Derek Achong
"A sentence of lifelong pain."
That is how the parents of a 13-year-old boy, who was brutally murdered alongside his babysitter during a 2017 home invasion, described the grief they continue to endure after one of the men responsible for the shocking crime was recently sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
Veena and Lennon Subar shared their harrowing experience in an emotional victim impact statement that was considered when Solomon Baksh was recently sentenced to just over 11 more years in prison for the murders of their 13-year-old son, Videsh, and his babysitter, 57-year-old Haffiza "Rose" Mohammed.
The couple said, "We ask the court to see the full human weight of this loss and understand that for us, this is a sentence of lifelong pain."
On June 29, 2017, Mohammed and the teenager were found dead in a bedroom at her Ajim Baksh Trace, Malabar, Arima, home. They had been tied up and their throats were slit.
Their murders sent shockwaves across the country, with the teen's funeral being attended by several politicians, including then-opposition leader and current Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and former education minister Anthony Garcia.
Baksh and two other men accused of the murders were awaiting trial for almost nine years before he agreed to plead guilty under the felony murder rule before Justice Sherene Murray-Bailey.
Under the rule, the mandatory death penalty for murder is waived in circumstances where death occurs during the commission of a lesser criminal offence such as robbery.
They were also charged with robbing Mohammed of several power tools, electronics and a vehicle, and robbing Subar of a $200 cell phone.
In imposing a remaining sentence of 11 years and one month on Baksh, Justice Murray-Bailey applied a one-third discount for his guilty plea and gave him credit for the time he spent on remand.
She also found that he would have served the sentences for the robbery offences while on remand.
In their joint statement, the Subars noted that they tried to have a child for over a decade before he was born in December 2003.
"His birth brought a joy into our home that changed everything in the very best way. He was our answered prayer, our pride, our future, and the center of our world," they said.
"He was the kind of child who brought energy into a room and left something of himself with everyone he met," they added.
Stating that he had a "simple right to live", the parents said his life was stolen from him in a "brutal, senseless, and cruel way".
"That day will never leave us. It was the day our world broke. It felt as though the ground beneath us moved and the earth itself shifted," they said.
"The level of hurt, despair, and pain is indescribable. On most days, it is crippling," they added.
They said they have never recovered since his murder.
"A part of us died with him that day. No parent is ever prepared for the murder of a child. There is no strength that makes that bearable," they said.
"People speak of carrying on, but carrying on is not the same as healing. We have continued because we have had to, not because the wound has closed," they added.
They said they still think about him every day.
"We miss his laughter. We miss his mischievous antics. We miss his smile. We miss his presence," they said.
"There is a pain in knowing that we will never hold him again, never see his face again, never hear his voice again in this life," they added.
They claimed that Baksh being sentenced would do little to ease their pain.
"There is no real justice for parents who have lost a child this way, because no outcome can return him to us," they said.
"Nothing can erase the knowledge that his future was stolen. Nothing can undo the years of suffering, the sleepless nights, the tears, the emptiness, or the lasting damage to our heart," they added.
