Church victims’ relatives detail deep grief
THE TEARY relatives of three murdered Bible study group members testified Friday about the devastating losses inflicted on their families by racist killer Dylann Roof.
Roof, representing himself during the death penalty phase of his federal trial, listened without comment as the witnesses resurrected memories of their lost loved ones in a Charleston, S.C., courtroom.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my sister,” an emotional Averil Jones told the jury about her slain sibling, Cynthia Graham Hurd.
“I can’t pick up the phone and call her,” she continued on day three of the sentencing hearing.
“I can’t hear her laughter. I can’t get her wisdom. I can’t share my secrets. I feel empty. When she died a part of me went with her. There’s a huge hole in my heart.”
The Rev. Sharon Risher, who lost her mother in the June 2015 killing spree at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, recounted how her whole family misses its matriarch.
“Nobody is there to keep us together, to keep the pieces together. Now we have tattered pieces,” Risher said through tears after pretending to shred a piece of fabric.
“And I know that would devastate her.” The testimony in the case against the convicted killer of nine African-American victims inside the historic black church is expected to end Monday — with the jury deliberating Tuesday.
Walter Jackson Jr., the grandson of 87-year-old victim Susie Jackson, recalled his beloved grandma as the living antithesis of Roof’s raging hate.
“As someone who’s gone through racism and segregation, she went through life with love for everyone,” he said. “She radiated unconditional love.
“I had a cool grandmother. She always encouraged me to be myself.” AN NYPD traffic agent was busted Friday for feeling up a co-worker, police said.
Cops arrested Kwongwait Cheng, 31, after a fellow employee reported that he grabbed her butt and touched her breasts Thursday night at an NYPD office in Midtown.
When Cheng showed up for work Friday he was arrested, police said.
Cops charged him with forcible touching.