Hit-run victim a loving and ‘most loved child’
Sesinna Kahsay Berhane loved to explore her adopted hometowns in the Houston area, often riding her bike with her siblings and taking trips to her neighborhood park.
The little girl adapted quickly to the Texas way of life in the two years since her family moved here after fleeing their home country of Eritrea and then living in an Ethiopian refugee camp, her father, Berhane Kahsay Asgedom, said. Sesinna became a Girl Scout and eventually a Junior Soldier with the Salvation Army. She consistently brought home A’s on her report card and was recognized during many school awards ceremonies.
“Because she was very intelligent in all the subjects, she didn’t differentiate one from the other,” Kahsay Asgedom said. “She used to love every subject.”
And he had hoped that, like him, she would become a preacher. That’s what he told her the morning of June 20 before the 8-year-old was fatally struck by a car in a hit-and-run while exploring with her siblings the Sugar Land neighborhood the family moved into days earlier.
As Kahsay Asgedom recalled picking her up from a summer program that fateful day, he paused to collect his thoughts.
“I was telling her how good she is, a most loved child, with a great future,” Kahsay Asgedom said.
Sesinna was born in 2011 while her family was in the Ethiopian refugee camp. Her parents, Kahsay Asgedom and Feven Tadesse, chose a name that means “God is multiplying us” and celebrated their growing family. When they left Eritrea, they had just one child. By the time Sesinna was born, they had four others.
In 2016, the family was finally able to move to the United States. They first lived in Baltimore and relocated 10 months later to Houston, where Kahsay Asgedom felt called to start a church. The couple taught Sesinna that America had been founded by people who shared their Christian religious principles and valued freedom. They passed on their love for the country to their daughter, who enjoyed learning about its history.
“She used to love America and Americans because she would always be talking about how America was founded,” Kahsay Asgedom said.
Sesinna also was very caring with her 10 siblings, though she never tolerated any misbehavior or disrespect, her father said. She was especially close with her 9-year-old brother, Apolos.
“They would always be fighting, playing,” Kahsay Asgedom said. “They would never stay away from each other.”
While Kahsay Asgedom recounted stories of Sesinna, several of his children played in the living room of their home in Sugar Land, the latest community they’ve lived in since moving to Houston. The siblings flipped through scrapbooks that included pictures of Sesinna and a drawing of her as an angel.
“There’s Sesinna here but no more Sesinna,” one of the children said, looking at a scrapbook.
She was also close with her parents and never liked when her father had to be gone for long. Kahsay Asgedom recalled how one day she showered him with hugs after he had been gone for work for a few days.
After the crash, he called Reigning Glory Church and asked to be put in touch with the pastor, so she could pray for Sesinna. Just a few days earlier, Kahsay Asgedom had reached out to the church because he thought the name seemed divinely inspired and he wanted to get involved.
The pastor, LaCricia Hlavinka, was traveling when Kahsay Asgedom called after the crash. She tried calling him, but no one answered the phone. Still, the wreck haunted her. That night, she saw the incident on the news, and it kept her up. Finally, around 2 a.m., she called to check in with the hospital. The nurse assured her many people were praying for Sesinna.
Shortly after, on June 22, the little girl died.
Authorities arrested Angela Smith and later charged her with failure to stop and render aid in an accident involving death. Fort Bend County prosecutors said Smith ran a stop sign and struck Sesinna, who was with her brother and sister crossing Bissonnet Street near Hodges Bend Middle School and Holley Elementary School.
Following the wreck, Hlavinka and the church set out to help the family, starting a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral expenses.
“Just as God has love and compassion, and is an everhelp in times of need … we represent who he is,” she said.
Kahsay Asgedom takes comfort in the support of the church and said he knows his daughter is in heaven. It is her loving and forgiving spirit that the 8year-old girl will be remembered for, her father said.
“She was full of life,” he said. “She was so adoring, and she used to really love people without any differentiation.”