The entire nation and not just the relatives of murdered children Ke’anna and Omari Mayers should be in mourning Pastor Nieve George told mourners yesterday at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Ninth Street, Barataria. George said such acts should never be accepted as the norm. “We all must mourn, this is too much to accept as normal. What scares me the most is that we are fast moving to a time and age when we accept things like this as normal and it scares me that we have come accustomed to it. Every life lost is part of our humanness that we are losing,” George said.
He called on the mourners to return to a time when the lives of people meant more that the accumulation of earthly possessions. He made the call as he delivered the sermon at the funeral service for the two children who were murdered by their father Barry Karamath, who then killed himself on Sunday at Matura. He said people would spend thousands of dollars on their animals but spend a few dollars on their spouse or cringe to spend time with their loved ones. “We cannot accept these things as normal, the politicians have their responsibilities. They can’t do it all. Change begins in our homes. The responsibilities lies in our homes. Our values are mixed up and we want the police and government to fix it,” George said.
He said no family should have to experience what the family was experiencing, especially at Easter when there should be a celebration of Christ’s resurrection and not to lay to rest “our children.” The children were placed side-by-side in a single coffin, both dressed in white. He added that there was always a way out and that when it seemed unlikely, God will make a way, he said, adding that the congregation ought not to take matters into their own hands. “God gave you these children to protect not to prey on. Our nation will not have a future if we keep burying our children. In recent months I have gone to lay to rest children and I look around in the graveyard and it is active,” George said. In society today, he said, with many social media platforms people are very lonely. He told the mother of the children, Okilia Mayers, she should not be broken or hopeless but rise. He likened the murder of the children, aged two and ten months to that of Jesus. He said they were taken like martyrs in a senseless act.
“Unless we take care of our children we are losing our best resources. When did we move from praying, to preying on our children. They (Ke’anna and Omari) cry out today, for they could cry out for the other children who are still suffering,” he said. During the eulogy the children’s great-uncle Lennard Mayers said Ke’anna, who was nicknamed “Ke-Ke”, was a woman from birth. Omari, he said, was an upcoming man, who he adopted as his own. He said Omari was a baby but he was full of power and well-built. “God help the person who put them to sleep today. I can’t understand but that is for the Holy Spirit to reveal,” Mayers said. The eulogy was supposed to have been done by the children’s mother but she was unable to do so, having been overcome by grief.
According to police reports, around 6 am on Sunday, officers received a report the three bodies were found near a bamboo patch next to a pumpkin farm in Matura. When police arrived, they found Karamath’s body and those of his two children. The farmer said around 9.30 pm Saturday night he went to his garden to spend the night and saw Karamath standing near the trace with his children. He said when he questioned Karamath he said he had paid a woman $6,000 for a bush bath and was waiting for her. Autopsies on the three bodies revealed they all died of asphyxiation.