"utter torture" lingers for slain student's mother

*This is an unedited version of a story that ran April 10 in the New York Metro. Enjoy.


BROOKLYN
After nearly three years of “no respect” from the NYPD following the rape, torture and slaying of her only child, Elle Carmichael wants answers -- and money -- from police.
Carmichael, mother of Romona Moore, alleges in a civil lawsuit seeking in excess of $1 million that police ignored her daughter’s disappearance and ignored 911 calls by a neighbor who reported screams from the Snyder Avenue apartment where the 21-year-old Hunter College student (above) was held in a basement for three days. It also alleges police refused to act after Carmichael insisted that her daughter’s disappearance was unusual.
“There was no respect from the whole department, I wasn’t treated right,” Carmichael said. “I explained this was a unique case. She didn’t sleep out, she never missed school, and they just gave me a deaf ear to that.”
According to the lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court in July 2004, the “NYPD has a policy and practice of not making a prompt investigation of missing persons claims of African-Americans, while making a prompt investigation for white individuals, despite having official policies and procedures to investigate unusual or unaccountable absences.”
Last month, while joining Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in announcing the indictment of Darryl Littlejohn in the death of Imette St. Guillen, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the department but admitted that detectives did not take the complaint originally because Moore -- an “emancipated adult” -- could have simply left home.
“Once [detectives] took the case, they did a full-blown investigation, they did a canvass,” Kelly said. “Doing that canvass enabled them to find another victim of these individuals and that’s how the case was broken. So there wasn’t a delay on the part of detectives.”
Paul Browne, NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information, said an intensive search for Moore began April 27, 2003, when investigators visited local hospitals, retraced her possible routes and brought out the bloodhounds. On May 10, 2003, Moore’s badly decomposed body was found after an anonymous caller notified police. Ten days later, Kayson Pearson, 24, and Troy Hendrix, 22, were charged in her death.
When a jury found Pearson and Hendrix guilty of first-degree murder late last month, the pain returned -- unlike police and the media, according to Carmichael, who compared the coverage of her daughter’s death to that of St. Guillen.
“Ray Kelly wants to say it doesn’t matter who gets more air time, but it matters a lot if you’re going through it all,” she said. “They’re both college students, but [St. Guillen] got more play than my daughter. It’s the same case but it was treated differently. It’s certainly a double standard.”
Perhaps sensing the ensuing comparison, Kelly made this statement at the Littlejohn press conference: “While the horrible death of Imette St. Guillen has been the subject of intense media interest, detectives and prosecutors team up everyday to pursue justice for victims whose cases have not attracted so much attention, to bring some measure of comfort to their surviving loved ones.”
Browne noted that Pearson and Hendrix were charged eight days after Moore’s body was found beneath an ice cream truck on Kings Highway. Littlejohn, meanwhile, was charged 25 days after St. Guillen was found in a remote section of East New York.
For the 52-year-old Carmichael, a native of Guyana, the lawsuit is a last ditch effort to be recognized by the NYPD.
“They have stayed out from day one, they have never even tried to reach out to me,” she said. “That’s the slap in the face, no acknowledgement whatsoever.”
Tom Merrill, deputy chief of the Tort Division for the city’s law department, declined to comment on the pending litigation. There are no scheduled court dates, he said.
Robert Barsch, Carmichael’s attorney, said an announcement would come “soon,” but declined further comment.
When the case does go before a judge, more is at stake than just a potential settlement, according to Councilman Charles Barron, who stood beside Carmichael when Pearson and Hendrix were found guilty.
“This is a larger issue of race and the value or white life versus the value of black life,” Barron said. “When are we going to treated with some respect here? It’s racism, no question in my mind. It’s straight-up racism.”
Barron called for an independent probe into how police handled their investigation and is still pushing “Romona Moore’s Law,” which would expand the criteria used to determine when an immediate investigation into a missing person is launched. Currently, police must immediately investigate reports of missing people under age 16 or over age 65. Barron wants it expanded to age 25 and under.
“She might be alive today if not for the negligence of the police department,” said Barron, who thinks he has the votes to pass the bill, which is now stuck in the committee stage. “This goes beyond a lawsuit.”
Through smiles rather than tears, Carmichael said the pain of her daughter’s death is subsiding. Still, she’ll never again hug her “special child,” who was “quiet, pleasant, easy-going and loved everyone.”
“In the end, I would like to see people treated differently if they call to report a missing person, especially if it’s a young black woman or young black man,” Carmichael said. “Police should listen carefully to family members and not just jump to a conclusion that a young woman is out partying or at the bar somewhere. They should make better judgments so no other person goes through what I went through -- because it was utter torture.”