“Him a wicked!” That is how the mother of Giovanni Ellis, accused of allegedly raping and killing nine-year-old Kelsey Ferrigon, described her son on what was a painful Mother’s Day for her yesterday.

The mother, who asked that her name not be published said that her heart sank when she heard what Ellis allegedly did to Ferrigon, a child she grew to love throughout their many interactions.

“You see that little girl, it come een like a my own pickney jus’ dead. She is like my child to me. The all of us interact; you always see me and her mother a talk. We talk but we never have a conflict, nothing at all, so it really hurt hard. It really rock my world,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

It is alleged that Ellis sexually assaulted nine-year-old Ferrigon before he killed her and stuffed her body in a barrel inside her house at Job Lane in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on Friday. It is reported that Ellis had been released on bail before he committed the crime.

Ellis’s mother, who lives in the same area with Ferrigon and her family, said she was asleep when the incident occurred. She said she was woken up by her brother who informed her about the incident.

“Mi whole world get dark. Mi weak, my body nervous. From Friday mi nuh get a good sleep nor eat nothing,” she told the Observer.

The distraught mother said that she saw Ellis early Friday afternoon and was shocked that he had received bail. She said that her son had committed previous offences such as rape and assault, and she had refused to post his bail to teach him a lesson.

Detectives assigned to the Criminal Investigations Branch have named Giovanni Ellis, otherwise called Coolie Man, as a person of interest in the case. (Naphtali Junior)

“Mi nuh have nothing to do with that young man. Nothing at all mi nuh have to do with him,” she said.

The mother of five said Ellis is her third child. He was placed in the custody of his father when he was two years old, and is the only child to cause her so much heartache.

“When him come weh mi deh, he’s just like problem child. Him never live [with] me for a good month so me couldn’t give you definite information about him background and how him stay, but mi know him wicked,” she said.

“Weh him do yah so, me can tell you say him wicked. Him nuh have nuh heart, and me nuh have none fi him,’’ she added.

She told the Observer that since the incident she has reached out to Georgia Anderson, the mother of nine-year-old Ferrigon, to express her deep condolence.

Ellis’s mother disclosed that she had lost one of her children to violence and therefore understands some of the pain Anderson is feeling.

“There is not a comforting word you can say to a person in this situation,” she said, adding that she grieves with the mother of the slain nine-year-old.

She had some advice for her son: “It better him turn himself in because police station is the safest place for him. If mi buck him, it nah go pretty between me and him.’’