Haiti Place Slaying of US missionary, abduction of 4-year-old child in Haiti's capital shrouded in mystery

News Information

  • NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
  • NEWS_POSTED_ON: Oct 14, 2015
  • Views : 741
  • Category : Haiti News
  • Description : U.S. News
    Associated Press Oct. 14, 2015 | 5:49 p.m. EDT

    By DAVID McFADDEN, Associated Press

    Photo: American missionary Harold Pirtle greets a boy at Sonlight Children's Home in the Port-au-Prince district Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015. American missionary Roberta Edwards, who ran Sonlight, was fatally shot by gunmen Saturday night as she sat behind the wheel of her car on a residential street. The attackers also kidnapped a 4-year-old from Edwards' car after shooting her at close range. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)
  • Location : Haiti
  • Website : http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/10/14/mystery-shrouds-missionary-slaying-child-abduction-in-haiti

Overview

  • PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — No ransom demand has been received since gunmen snatched a 4-year-old boy over the weekend and killed the American missionary who had raised him since he was a severely malnourished infant, church officials said Wednesday.

    Longtime Haiti-based missionary Roberta Edwards was fatally shot by two attackers who cut off her car on a rutted, dirt road late Saturday near the foster care home and food-distribution site she has run on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince since 2002. She was returning from a gas station with three of her young charges.

    The Estes Church of Christ in Henderson, Tennessee, which sponsored Edwards' work at the Sonlight Children's Home, said her two teenage passengers managed to escape after she told them to run for their lives.

    Edwards was shot multiple times at the wheel of her car, and the gunmen then grabbed terrified youngster Jonathan "JoJo" Paul and sped off in a vehicle with tinted windows, fellow missionaries said.

    "Hearts are breaking for him. And we certainly hope that whoever took him, wherever he is, whoever has him, will return him as soon as possible," said Larry Waymire, a longtime colleague and friend of the 55-year-old Edwards.

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