Posted on 03/05/2006 10:02:47 AM PST by wagglebee
SUFFOLK - Kesharia Skinner never got to see spring flowers fluttering in the wind or bright sunshine streaming through colorful, stained glass.
On Saturday, at the girl's funeral at New Mount Joy Food for Living Ministries, Elder Trevon Boone read a poem written especially for Kesharia by the woman who killed her - her mother.
Tammy Skinner said in the poem she feels deep pain . "Always remember that Mommy loves you. My little, beautiful baby girl is gone. My two older girls give me strength."
The choir sang sweetly. "Jesus loves the little children. All the little children of the world." A small crowd bowed their heads in prayer and raised their hands in praise as the baby was memorialized .
Kesharia was due to be born Feb. 23. Instead, she died in her mother's womb. She was full term, plump and healthy, said her grandfather, Larry Skinner.
Tammy Skinner, 22, called police from the parking lot of a car dealership on North Main Street, between downtown and Obici Hospital, at about 4 a.m. that day. She'd been shot in the stomach, she told authorities. She couldn't remember where she was or who shot her.
Later, she admitted that, distraught over the pregnancy and her own poverty, she had shot herself in the stomach, killing the infant.
God can forgive anything, Elder W.P. Wiggins said from the pulpit, his comment directed to the young, single mother.
"Life is full of storms," Wiggins said. "You're in a storm here today. God knows it. The Lord is the keeper of us all. We're not here to condemn you. We're here to comfort you."
Tammy Skinner was arrested a day after she left the hospital, where she underwent a Caesarean section and surgery to remove the bullet. She was charged with inducing an abortion, use of a firearm in commission of a felony and giving false information to police. She was released on a $15,000 bond.
Since then, prosecutors have said that the firearm charge will be dropped. It doesn't apply to the crime, they said.
Neither does the state's fetal homicide law. In most states that have adopted Conner's Law, passed in 2004 and named for the son of Laci Peterson , who died in California in 2003, the law refers simply to somebody who kills an "unborn child." In Virginia, it refers to someone who has killed "the fetus of another."
Now, the Suffolk commonwealth's attorney and his staff are researching whether the abortion charge can stick. Phil Ferguson, Suffolk's top prosecutor, won't say until all the evidence is in.
At her arrest, Tammy Skinner appeared frail and in a lot of pain. At the church on Saturday, she needed assistance to get into the church and to leave.
Yet, at one point, apparently filled with the spirit of the Lord, the young woman dressed in a bright pink suit danced up and down the aisle of the church, arms raised, hands shaking.
She accepted Christ as her savior, Wiggins said, as she hugged him, then turned and hugged her father.
"The Lord is the keeper of us all," Wiggins said in his eulogy. "When trouble comes into our lives, Jesus is always there."
Toriano Johnson, a young teen with a booming voice, brought the mourners to their feet with the song "His Eye is on the Sparrow." Most of them raised their arms, shook their hands and praised God.
"God will forgive you," Wiggins told Tammy Skinner. "Your hardest job now is to forgive yourself."
Skinner is scheduled to appear in court for the first time on March 10.
Ping.
The woman in Suffolk, VA who murdered her baby hours before birth held a funeral yesterday.
But not too poor for vinyl nails, I see.
A girl's got to have her priorities.
You don't understand. Vinyl nails aren't an option. They are a requirement just like brakes on an automobile.
Notice the "young" mother tag, to elicit sympathy and understanding.....
FRY her.
I hope she pokes herself repeatedly in the eyeball.
At the hairdresser, we thought for sure the baby daddy had shot her in an attempt to get out of his responsibility. It was really shocking to hear she had committed murder. It will be interesting to see what the prosecutors charge her with. We do have a law about harming the unborn child of another person in Virginia but no laws about harming YOUR OWN. unborn child. She needs to do some time on this on this. The baby was due THE DAY that she shot herself in the stomach.
Oh, what a tragedy this is... if only we had state-funded abortions for poor women, she could have had the fetus disembowled and scraped out of her while she was comfortably anesthetized. And of course, we need state-funded funerals afterward, to help with the healing process...
The theme song from 'Baretta'?
On another note, I notice she wasn't so despondant that she shot herself in the HEAD. No, no... she wanted to live...
That was my thought too. A shot to the head would have done the job for her.
She should plead insanity, she'll get away with it then. Works that way here in Texas.
Another church that hands out cheap grace, compliments of the minister.
They seem to forget that God is Just, as well as Merciful.
She shot the baby to death in cold blood, and deserves no sympathy: all my sympathy goes to the baby.
How about young baby shooter and murderer? It's much more accurate.
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