“I feel empty, lost, angry, but I have hope,” Natasha Ann Lesprance said, close to tears that never came. It has been just over three weeks since her 11-year-old son Emanuel Coby Rodrigues was found hanging in his closet just days after he wrote the National Grade Six Assessment examination.
Lesprance does not believe her son wanted to end his life but that he was influenced by animated programmes he watched on the internet. She also believes that he was a victim of the so-called “Momo Challenge”. It has been claimed that YouTube videos featuring kid-friendly characters like Peppa Pig or Splatoon gameplays are being edited with images of Momo, as well as instructions for children to self-harm. Such videos appear to be made by trolls with the express intention of trying to disturb children.
I have done many gut-wrenching interviews for this column but speaking to Lesprance was one of most difficult. Maybe it is because I have a son the same age or maybe it is just seeing a mother still dazed by the loss of her son and who is eons away from ever being ‘normal’ again.
She told me she has no issue with her name being published and she wants her son’s tragic end to be a wake-up call to parents to do more to save their children from the dangerous virtual world of the internet.
“I want to talk about it now, because I think it will help me to heal. But I also want to help other parents too…,” she said sadly.
Lesprance already had two daughters, who are now aged 19 and 16, when she got Emmanuel who was fondly called ‘Manny’.
“… I always needed a son. I remember I prayed, I fasted, I cried out to the Lord to bless me with a son… “When… I get out of that fasting moment, the Holy Spirit told me He would give me a son and I must name him Emmanuel. I went to my husband at that moment that I broke that fast and I was saying I am going to have a son today and that was so accurate… even my husband laughed,” she told me candidly.
Emanuel was born on December 9, 2007.
“When I had Emmanuel, he was a smiling, handsome little baby. It was like he was saying, ‘mommy everything is going to be alright’. From the moment I saw his face, that is how I felt,” she said.
“But while I was carrying Emmanuel, I had a lot of incidents. I was pelted in the stomach by a neighbour. I was going through a lot, but a lot of prayers were covering Emmanuel. I could have seen the enemy was trying for me to have a miscarriage, but God was in control of his child,” she said.
As she spoke, she closed her eyes and I knew she believed every word she was saying.
“I recall when Emmanuel was at daycare he came home with a wound over his head, a child pushed him down. People was always taking advantage of him and I was always trying to protect him.
“He always said he was going to be a pastor, then it was a doctor, then a soldier. But he always hold out from the time he could speak that he was going to be a pastor.
“And he had this quietness in him, but was full of energy, adventurous, always want to help out. He would pick up the broom and want to sweep. Always pleased to help his mommy, help his siblings. He used to take off his sister’s shoes when she was pregnant and always lift up his nephew.
“He was always a very loving child to everybody. Emanuel never use any indecent language, as much as he would hear it. He always try to help to fry up food for me, always give me a glass of water when I get home from work and I would say ‘bless you son’,” she said.
I did not interrupt her much because I felt she had a need to let people understand who he was before, as she believes, he was taken over by the dark internet.
“When we have devotion, he would pray. He loved God. He said, ‘mommy I want to get baptized’ and it was close to common entrance and I told him when he finish the exams,” she said.
“I even got his visa for the United States and I told him when he finish writing common entrance he would go to the States because his sisters went already and it was his turn,” she said with a sad smile.
“But you know he had so much energy and he was so skillful and had a lot of ideas. I bring this laptop and present it to him. I use to be very skeptical about him watching scary movies and so because I know they are not good but they use to watch them.
“He started watching the movies. It was like he was hooked on the laptop. He was devoted to it,” she said, with a distant look on her face and she paused, telling her 16-year-old daughter Catashe to speak about Emmanuel’s addiction to his laptop.
“He discovered the animation and would watch things like “Deadman Wonderland” [a Japanese manga series] and “Death March,” those were the things he watched,” his sister said.
“His friends told him about some others, and I told him not to watch them. He started to play some games and you would hear like shooting but when you ask him what he is watching he would say nothing and when you go to see he would quickly close it off.
“One time he tarred his entire skin and he put two knives in the side of his pants, and he went in the yard acting out what he saw. He would even climb trees with skills, jumping from branch to branch,” the sister continued.
“One time he take rubber bands and put it around his head and his wrist, like locking it off,” the mother joined in.
I asked her if she was not worried when she observed such behaviours.
