Dancing on Her Grave (18 page)

Here is her statement, as she read it to a silent and stunned courtroom. She sent it to Diana via e-mail:

I have been waiting for this day since December 15th 2010. I remember speaking to you like it was just yesterday. I remember the nonchalant sound of your voice. I remember your cold demeanor. I remember the conversation. I knew from the first conversation we had that it was you! Every single day for the past three and a half years and I’m sure for the rest of my life I think and will think about that moment.

I often wonder on a daily basis whether I made the right choice. You see, I believe in an eye for an eye punishment. But I also believe that sometimes the justice system works to put criminals away and for victims and families to receive the justice deserved and some type of closure. Also giving them inner peace that someone doesn’t fall victim under evil’s hands again. I won’t lie. It’s hard for me to stand here now and still not want to take justice into my own hands and personally do to you
what you did to my little sister Debbie. It’s taking every fiber and depth of my soul to hold my composure. Especially since I always stood up for her and was there for her when she had a problem growing up. The guilt that I feel is unbearable. And regardless of what I did for her to help find her and help bring her justice, it will never be enough in my eyes.

But I have a choice! Between good and evil! Right or wrong! Heaven or Hell. And I choose not to be like you and not take matters into my own hands.

I choose to follow the laws and for the justice system to work its course and I’m praying that I choose the right path and for the system to work in our favor. And I’m praying that you will suffer behind bars for the maximum sentence the law can possibly give you. I made Debbie that promise. Her birthday was just two weeks ago and what a great birthday present it would be for her if I followed through on that promise.

Three years ago to date, I went to work as I normally do, performing as I normally do. Thought about the Christmas season and all the many gifts I had to purchase for my family. The thought of the errands and pressure from the holiday season began to consume me. Nothing out of the ordinary, just another manic Friday. After completing my daily schedule, I proceed to pick up my children in rush hour traffic. I had to make a stop at the local grocery store. At the time my children, Izeyah
was 12 and Mycah was just a year old. I pulled up to my house, grabbed the groceries and my children and plunged head first into my motherly duties.

As I proceeded to the door my cell phone rang, I saw who the caller was and answered. At that time Izeyah was misbehaving in school. After many different methods of punishment he still managed to be disobedient. I’d finally given him the ultimate punishment, no Christmas! It’s a child’s worst punishment, I thought. I was fed up and had to set an example to my son showing him how I would not tolerate his misbehavior and lack of scholastic excellence. I was comfortable and stern in my decision. I was going to stick to it. My mother disapproved and thought I was being too harsh. We had gotten into an argument about it days prior and I wasn’t speaking to her for a couple of days. So when I got that phone call I knew for certain it was in reference to my son. The caller was Debbie. She was calling about wanting to send presents for Izeyah and Mycah. Of course I knew right away she was going to try to disregard my punishment for my son agreeing with my mother attempting to talk me out of it. I was tired from work and I was consumed with grocery bags yet I spoke briefly with her. Just as I thought, she was trying to change my mind. I concluded the conversation by telling her, “I will call you back so we can talk about it later.”

That was the last time I spoke with her. The last time
I heard her voice. The last chance I had to tell her “I Love You.” You see, I never called her back. Not because I forgot or didn’t have time to. I simply didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk to her about my son’s punishment, presents and certainly not the stresses of Christmas. Looking back today it was something so silly that was worth calling her back and talking about, but I never did. . . . That’s a decision I punish myself for to date.

I was forced to learn never take time or life for granted. Never assume you’ll always have a next time. Act on the moment, because once those moments are gone they are gone forever. I learned those words the hard way.

My next call about Debbie was the following week from both of my parents. The day my life would change forever, the day my nightmare would begin. The day the devil’s work would break my heart and take part of my world with him. The day my family and I became victims. The day our happiness and innocence was annihilated by the dishonor of evil hands.

Evil made sure you took Debbie’s last breath. He decided to play God and take the power of her life into his own hands for his own selfish reasons. He decided when it was her time to go and end it. He wrapped his hands around her neck, and watch second by second throughout the minutes as she took her last breath until she was gone and her body lay lifeless. He proceeded with gruesome acts to her small-framed body disposing of her as if she was
nothing. He intended for no one to ever find or see her again. He lied and deceived everyone, beginning with Debbie and ending with me and everyone in between.

All while watching me suffer, pleading for help, hearing my cries, seeing my pain and desperation on her whereabouts. “Where’s was my little sister,” I would ask. “Please help me find her,” I would beg. No one else knew, but he and his roommate certainly did. However, he was preoccupied with disposing of her remains.

Evil made sure he took me and my family, friends, detectives and the city of Las Vegas desperate, stressed without answers for days and weeks. But he failed, he’s a failure! His intentions to murder her and make her disappear without a trace weren’t comparable to the love I have for her. The bond between my sister and I would never stop me from finding her and the truth. I would’ve stopped at nothing in doing all that I possibly could to help find her. She was my one and only little sister. And he took that from me. From the moment I spoke with him and heard his voice on the same day my nightmare began, I knew it was him! Without a doubt it was him! Not for a moment did he fool me like he did to others.

I would have gone to hell and back to make sure I found her. To witness his judgment day, paying for what he did to her! You see, he became my nightmare and I still live in it. However, I made sure I became his nightmare where he would reside in hell.

