Javon Thompson (15 months old) refused to say “amen” after meals. His 22-year-old mother, Ria Ramkissoon of Baltimore in America, was unable to get him to say it. So the leader of her religious cult decided the toddler was a demon and ordered food and water to be withheld from him.
Ria obeyed meekly. Javon grew more emaciated and eventually died. Cult members prayed for him to rise from the dead and Ria danced around the body.
The tiny body was stuffed into a suitcase with mothballs and fabric softener to mask the smell and abandoned. Two years later, in 2008, police found it.
Now Ria and three members of the 1 Mind Ministries group - alleged cult leader “Queen” Antoinette (40), Marcus Cobbs (21) and Trevia Williams (21) - are in jail facing murder charges.
Ria, originally from Trinidad, has agreed to testify against the others in exchange for a suspended sentence. She confessed to starving her son to death but told prosecutors if the child rises from the dead her confession will be null and void.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in a plea bargain,” says her lawyer, Steve Silverman. “This is something she insisted on . . . she’s still brainwashed, still a victim of this cult.”
Ria, a soft-spoken woman who turned her back on her family’s Hindu religion to become Christian, has been promised a 20-year suspended sentence.
Her mother, Seeta Khadan-Newton (59), blames cult leader “Queen” Antoinette for Javon’s death. “Javon was such a nice little boy,” she says. “I got him a swing and he used to love to be on that swing. And he had a playpen with a teddy bear and once he got in there the first thing he’d do was talk to that teddy bear.”
Members of the cult apparently weren’t allowed to use cellphones or talk about their relatives. They had to wear only blue and white - royal colours - and were given new titles and names. Ria’s was Princess Marie.
Javon’s father, Robert Thompson, was in jail when his son was born. His family feels Ria deserves harsher punishment than she’s expected to receive.
