencing exercise for Dental Assistant Kayodi Satchell, who has admitted to the abduction and murder of the child out of “frustration and bitterness” at being jilted by the child’s father who infected her with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Satchell, according to Department of Corrections officials, admitted to taking Danielle from Braeton Primary and Infant School in Portmore, St Catherine, in June 2023 and transporting her to a location in St Andrew where she fed her a meal before slashing the child’s throat.

The wounded child, while stumbling from the location, was found by a member of the Jamaica Defence Force on Roosevelt Avenue in St Andrew and taken to hospital.

She succumbed to her injuries two days later on June 10.

“My heart is so full that I don’t know where to start… Nana (pet name for Danielle) is gone and I am devastated. She was such a precious little girl, my second child and younger daughter, the only one I got the opportunity to bond with. Some days I feel like I can’t go on… I think about what Nana went through and I play it in my mind over and over again just to try to figure out what she went through from she was taken from school to when her throat was cut and I wonder at which point she realised she was in danger,” Mason said in her statement which was read by a senior Supreme Court registrar.

“I wonder what the woman who took her said to her, and if Nana knew she would die. Since Nana has died I have been depressed more than anything. I remember everything about her. She was caring, she was happy, and she made me so happy. The mornings and evenings are hardest… I may be okay in the days, but as soon as night comes I can’t sleep and I am constantly up. In the nights I start having flashbacks,” she said.

On Monday, Mason, elegantly clad in full black, sat with her eldest daughter, her hair loosely framing her face in soft curls, her hazel eyes bleary with pain, her face sombre. Upon hearing her own words read into the records she sat forward, cupping her face with her hands, a study in distress.

In describing her visit to the hospital to see her child before she died Mason said there was no comfort in how death came.

“It’s like I still can smell her blood… if Nana was sick or even in an accident she would have been cared for, we could have looked after her, but there was no comfort in the way Nana was killed. In her last moments Nana was scared, alone. I don’t know if I will be the same again.

“Meadowrest, where Nana was buried, is my second yard because whenever I think of her, that’s where I want to be,” she said.

The grieving mother said she also now struggles with aggression and has had to leave her job because she is unable to regulate.

She told the court that her other two children, who are suffering the pain and trauma of losing their sibling, are scared to go out.

She said her eldest daughter has cut her wrists four times attempting to take her own life, has become extremely angry, and refuses to open up when asked, “What’s wrong?”

Mason said she, however, knows the reason, as her daughter uses WhatsApp to vent and “continuously posts” the last video she made of her baby sister the morning before she was kidnapped.

“She is very protective of the things Danielle died leaving behind; she gets angry if anyone touches them,” the mother said, sharing that her daughter has taken custody of the lunch bag Danielle had the day she died and now carries it to school.

“Her smaller brother is afraid to go outside or go to the bathroom by himself… and has started wetting the bed, and prior this never happened. He goes to school but he hardly does any work,” she said noting that he talks about his sister at school frequently.

She said the six-year-old picks out toys for his dead sister whenever he gets a chance to choose a toy and also saves portions of his meals for her whenever he eats.

“I look at life differently since Nana has died. I am more cautious, I worry more about my other children… our lives will never be the same without her. We should be a family of four but now we are only three… when I think of the woman who killed Nana… the only thing that comes to mind is that there is no punishment that she could receive that could ever compare to the pain she has caused us,” Mason said, adding that while her entire family has been counselled by several different sources, “It did not help much.”

“We are still struggling to overcome the grief and pain we feel. I believe that in order for us to cope properly we have to constantly receive counselling,” she said in the statement.

The slain child’s 17-year-old sister, in her own victim impact statement, repeatedly asked: “why?”

“Mi want start off by asking why. Why would somebody look at an innocent eight-year-old, not just an eight-year-old, but my little sister, my little friend. Sometimes mi wonder if di woman who kill her know how much damage she cause inna my life,” the teen said.

“Mi end up did stop go a school fi a long period of time because, guess what? Mi traumatised. Every day mi jus’ a si mi lifeless sister body; Bredda, mi si har a bleed and to think ’bout how she did feel when her throat cut mash mi up, it mash mi up,” she said.

“It mek mi even a pree fi harm miself fi deh which part she deh. Everyday mi get up mi jus’ a seh mi waan dead. Mi jus’ waan deh which part mi sister deh… Yuh know how it feel fi know seh if mi sister nevah beg mi fi follow her go school the morning [which is when she made the last video of her] mi wouldn’t see back mi sister ‘til mi si her on life machine, yuh know how dat feel? Yuh lef’ mi baby brother traumatised,” she shared further.

“Di woman tek her from school, somewhere weh she think she safe… since mi sister dead, mi nuh waan go out wid people. Mi ‘fraid…mi don’t want to get close to anybody, mi afraid to lose them, it damage mi fi life,” the teenager said.

The senior Supreme Court registrar, who read the victim impact statements aloud for the court, lost the battle midway the teenager’s statement, uttered his apologies to the judge, removed his glasses, wiped tears from his eyes, and spent several moments collecting himself before resuming.

An officer from the Department of Corrections, who also lost the battle to tears, closed her eyes wearily, clutching the documents she held in her arms like a lifeline.

Mason, who when the hearing began had sat clasping the hands of her eldest daughter tightly, at times bent over, her petite frame shuddering as she silently cried. Her daughter, tears also streaming down her face, sat stolidly upright, shaking her legs fiercely and intermittently as the details emerged.

The killer Satchell, clad in a black top and plaid tiered skirt and slippers, her unprocessed hair neatly braided, passed Danielle’s mother at arm’s length on her way into the dock without glancing once in her direction.

She was seen dabbing at her eyes and blowing her nose during the sentencing exercise.

Danielle’s six-year-old brother, in his brief statement, said he wanted back his sister who was his playmate.

“I want her to come back, because I want to play games with her. I have a sausage and I want to give Nana but I can’t give her because she died,” the boy said.

With that last statement, Mason leaned forward, tears pouring over her hands and onto the courtroom floor. Other individuals were observed wiping tears.

Following an impassioned plea in mitigation address from attorney Pierre Rogers, who represents Satchell, Supreme Court Judge Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell said she will hand down her decision on December 20