March 30, 2009

Resurrection

From the Washington Post:

Accepting a plea bargain that her attorney described as unprecedented in American jurisprudence, a 22-year-old Maryland woman yesterday agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of other defendants in the death of her son under the condition that charges against her be dropped if the child rises from the dead. 

“It also is specifically noted,” Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Timothy Doory said in court as he described the plea bargain to the boy's mother, “that if the victim in this case, Javon Thompson, is resurrected, as you still hold some hope he will be, you may withdraw the plea, and the charges will be nolle prossed [withdrawn] against you.” 

The boy's mother, Ria Ramkissoon, is shaping up as prosecutors' star witness against a 40-year-old Baltimore woman named Queen Antoinette. Prosecutors allege that Queen Antoinette led a small cult, called One Mind Ministries, based in a West Baltimore rowhouse. In early 2007, prosecutors say, Queen Antoinette instructed Ramkissoon and others to deprive Javon of food and water because he didn't say “amen” before breakfast. . . .

1 comment:

Sewa Yoleme said...

"This would need to be a Jesus-like resurrection," Margaret Burns, the Baltimore state's attorney's spokeswoman, said after the hearing. "It cannot be a reincarnation in another object or animal."

. . . After Javon died, he was placed on a couch while everyone knelt down and prayed. Ramkissoon also danced around her son, prosecutors said. The boy's body was later moved to a back room.

At one point, two members measured Jason's body and bought a suitcase. Members believed that if the body could travel with them, it could be resurrected at a later date, said Steven Silverman, Ramkissoon's attorney. The group members left the suitcase with a man they had befriended. Police eventually discovered it in his shed in Philadelphia.