HANOVER, Jamaica – Tears flowed openly on Saturday at the thanksgiving service for nine-year-old Nikita Noel who was found dead in bushes at the side of a road in her home community of Kew in Hanover in February.

The grieving mother of Nikita, Nordia Edwards wants the life of the man responsible for her child’s death.

Forty-two-year-old construction worker Omar Green, of Barbary Hill, Lucea in Hanover, who was the partner of Nikita’s mother, was charged with murder and rape last Thursday.

READ: Stepfather of 9-y-o Nikita Noel charged with rape, murder

However, charges laid by the police against her ex-boyfriend are not good enough for the loss of her only daughter, who lived with her. Edwards wants him dead too.

“It hurts just to see my daughter go down. It is not a pretty sight. As much as the person is charged, that is still not justice in my eye. My daughter goes down, he should go down too. That is my justice,” Edwards told the media.

“How we do a crime like that and sitting in jail and eating taxpayer money, laughing and me out here weeping all night. That is not closure,” said Edwards who wants the mandatory death penalty for persons found guilty of murder.

“One thing I asked for [is fi the Government change the law]. Yuh do a crime like that, they find you guilty, injection. Die right there. That is justice. Too much ah dis going on. Ah end needs to put to dis. Joanna never deserved this,” expressed the mother.

It was also too painful for Edwards who found it offensive to refer to Green as her daughter’s stepfather.

“He was no stepfather. That was long in the past. How could a father do this to his daughter? You called that a stepfather? That is a evil person,” stated Edwards, who took the time to thank those who have been providing support and counselling from across the country.

It was also painful for Nikita’s taxi driver Richard to speak when the Jamaica Observer caught up with him at the Bioprist Complex, formerly known as the Jockey International Garment Factory in Lucea, where the thanksgiving service was held.

Richard is the one who left her at the usual spot on the day she was found dead, the foot of a dirt road leading up a hill to where her family lives.

The glowing tributes and remembrance painted a picture of a promising future for Nikita, who lived a short life.

Member of Parliament for Hanover Western, Tamika Davis, who represented National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, told the media in her capacity as a lawyer that the law for such an offence speaks to 25 years to life.

“You would have heard our Minister of Justice, Delroy Chuck indicating that it is the intention of Parliament to have this increased to 40 years. As it is now, I’m sure that when this matter comes up before a competent judge and everything is properly outlined, then given the statute, there are proper ways that the judge can deal with this,” said Davis.

For her part, Anthonette Wright, principal of Esher Primary School where Nikita was a student since 2019, said the incident has left the school community in a state of dream. She said Nikita, who demonstrated leadership skills, was a polite student who looked out for the best interest of all. She was also a good mathematician and reader.

“We are deeply saddened and sometimes having even completed the celebration and service of thanksgiving, it still feels like a bad dream and like we are anticipating that any minute now we are going to wake up out of the bad dream. But, then reality said to us, no, she is gone,” Wright explained. She said it is heart-rending to believe that someone close to her community would have caused her so much trauma and tragedy.

Acting Senior Education Officer for the primary unit, Jacqueline Brown said the arrest of Green is not something the school community dwells on “but closure comes when we pull ourselves together and unite and deal with this situation at the ministry level and also what we look to is when the Government and the police force has to deal with when it comes to crime and violence.”

Deputy Mayor of Lucea, Andria Dehaney Grant, said the parish was saddened to know that people have seen it as part of the norm to destroy children in our nation. She also expressed the hope that this will not continue and that this is something that the public will try and fight.