Gone Too Soon - Kids Murdered in a Senseless Rage
By Nicole Cleveland

It’s been over 4 yrs since Daniel (age 12) and Chante (8) were snatched from our lives.

Gone too soon…. I still can’t believe they are gone. What happened to them only happens to other people, or on the news. It’s never ever so close, never so real. This time the news was personal. It was too real.

It was Memorial Day 2002. We had gone to Delaware to visit family for the holidays. I rose early that morning at about 3am, woke my husband up and said, “Boo, I don’t feel right and I think we need to get on the road”. It was a strange ride home. We hit Route 13 sometime between 4 and 5am that morning. No radio, no CD’s, just complete silence. I even drove and if you knew me, you’d know how much I try to avoid long distance driving. But this morning was different. There was a sense of urgency in my spirit. Something wasn’t right. We arrived home, went to work and went on with our normal daily routine. No news, no TV, no radio. As I look back now, that was very strange because I normally wake up to Wavy TV 10 with Don Roberts, But not this day.

After work I sat at the dining room table going over our household bills.

Then the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“They’re gone.”

“What?”

“They’re gone.”

“What are you talking about and who is this?”

“It’s Liz, the kids are gone Nicole, Cedric killed them.”

“Girl, stop playing, what are you talking about?”

“They’re gone, Nicole, they’re gone”

“Where are you?”

“At Mom’s.”

“Here I come.”

Liz’s mother Maria got on the phone and proceeded to tell me what had happened.

“Please come, she needs you.”

I yelled up the steps to Jerry, “Come on, Liz said Cedric killed the kids.”

This began a nightmare for me; but it could not compare to what Liz was going through, which could be described as a torturous, slow daily death. She was experiencing something so painful, yet numbing at the same time. Her heart was completely broken. You often hear and wonder about the expression “broken heart”, but I can attest that Liz’s heart was completely shattered…and there was nothing I could do but pray.

Somebody please wake me up. Please wake Liz up; this has to be a bad nightmare.

But we never woke up because it wasn’t a nightmare; it was real.

Liz and I have been friends for 10 years now. We worked together and our families got together for cookouts, birthdays and holidays. Daniel and Chante were friends with our children.

We babysat for each other and our husbands were friends as well. Chante adored Felicia (my daughter). When Felicia was born I think Chante thought she was a doll. The way she would hold her when she was an infant was priceless. Tevan (my son) and Daniel went to the same school and were in the same grade. We lived just 5 minutes from each other. A month before this tragedy we celebrated Chante & Felicia’s birthdays. (Both of the girls were born in April.)

“He had to be a monster.” “He didn’t love those kids.” “He was no good.”

Those were some of the things that people would say after they heard what Cedric did to the kids. I would often overhear people say things in a store, in church or on my job since this story was in the headlines for quite some time both in the newspaper and on TV. “Double Homicide - Suicide” and “Man Kills Kids and Himself” were the headlines. But to me he was the complete opposite. He was a good provider and loved his children. He was fun; he had a good heart and would give his last dollar to help if he knew someone was in need. Whenever my family needed help he was there. He looked out for us. I can remember midnight trips he made to our home if our heat was not working or something needed to be fixed. He was not going to have the kids in the cold.

“I don’t care if you are in the cold Nicole, just the kids,” he would joke. He was like a big brother, always looking out for me, especially when my husband was out to sea.

I never knew the secret that Liz was hiding. And I thought I knew her so well. But she was like many women that are being abused. Most people never know. She knew how to hide it, how to cover it up and go on with her life - protecting her secret. Liz was being physically abused and she got fed up. She was going to leave him and he was not having it. He snapped.

I remember taking the rest of the week off to be with Liz. Being by her side was so very hard. I wanted to grieve. I wanted to mourn, but it wasn’t about me. When she was weak I had to be strong.

Liz donated Chante’s organs to Life-Net. She asked me to go with her to say goodbye to “Tae”. We walked into the hospital room and it looked as if she was alive. She was hooked up to the machines that kept her organs functioning. Her chest was going up and down. For a brief moment I thought she was alive. But she was gone. Just 8 yrs old. She lay there so beautiful, with her head wrapped up to hide the bullet hole.

I felt my knees wobble. But I had to keep it together.

“Look at her nails Nicole, she had just painted them.”

Liz was staring at her daughter’s fingernails.

“What do I say, what do I do?” I thought. Nothing – let her be.

The nurse came in and said they were about to take her body down. They gave Liz a few more minutes to say goodbye.

“Liz, I will leave you here to be with Tae.”

“ No, please stay with me.”

I wanted to throw up, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to run. But again, it was not about me.

“Bye Baby, I love you, and I’m sorry.”

She kissed her, I kissed her, and we walked out.

There were no words from my friend until she said, “let’s go see him.”

At this time Cedric was laying in a coma at the hospital next door.

After he shot the kids he turned the gun on himself, but he didn’t die instantly. He stayed in the coma for almost a week before dying. Some say God didn’t allow him to die right away in order to give him time to repent for what he had done. Only God knows what took place during the time he was in the coma. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. He was in the bed lifeless. He was there, but not really there. But I knew he heard us. He knew we were there.

“They’re Gone, Cedric,” Liz said quietly while holding his hand.

“Do you hear me?” The words came in a whisper, tears streaming down her face.

“Daniel and Chante are both dead. Why?”

His finger moved.

We asked the nurse if he could hear, and she said no. But I know he heard her.

Daniel & Chante were buried one week and Cedric the next.

These were senseless killings committed in a state of rage, a state of insanity. Years ago you couldn’t pay me to believe in temporary insanity but today I know it to be true. I believe Cedric lost his mind for a brief period and when he got it back it was too late. That’s just my opinion based on what we knew of him, or at least what we thought we knew. We all have thoughts in our minds; we all have the “mind chatter” and “the voices”. I believe that night that Cedric couldn’t stop the “voices”; he couldn’t turn the “chatter” off. There was no peace, nothing to overpower the evil that took place that night.

When we complain about the little things or sweat the small stuff like bills, kids not doing chores, bad hair days, the rain, kids getting in trouble etc, we should remember Liz and her daily struggles. She would give it all up in order to yell at Daniel today about his chores not being done or Chante not doing her homework. But that’s not possible. They are gone, never to return. There is not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think about her kids and her former husband. There will always be emptiness in her heart and an inconsolable yearning for her children.

Liz’s advice:
Take nothing and no one for granted. Tomorrow truly is not promised to us.
If you are in an abusive relationship tell someone that you trust and get out.

Contact a helpline, or your local YWCA.
www.ywca.org
www.ywca-shr.org

Today, Daniel would have been 17 and Chante would have been 12.

About Liz
Liz is now remarried; I served as her maid of honor in September 2005.
To contact Liz please send an e-mail to liz@breatheagain.org

About the Writer
Nicole Cleveland is founder of Breathe Again Magazine Online. She is on a mission to empower, encourage and motivate women by posting real life articles of women overcoming adversity.
Contact her at editor@breatheagain.org