His actions came as an unwanted liability to me. He robbed my family and me of the opportunity to bid her farewell. The many holidays, lifetime memories, sibling agreements, disagreements and everything in between are no longer afforded. He took a premature relationship between my children and their aunt away at their innocence. My only sister, who I quietly envied and admired for all her accomplishments and accolades. I never got the chance to tell her how jealous and proud I was of her for going after her dreams. He took her from her lifelong friends. He cancelled all her dreams and future plans. He took my last I love you, a soft kiss on her forehead and a warm reassuring sisterly hug.

He took it all. . . .

But don’t get me wrong, not only was he selfish. He was also a big giver. You see, he gave me and my family nightmares and countless sleepless nights. It’s now three and a half years later, and our sleepless nights are still tallying. He has showered me with stress, sorrow, hurt, anger, anxiety, grief, shock, nervousness, suffering, fright, hatred, and great mental and physical anguish. In fact, every possible type of pain and emotion a human soul could possibly bear and handle. He also attempted to stare me down while in court with a look in his face of disbelief, as if how dare I look at you with such disgust. My answer is simple: because you are worthless. He is worthless to me and my family and society as we know
it. He is a non-factor. As of today, he will no longer exist to society. He will be just a number in the system of criminals.

Debbie loved her family, she loved her friends; she loved her nephews. She always did everything she could for others. She loved to dance and entertain. And she was always successful in pursuing her dreams with great accomplishments until he took it all away; he took it away from her, her family, my sons and from me. But he robbed her of all that. She doesn’t get to smile, or laugh, or cry or see or feel the things she loved the most anymore. She also doesn’t get to do and enjoy what she loved the most. But he does. Even behind bars he is still able to wake up every day and see the light of the sun and other faces. He gets to talk to his family and have them visit him. He gets to have small talk and conversation. He gets to cry and smile and even laugh at jokes from time to time. He even gets to hear an occasional “I love you” from a loved one. He still has all those abilities because he has life even though he’s not deserving of it. It hurts me that he gets to enjoy small things in life. Sometimes those actually matter the most.

I will really hope and pray that he receives the maximum sentencing without parole. For every single day he spends in his 6x8 cell that he gets to really enjoy dancing, entertaining and performing for his fellow inmates while he’s locked up behind those walls.

There was not a dry eye in the courtroom as Celeste Flores-Narvaez, the older sister of the slain dancer, walked back to her seat, with her head held high and looking back at her killer with the utmost disdain.

As she later said, with some degree of satisfaction: “Yeah, I apparently had everyone in the courtroom in tears, even the cameramen. I wasn’t aware of it until after court and I was being interviewed. But I did notice the judge becoming red in the face as she was about to tear up, but she held back. It was very hard for me to say what I felt throughout all those years and put it on paper. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to or not until days before. The crazy thing was the intro (first three paragraphs) I wrote in my closet the night before I left to court while looking for my shoes. I sat and wrote it into my phone. And then had to copy and paste it and send it to the court’s e-mail to have it print up and add it twenty minutes before court started. I had so much I wanted to say. But not enough words to express what I went through.”

As expected, the courtroom was full of reporters and photographers who all wanted to get the best reaction shot possible, the best view of the victim’s family as the sentencing was read as well as the murderer’s face as he received his punishment. The television news all knew
this would be the opening story for their newscasts that night, so they scrambled to get a good sound bite, a good shot that captured the moment better than anybody else’s.

Sitting down on the side of the prosecution were Debbie’s immediate family, and all those who, without even knowing Debbie in person, had become close to the case and felt as if their presence was needed for moral support for the Flores-Narvaez family.

The family was dressed as if they were attending a funeral. Carlos Flores, Debbie’s father, wore a black suit. Celeste, her mother, Elsie, and two friends of the family were also all wearing black.

On the other side of the courtroom, the benches were almost empty; only a couple of people, and Charlene Davis, Jason Griffith’s mother. She was always there for her son, which was easy to understand. To a mother, a son never stops being the most important person in her life. He never stops being her baby.

But just as we might never truly know what was in her son’s head on the day he murdered his ex-girlfriend, no one except the man himself would ever grasp what he’d been thinking during these past couple of weeks, awaiting his sentencing. At some point, he’d even been placed under a suicide watch again.

On this day, he was standing before a woman, a judge upholding the highest law of the land; a woman who now had in her hands the future he had worked for so arduously.

The victim’s family addressed Griffith, pressing the judge for the maximum sentence.

Debbie’s father, Carlos Flores, said: “The only thing we have left is memories, photographs, and video clips. We won’t have our daughter back.”

Trying to maintain her composure, Elsie Narvaez addressed the judge, asking her for the maximum sentence. She did so in English, with a heavy Puerto Rican accent and tears in her eyes.

“Jason Omar Griffith needs to stay in prison for a long time, long time. We love and miss our daughter. She’s our rainbow in the sky.” Elsie even told the judge that Debbie was a registered organ donor, something she couldn’t even do after her death, because of the condition in which her body was left.

“That was the day that the devil’s work would break my heart and take apart my world,” said Celeste in tears.

It was difficult for all of those present in the courthouse, hearing the voice of a desperate woman and a broken family.

“No more phone calls, or birthday cards telling me happy birthday, Mom,” Elsie said.

Dressed in her judge’s garb, and in a very assertive tone after hearing both sides, the judge read her sentence: