‘No, Mercedez, don’t go’: Tears, tributes as Erin says goodbye to murdered girl

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­[email protected]

The an­guished cries of chil­dren filled the Erin Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist Church as fam­i­ly, friends and class­mates gath­ered to bid a fi­nal farewell to 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, who was vi­o­lent­ly mur­dered on her way home on June 6.

Yes­ter­day, in­stead of spend­ing her day at school, Mer­cedez lay in a cof­fin, while her loved ones strug­gled to ac­cept her death.

At the Erin Pub­lic Ceme­tery, the an­guished cries grew loud­er by late evening as Mer­cedez’s sis­ters—Ayen­dae, Cheyenne, Kavelle, Ky­lah, Shakayah and Sheree­ka—and her young nephew Say­d­den, screamed as tears streamed down their faces as they clung to one an­oth­er just be­fore her cas­ket was placed in­to the grave.

Her moth­er, Annarese Layne, draped her­self across it, sob­bing un­con­trol­lably, shout­ing: “No, Mer­cedez, don’t go,” as she ca­ressed her daugh­ter’s face.

Annarese, who had been hos­pi­talised fol­low­ing the death, was dis­charged in time to at­tend the fu­ner­al. She broke down in tears as the hearse car­ry­ing her daugh­ter’s body ar­rived at the church. The ve­hi­cle bore large pho­tographs of Mer­cedez’s smil­ing face—a painful re­minder of the life cut trag­i­cal­ly short.

In­side the church, school prin­ci­pal Su­san Richards led stu­dents in an acros­tic trib­ute us­ing the let­ters of Mer­cedez’s name, high­light­ing the qual­i­ties that made her beloved among class­mates and teach­ers.

Among those pay­ing their re­spects were Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo, La Brea MP Clyde El­der, teach­ers, stu­dents and res­i­dents. Ad­dress­ing mourn­ers, Mayrhoo said Mer­cedez’s death should serve as a wake-up call for par­ents, grand­par­ents and guardians.

“To­day, I should not have been here. To­day, none of us should have been here. To­day, Mer­cedez should have gone to school,” he said.

De­scrib­ing the child as an in­no­cent vic­tim, Mayrhoo urged adults to be more vig­i­lant.

“Gone are the days when we should put our child in a taxi and send them alone. We need to look af­ter them. Chil­dren are a gift from God. We need to cher­ish them. We need to pro­tect them.”

He an­nounced plans to seek ap­proval from the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to have a por­trait of Mer­cedez paint­ed at the up­grad­ed Ir­win Park fa­cil­i­ty as a last­ing trib­ute.

Beck­les re­flect­ed on the re­mark­able im­pact the young girl had made dur­ing her short life.

“For a child of 12, she did so much. It’s im­pos­si­ble to fig­ure out how her moth­er was able to man­age her go­ing to Red Cross, go­ing to all the dif­fer­ent church­es, do­ing the danc­ing. She led a very im­por­tant and event­ful life in a very pos­i­tive way,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader urged mourn­ers to re­mem­ber the pos­i­tive lega­cy Mer­cedez left be­hind.

“She made an im­pact on the com­mu­ni­ty of Erin to bring my­self and a lot of oth­er peo­ple here to Erin. She has put the vil­lage on the map of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Fight­ing back tears, El­der de­scribed the fu­ner­al as the most dif­fi­cult he had at­tend­ed since be­com­ing MP.

Al­though he met Mer­cedez on­ly briefly dur­ing a vis­it to her school, El­der said her death had touched the en­tire na­tion.

“You did not have to know Mer­cedez per­son­al­ly to be im­pact­ed by what has hap­pened to her.” He pledged con­tin­ued sup­port to the griev­ing fam­i­ly and urged cit­i­zens not to al­low the tragedy to fade from mem­o­ry once the fu­ner­al was over.

“Let us be more re­spon­si­ble in how we pro­tect our chil­dren, and let us not take it for grant­ed that all the peo­ple out there are good.”

Pas­tor Steven­son Hall al­so ap­pealed to mourn­ers to find for­give­ness de­spite their pain. He urged them to think of the day when they will see Mer­cedez again.

The bat­tered body of the child was dis­cov­ered on June 7, near an oil pipeline, a day af­ter she went miss­ing. Richard Re­nalis, 26, has since been charged with her mur­der.