Jean Griffith-Sandiford appears as unhappy, despondent and penitent as she did on Dec. 21, 1986, at some point following the reported Howard Seashore homicide of her son Michael who was chased into visitors on the Belt Parkway by racist thugs.
Thirty- seven years after her 23-year-old son was hit by a automotive and her husband — Cedric Sandiford — brutally pummeled by the identical thugs, the bereaved matriarch maintains the exact same demeanor she exhibited all through the times previous the Christmas holidays and on each go to to Evergreen Cemetery the place her son is buried.
Griffith by no means mentioned a harsh phrase concerning the white youngsters who had been reportedly urged to “go kill the ni**ers.”
“I pray for all of them, I forgive them although they took a bit of my coronary heart that evening.”
An avowed Roman Catholic, Sandiford has at all times expressed spiritual affinity to Christian ethics: “I forgive them. I want them no hurt.”
As for the purported gang chief Sandiford defined he wrote her many letters from jail however she by no means may carry herself to studying any of the writings from the convicted instigator, perpetrator and reported ‘baby-faced’ teenager whose name for motion led to her son’s demise.
Jon Lester was usually described as an admirer of the mafia and aspired to be a “capo.”
Whereas incarcerated, the immigrant from England claimed he had apologized for his actions on Dec. 20, 1986 and regretted the function he performed in inflicting Michael’s demise.
Experiences additionally surfaced that he was sorry concerning the passing of Sandiford in 1991. Jean’s Guyanese partner had accompanied Michael to purchase a automobile when their very own automotive ran out of gas, inflicting them to stroll by the then-segregated neighborhood.
In keeping with Jean, a couple of years in the past, a reporter requested to see the letters Lester had allegedly written. The immigrant mom from Trinidad advised the journalist she had misplaced them.
It was an trustworthy response.
In truth, Jean mentioned she seemed excessive and low however couldn’t discover the hand-written confessions Lester reportedly alleged as proof of his regret.
As destiny would have it, lately the decided mom discovered the letters however mentioned she nonetheless can not carry herself to learn them.
“Generally I really feel as if it simply occurred. The identical emotions I had then, I nonetheless have them.”
Throughout a protracted and tedious trial that ended Dec. 21 in Queens Legal court docket, a particular prosecutor proved that Lester was the teenaged-youth who sounded an alarm to his cohorts when he noticed three Black males in a neighborhood pizza store.
Lester served his time for committing manslaughter; he was deported to England and in the end dedicated suicide in 2017 at age 48.
The arrival of the vacations appears to resume painful recollections of the darkish days of that December.
Because the season approaches, Griffith-Sandiford returned to the gravesite the place Michael’s stays are buried. She positioned a vacation wreath on his marble stoned marker.
Though she commonly visits the Bushwick cemetery to plant and replant seasonal flowers, this yr appears significantly reflective.
Maybe, as a result of this yr her go to was not so long as common.
‘My children and I used to spend a whole day there; we might simply go the time there. However on a current event we had been advised a person sporting black was seen disturbing the stones; since then we simply clear up the particles, go away some flowers and make one of the best of the little time.”
“I can’t imagine a lot time has handed,” the still-grieving Christian mom mentioned, “It nonetheless appears like yesterday.”
Catch You On The Inside!
