(Trinidad Guardian) “It have some animals outside there, some demons, because I don’t know what to call them,” a tearful Patrice Cudjoe said while gazing at her daughter’s casket.
In a small chapel at Dennie’s Funeral Home in Belmont on Thursday, looking at pictures of the murdered 21-year-old emblazoned on the casket, Keithisha’s mother had advice for the nation’s young men.
“Take this as a lesson, put your foot in her shoes and watch the men, watch the men.”
Keithisha Cudjoe’s badly decomposed body was found on January 28 at the Heights of Aripo.
The initial autopsy could not state the cause of death but a second autopsy said she died due to blunt force trauma to the head.
“They rip out a piece of me, for somebody to do this, they are not a child of God,” the distraught mother said.
She urged both parents and children in this country to talk to each other about what’s going on in their lives.
“You going out the door, let people know, children let your parents know who are your friends because not all skin teeth is a smile,” she urged.
Keithisha was remembered as a gentle, humble, kind and determined woman who was seeking to further her education in order to take care of her child.
And while her relatives, mother and the officiating pastor said Cudjoe was not a perfect person, they said she possessed a smile and qualities that would strengthen and lift the people around her.
“She was a little fiery at times but that was what made us love her more and that contributed to her uniqueness,” said Keithisha’s aunt, Alanna Chadee.
“She was the nicest person you could ever meet,” another person said at the lectern.
At first there weren’t many tears in the chapel, but the bravado eventually broke for many and few cried more than Keithisha’s grandfather.
“When I heard, she gone, I said no! I had seen her just Saturday and she say, grandpa grandpa, and she hugged me and said tell granny I go look for she, so when them telling me Keithisha dead I say no she alright she go come to check me, but Keithisha never come again,” cried Kenneth Donnor.
Donnor urged those in attendance to learn to truly love one another.
He said, “For all the elements out there that destroy innocent ones, we should try to give each other a chance, all we have is ourselves, what we will do? Start to mash ourselves up? Or love each other?”
At the time of the funeral, no one had yet been held for her murder. But officiating pastor Ingrid Celestine said eventually “justice finds us all.”
“They might be able to hide from me, hide from you, hide from the police but you cannot hide from God, Celestine said. Keithisha Cudjoe was later buried at the Carenage Public Cemetery.
