BALTIMORE – The leader of a household described as a religious cult was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday along with two of her followers for starving a 1-year-old boy to death because he did not say “Amen” during a mealtime prayer.
Jurors also convicted Queen Antoinette, her daughter Trevia Williams and Marcus A. Cobbs of child abuse resulting in death. Cobbs was found guilty of accessory after the fact for helping to cover up the death of Javon Thompson.
The defendants each face up to 60 years in prison when they are sentenced May 18.
They showed no emotion as the verdict was read, a contrast to their laughter and astonishment during prosecutors’ closing arguments. The trial lasted six days, and jurors deliberated for about three hours.
Javon wasted away before the eight-person household, according to testimony. His heart stopped beating after a week or more without food, his mother, Ria Ramkissoon, testified.
After Javon died, Antoinette told her followers to pray for his resurrection and ordered Ramkissoon to “nurture him back to life,” according to witnesses.
Ramkissoon said she stayed with Javon’s body for weeks, talking to him, dancing for him, even trying to give him water. Ultimately, according to testimony, the group members stashed Javon’s body in a suitcase and relocated to Philadelphia, where they stayed briefly with an elderly man. The suitcase was stored in a shed behind the man’s home for more than a year.
Ramkissoon, 23, pleaded guilty last year to child abuse resulting in death. Her plea deal included an extraordinary provision: If Javon comes back to life, the conviction will be thrown out. Prosecutors said only a “Jesus-like resurrection” would suffice.
Ramkissoon will soon be released from jail and placed in a residential treatment program, prosecutors said.
“It’s going to take years for Ria to get back to the child that I know,” said Ramkissoon’s mother, Seeta Khadan-Newton.
Antoinette, 41, Williams, 22, and Cobbs, 23, represented themselves at trial. They did not testify or call any witnesses. Antoinette introduced a single piece of evidence: a copy of a handwritten application for nonprofit status for her organization, 1 Mind Ministries. In that document, she described herself “as a chosen daughter of the most high God and a queen of Jesus Christ.”
In their closing arguments, Antoinette and Cobbs accused prosecutors and the media of conspiring to condemn them.
“We’ve been like pariahs,” Antoinette said. “These people want to blame someone for this child’s death, so they’ve chosen us.”
Witnesses said Antoinette claimed to speak to God and ran a tightly controlled household. Among the rules were that the group dressed in only white, blue and khaki and they left the house only in pairs. They destroyed identification documents, cut off contact with relatives and were encouraged to smoke marijuana, which Antoinette called “God’s weed.”
“She’s a very convincing manipulator,” said Tiffany Smith, who lived with Antoinette before Javon died and testified that she was forced to give birth without medical care. “The jury saw through that.”
Even Antoinette’s name, she said, was given to her by God. Although she was arrested and charged under the name Queen Antoinette, prosecutors said her real name is Toni Sloan.
Williams was referred to as “Princess Trevia,” and Cobbs was “Prince Marcus.” Ramkissoon was known as “Princess Marie.”
When Javon died, the household also included Antoinette’s three other children and Tiffany Smith’s older sister, Danielle. She testified that Cobbs had her committed to a psychiatric hospital in New York after she began telling outsiders about Javon’s death. Danielle Smith ultimately led police to his body.
I do, with my whole being, believe God is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful. And He did create Lucifer. But Lucifer chose iniquity. Lucifer chose to reject God. God has never tried to stop Lucifer from being what he chose to ‘be.’ He doesn’t stop us either. But the Creator of all things gives each created being two options…Life or Death. If you don’t have Life..you have Death. You can’t have day and night at the same time. You can’t be both old and young, good and bad, tall and short, pure and contaminated…and so forth. EVERYTHING we encounter in our realm of existance…has an opposite. Each of the two realities…reveal the other. We know day as it is contrasted against night. We know cold as it is contrasted against hot. We know brokeness as it is contrasted against wholeness. We know the concept of ‘few’ only as it is contrasted against the concept of ‘many’..and vice versa. The same applies to ALL things we see, experience, know, and use. So why would love/hate, good/bad, life/death, God/Satan be any different? I say…there is no difference. But your choice is your choice. And my choice says Thomas Jefferson’s words do nothing to change infinite realities. I say that there is a God and I am totally mesmorized…continually…as I encounter every single aspect of our physical and emotional existence…in the universe…on this planet…and so forth. EVERYTHING I see, feel, encounter, experience, and know….convinces me that God is real. And since I truly believe He is real….then..of course I believe the Bible is from Him…since it does not contradict what I see with the physical eye. But that’s ‘my’ experience. And has nothing to do with you…and yours. And since I ‘know’ and ‘understand’ that what is not connected with ‘good/light/life’ is by the nature of opposites…connected with ‘bad/darkness/death.’ God is all which is attributed to Him in scriptures. He will share everything He is, has, owns with any man who wants to have His dna..so to speak. Could you imaging a ‘hater’ being happy in eternity with a ‘Lover?’:smile: Can you imagine someone who is power hungry being content in an eternity where there is no status levels? As EVERYTHING has two sides…so does the debate concerning the existence of God. And every man makes his own personal decision. And he lives with the results of that decision. And that’s the way it should be.
