Candlelight vigil for 3-year-old Fay Mohamed took place last Saturday night in Cairo, flowing from within Horizon Christian Fellowship Church to Main Street where a circle of “eternal hope” was formed.
CAIRO - There were no adequate words to explain why a candlelight vigil was being held for little Fay Mohamed, last Saturday night, in Cairo.
Horizon Christian Fellowship Church pastor Jason Thompson did his best to find them, saying she is, “in the arms of a loving God.”
And local resident Emmy LaRosa, who organized the gathering said, “it is the proper thing to do,” given the unfathomably real circumstances.
In the afternoon of January 28, ambulance personnel and police were dispatched to an apartment on lower Main Street in Cairo.
There, in the words of Greene County district attorney Joseph Stanzione, they discovered the 3-year-old girl, “beaten and abused beyond comprehension.”
Baby Fay, as the pastor referred to her, was flown to Albany Medical Center where, according to a report in Porcupine Soup news she “underwent several surgeries but remained in critical condition for nearly a month.
“This past Tuesday (February 24) doctors took her off life support and she passed away early Wednesday morning,” the Andrea Macko story states.
“The child’s mother reportedly found her severely injured after returning from a job interview,” the story states.
Lameik Shakur Wilson, 24, of Cairo, was subsequently arrested by the Greene County Sheriff's Office, on January 29, and charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor,” Macko reported.
“The sheriff’s office, in conjunction with the [District Attorney’s Office], is in the process of upgrading the charges against Wilson to include murder in the second degree, as well as other related charges,” Macko wrote.
Stanzione, characterizing the innocent’s fate as a “heartbreaking case,” added, “unfortunately we are unable to share any further details until the grand jury has acted on this matter,” a process expected to occur soon.
Wilson, who was in a relationship with Mohamed’s mother at the time of the assault, remains remanded to the Greene County Jail without bail, Macko reported.
Baby Fay’s mother, who has not been publicly identified, was not at the vigil nor was anyone from the child’s family, Macko wrote.
The respectful lighting of candles started within the church, flowing outside to blocked-off Main Street, led by Pastor Thompson.
“Why are we here?” he said. “We come here tonight with thoughts and concerns. Trust me I have my questions. God, where are you?”
Baby Fay, “has fought her last fight,” the pastor said. “She wants you to know that we here in Cairo must not respond with a heart of hate and darkness.
“When I heard the news about Baby Fay, darkness wanted to creep into my soul but I wanted to do what was right not just what was good,” the pastor said.
“I can’t change anything. The light will begin to cast out the darkness. We are committing, by your spirit, that we can do what is right for Baby Fay,” the pastor said. “We must respond out of joy, peace and hope.
“The hope for Greene County, the hope for Cairo, is that when we hold these candles, something happens in our minds, that the eternal hope Baby Fay is experiencing moves from our heads to our hearts.”