IT’S enough to make you blood boil: another story has just broken of extreme child abuse by demented Christians.
Little Javon Thompson, starved to death by a religious cult
This latest horrific report concerns the death of two-year-old Javon Thompson, whose remains were found in a suitcase after he was starved to death by members of a religious cult - including his mother - because he refused to say “amen” after meals.
According to this report, Ria Ramkissoon, 21, Javon’s mother, has been charged with first-degree murder, and Baltimore police said three other members of a group called 1 Mind Ministries have also been charged.
Police and Ramkissoon’s family say the group is a cult.
Members did not seek medical care for Javon when he stopped breathing and the boy died in his mother’s arms, according to court documents that described police interviews with a confidential informant and two children. He would have been about 19 months old when police say adults stopped feeding him in December 2006.
The mother of the dead toddler is said to have been a victim of the cult.
Ramkissoon, 21, who can be seen with her son in this video, is being held in the psychiatric ward of Baltimore’s Central Booking and Intake Centre, and a bail review was postponed.
The three other people charged in Javon’s death - Queen Antoinette, 40, also known as Toni Ellsberry or Toni Sloan; Marcus Cobbs, 21; and Trevia Williams, 21 - were already in custody. They were arrested in May in New York City on warrants charging them with failure to appear in court in Baltimore. Those charges stemmed from a scuffle with police in a child custody dispute.
A fifth alleged cult member, Steven Bynum, has been charged in a warrant with first-degree murder and remains at large, police said. He was believed to be in New York.
Ramkissoon’s family said she should not be held responsible for her son’s death.
Her stepfather Craig Newton said:
She had no control over that situation at all.
Ramkissoon’s mother Seeta Khadan-Newton said it wasn’t her daughter’s decision not to feed the boy.
My daughter was a victim, just like my grandson. Somebody made that decision to not feed that child, and my daughter had to follow instructions.
According to court documents, Ramkissoon joined 1 Mind Ministries after Javon was born. Ramkissoon’s mother last saw her daughter in April 2006; she later sued for custody of her grandson, writing in a letter to a judge that “the cult leaders” were preventing her from contacting her daughter.
The documents show police interviewed two school-age children who had been part of the group but were taken away from members by Philadelphia police. The children told investigators that members stopped feeding Javon in December 2006, in part because the boy refused to say “amen” after dinner.
Members also viewed Javon as “a demon.”
Another unnamed informant told police that after Javon died, Antoinette left the boy’s body in a room for more than a week, claiming:
God was going to raise Javon from the dead.
Afterward, Antoinette burned the boy’s clothing and a mattress and placed his body in a green suitcase.
Police recovered the suitcase in April after they got a tip from the confidential informant. The remains of a small child were inside. DNA tests are pending to confirm the boy’s identity.
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The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
August 12th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I hate stories like this. I’ve always been affected by child abuse articles and the impact of these has multiplied immensely since I became a father and imagine my daughter in the same position.
The fact that it was driven by religious insanity only makes it that much worse. How do they justify their delusions with that?
August 12th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
A horrible crime commtted by some twisted individuals.
But, dude, nowhere in any report I’ve read identified them as christians.
I know you’ve got an ax to grind and all ,but how about some attention to detail before leveling accusations against any religions adherents.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
String her up. I have a child. Nobody could convince me to starve that child. Nobody, nohow. It’s a real shame for Javion that he got such a completely demonic and/or completely spineless and useless mother, but, along with the rest of the cult, she withheld food from her child, no matter what the reason.
There is no story you could tell me that would make it justifiable to starve a baby.
String her the fuck up.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Christopher, they call themselves a ‘ministry’, insist on saying ‘amen’, believe in demonic possession and, according to the Baltimore Sun, were about to launch a business called J.C. Apparel with the slogan “Don’t be shamed to rock his name, Jesus Christ!”.
Maybe they were Hindus?
August 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
And I guess these people were Muslims.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I agree with Krissy. If a cult told me to starve my child, I’d tell ‘em where to go! No human life, especially that of an innocent baby (my own daughter is the same age as this poor little boy) is worth less than some barmy cult.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
When believers sacrifice their children to their gods, we call them mad. Yet Abraham is consideed admirable by modern Christians for being willing to sacrifice his son.
Throughout history believers have made a virtue of killing - i.e. sacrificing - non-believers, heretics, infidels, and these often include children.
Today many sacrifice their money, or their reason, or their compassion for their fellow humans. And all to reserve their little niche in fantasy heaven. All for a lie and an illusion. All for nothing. Faith in all its forms is true nihilism.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Rozi & Krissy your anger is understandable but your heated comments are typical of the sort of self righteous indignation that is more to be expected from theists. Try to imagine what happened to this poor woman to lead her to act the way she did. We have no idea what it is like to be taken over by a cult. Think Jones town.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
She killed a baby. I have absolutely no interets in her religious leanings one way or another. I’m not even particularly bothered if she’s insane.
She killed a baby. There is no justification, in my mind. None whatsoever. And I am not a “Theist”.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I wasn’t agreeing on the ’string her up’ part, just the lack of excuse for allowing herself to let these nut-jobs any where near her baby son. It’s probably over reaction because I’m a parent, but the very thought of children suffering because of something as stupid as blind faith and indoctrination into a cult made me so angry I could barely type let alone make a decent point.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I am sorry but these people deserve no sympathy at all, I would suggest drawing and quartering or disemboweling as just punishment if it was still possible to do it.
August 17th, 2008 at 12:11 am
I’m not sure that becoming a member of a cult makes one a “victim.” Unless someone puts a gun to your head and makes you join (akin to what happened arguably to Patty Hearst), then you join the cult, and adopt its ways, of your own free will. This makes one morally complicit in whatever the cult does.
Granted, the cult leader may be more culpable … but no member of the cult can disavow all responsibility.
Unfortunately I have no confidence in the US courts on this topic, especially since the Texas Supreme Court recently gave people a “religious observance” exception in the law … in Texas you can harm or kill people, and so long as you did it as part of a religious observance, it’s perfectly legal (see http://www.agnostic-library.co.....-in-texas/).