Again, didn’t mean to offend. But in my reality, the child who starved to death..is in the place where God dwells..playing with my little son who was born with a heart defect and lived on this side…twenty-two minutes. My angel was visible to me in the delivery room. And my baby’s angel was also visible to me in the delivery room. They did not have wings. They were two young men. They stood against the wall on the left side of the table I was on. I had seen mine fifteen years earlier. And just as my baby drew his last breath, I looked to the wall and they were gone. I already knew the ‘reality’ of the ‘unseen.’ Life is not the physical body. It truly is made from dust. Get a cut or scratch…the dead tissue turns to ‘dirt.’ A scab is just a little clump of ‘dirt.’ The eternal part of us…is the knowing, thinking, feeling, unseen man who resides inside the physcial body. The body performs only those things the ‘man’ inside commands. The body is only a dwelling place of the ‘unseen’ man. But, oh well…nuff of That. Sorry.
I didn’t intend to offend you. I honestly didn’t notice that you were against God. I truly didn’t mean to offend your belief system. But I do know that the child who died physically remains alive in the unseen place of God. I don’t expect you to agree with me. And, really, it’s perfectly okay…really. I’m not impacted when folks disagree with me. And that’s the way it should be. I believe what I believe. You believe what you believe. No problem. But I know from experience that the ‘unseen’ is real. And I can’t…and won’t speak for you. Each man makes his own decisions concerning the realities of the inner man. But, in my case, I believe in God from the top of my head to the tips of my toes :smile.: I trust, completely, His Love, Justice, Mercy, and Wisdom. I know the Bible is flawless….and that only God knows what He meant by what He said. And the intent and meaning of what He meant by what He said…is explained to us by the ‘unseen’…’invisible’ inner man of Christ…with us in the here and now…to teach, guide, explain, give understanding concerning things way beyond the grasp of only the temporal mind. I’m so committed to that…nothing will change my mind…nor head me in any other direction.But that is ‘ME.’ And my ‘reality’ has nothing to do with you. So understand…that when I share what I KNOW to be true…that I realize my reality is not your reality. So don’t be offended at me…because my reality is not your reality. Make sense. But in choosing what to believe…we also choose everything related to the particular ‘reality.’ And we had better be POSITIVE …without measure of wavering…that we have chosen correctly. Eternity depends on the choices we make in this continuum set between Beginning and Ending.
Peace
Again, I honestly did not intend to appear to be ‘contending’ with you. I don’t do that. No reason why I should.
Again, sorry to offend.
Carolyn/ internetelias
You didn’t offend me in the least. There is no need to apologize for anything and I didn’t take anything you stated as if you were contending with me, but even if you were, it’s OK. Exchanging different ideas and points of view is a good thing, I believe, as people can learn from each other based on their various perspectives.
Just to debate one statement you made: “God has never tried to stop Lucifer from being what he chose to ‘be.’ He doesn’t stop us either.” That statement totally contradicts the belief that if there is a God that he is all-good and all-powerful. Certainly an all-good being that has the power to stop another who is creating evil would do so. Obviously I am certainly no God, and yet, I would try to stop an individual from hurting another individual, or an animal for that matter. How could an all-good God theoretically watch the devil “do his thing” and just “sit idly by.” Sorry, this makes absolutely no sense and is completely illogical.
I’m sorry about your little boy.
The tragedy here has nothing to do with Christianity. Satan does ‘luv’ to represent himself as an angel of ‘light.’ But his dark fruits reveal him. This one was pure Destroyer material….not one characteristic of Love to be seen. This situation and MANY others operate under the guise of ‘god-stuff’ …but are of evil origins. Only a ‘hater’ would starve a child ”’for any reason…and certainly not under the covering of ‘God.’
Mt 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mt 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mt 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Good post.
Carolyn / internetelias.wordpress.com
People are always quoting the Bible. The “magnificent” Bible… As Thomas Jefferson himself said: “We discover (in the Gospels) groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.”
For my part, I find the whole thing quite interesting, I thought it was God that created the universe. Satan is part of the universe, doesn’t that make him God’s creation? How is it that when anything evil happens in the world it isn’t God’s responsibility? Christians should really try to get their “facts” straight; either God is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful or he isn’t. What will it be???