“I was not worried that my children were in danger of taking their lives because they loved the Lord. We prayed every day. And I had him so active, he was involved in swimming, football, he was a part of the boys’ group in church. He was involved in the school and church choir…,” she said trailing off.
“We did a lot of going out as a family. We had him very much occupied, so I never thought that would be the end of my child.
“But you know parents who truly have a relationship with God do have certain dreams. I use to have some weird dreams but I didn’t know this is what would have happened.
“I heard people being suicidal and I would say, ‘Manny, no time at all you and your sisters must think about that.’ I told him people who take their lives are going to hell.
“I spoke to my children a lot, not being naïve. I was aware that there was a lot of violence around the neighbourhood and he would say, ‘mommy I don’t want like this neighbourhood. I don’t like the violence.’
“But that day, it was a Monday, he was not normal, he was distant. When he came home, he forgot to say good afternoon and his sister actually talked to him. And then he started telling her that he was writing with pen and she told him they would teach them French and Portuguese and he said he was fluent in those languages.
“He then came and hug me and I said, ‘son, you will have to go and clean your room.’ He said he was hungry and I sent him to buy an item, but he didn’t go he came and lie down next to me on my bed. I allowed him to lie down for a while and then I said, ‘Manny, the time is getting dark, I don’t want night to come and the room not cleaned,’ and he left to clean the room.
“I got up and I was on the computer, looking at some baby pictures of them and I was lost in that but I said, ‘Manny I am giving you half an hour to finish.’ As I gave him that half an hour, I heard some knocking and thought he was cleaning he room.”
His sister chimed in that she heard one knocking sound and she told her brother to be quiet since she was doing her homework.
“I regret it, oh my gosh,” she said sadly.
“Normally I would go and check on him, but I said I wanted him to do his work on his own without me pushing him,” the mother continued.
“I said I am coming now, and I went into the room. It was dark, and I said where is this boy? When I turned, I jammed his body, hanging in the walk-in closet. I screamed. I hollered.”
She was hesitant to reveal more of that moment and its aftermath and I was mindful to allow her to share the painful experience as she saw fit.
“The whole family have to take counselling now and I don’t seem to want to get over it,” she said.
“This is something I don’t want to recall again. I don’t want to talk about it again. People would have to read about here, because I am not talking about it again.
“My advice to parents is don’t take your children for granted, spend every moment with them, listen to them. I am talking to fathers: no matter what you do, your children need you. My son needed his father. He was crying for his father. I know he had longed for his father and he [the father] was coming around and finding time but now he is gone,” she shared. “Manny had wanted him so long.
“… Even though it was not easy I do all kinds of jobs to take care of my children. I send them to school from being a vendor on the streets, sending them to a school I think was safe and that was Success Elementary. It is a good school and I work and send them there and every day I sent them to school,” she shared.
It was in the above statements that Lesprance revealed she was no longer with her husband, the father to all three of her children, but she gave no details and I decided not to ask.
“I thank God for times when I didn’t have and my relatives, my mom and sisters, would come and help. My church too, First Assemblies, also helped and God was truly there all the time even though I was not prepared to let go of my son.
“But you know everyone say, ‘God knows best’,” she said the words quietly and shook her head as she spoke.
Emmanuel’s elder sister Catasha said: “I still miss him, and I am still in denial sometimes. I have not fully accepted his death as yet. And I wish we could have him back.”
Catashe, who spoke before, said, “I am in denial and sometimes it feels unreal. I would like to encourage parents out there, whose children are devoted to their gadgets, let their children spend more quality time with them instead of on the gadgets. Monitor what they are watching, earn their trust.”
“Counselling has helped… I use to blame myself but it is helping me not to blame myself but you know I think when I heard that knock I should have gone to see what was wrong. He still had life then and maybe I could have saved him,” Lesprance said.
“But I thank God I gave my children the best of me and I am still doing that with the rest of them. I thank God that Manny always showed me love and he would tell his siblings the same thing. He is now with the Lord,” were her last words before we parted ways.
She was taking her 16-year-old daughter Catashe to school. Her shoulders were slumped with the pain and there was nothing I could have said to offer comfort.
Sisters, parents as both Lesprance and her daughter said, let’s pay more attention to what our children watch on the internet. There is a virtual world out there that would devour our children’s minds if we allow it. Let’s do more to protect them from that.
