21-year-old lay dying in mother’s arms
Faith Ike-Elechi, 21, had received help from a mental health crisis team after her mother, Faith George, intercepted a package of sodium nitrite sent by Kenneth Law.
George’s statement featured a detailed and harrowing description of her daughter’s last moments.
“I genuinely believed that we had prevented a tragedy. My daughter had accepted help,” George wrote.
But while Ike-Elechi, whom George referred to by her nickname Chimma, had been receiving treatment, she had also received another package from Kenneth Law, her mother said.
It was the middle of the night on Aug. 23, 2022, when the family heard “a loud cry.” George’s eldest son rushed to his sister’s room.
Chimma “was sitting on the floor appearing helpless. The only words she repeatedly said were, ‘I’m sorry, I drank it.’ Those words will remain with me for the rest of my life,” her mother wrote.
George said she held her daughter in her arms as they waited for paramedics to arrive, tears streaming down her face.
In Chimma’s eyes, George said she “saw pain and what I believe was profound regret. She continued saying, ‘I’m sorry, I drank it.'” She said those were her daughter’s last words.
“I will forever carry the heartbreaking belief that in those final moments, she desperately wished she could undo what had happened.”
George says she relives those moments over and over. She said her daughter was brilliant, artistic and ambitious. She filled notebooks with poems, thoughts, reflections and goals she dreamt of achieving. She remembered every birthday and Mother’s Day.
“Kenneth Law did not know my daughter. He did not know her intelligence. He did not know her kindness. He did not know her generosity. He did not know the years of love, sacrifice, and support that our family had invested in helping her through her struggles.”
“He did not know that she was receiving treatment and still had every opportunity to recover,” George continued. “Yet his actions permanently deprived us of watching her heal, achieve her ambitions, and build the future she deserved.”
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