Jean Griffith-Sandiford seems as sad, despondent and penitent as she did on Dec. 21, 1986, one day following the reported Howard Beach murder of her son Michael who was chased into traffic on the Belt Parkway by racist thugs.
Thirty- seven years after her 23-year-old son was hit by a car and her husband — Cedric Sandiford — brutally pummeled by the same thugs, the bereaved matriarch maintains the very same demeanor she exhibited throughout the days preceding the Christmas holidays and on every visit to Evergreen Cemetery where her son is buried.
Griffith never said a harsh word about the white teenagers who were reportedly urged to “go kill the ni**ers.”
“I pray for all of them, I forgive them even though they took a piece of my heart that night.”
An avowed Roman Catholic, Sandiford has always expressed religious affinity to Christian ethics: “I forgive them. I wish them no harm.”
As for the purported gang leader Sandiford explained he wrote her many letters from prison but she never could bring herself to reading any of the writings from the convicted instigator, perpetrator and reported ‘baby-faced’ teenager whose call for action led to her son’s death.
Jon Lester was often described as an admirer of the mafia and aspired to be a “capo.”
While incarcerated, the immigrant from England claimed he had apologized for his actions on Dec. 20, 1986 and regretted the role he played in causing Michael’s death.
Reports also surfaced that he was sorry about the passing of Sandiford in 1991. Jean’s Guyanese spouse had accompanied Michael to buy a vehicle when their own car ran out of fuel, causing them to walk through the then-segregated community.
According to Jean, a few years ago, a reporter requested to see the letters Lester had allegedly written. The immigrant mother from Trinidad told the journalist she had misplaced them.
It was an honest response.
In fact, Jean said she looked high and low but could not find the hand-written confessions Lester reportedly alleged as evidence of his remorse.
As fate would have it, recently the determined mother found the letters but said she still cannot bring herself to read them.
“Sometimes I feel as if it just happened. The same feelings I had then, I still have them.”
During a long and tedious trial that ended Dec. 21 in Queens Criminal court, a special prosecutor proved that Lester was the teenaged-youth who sounded an alarm to his cohorts when he saw three Black men in a neighborhood pizza shop.
Lester served his time for committing manslaughter; he was deported to England and ultimately committed suicide in 2017 at age 48.
The advent of the holidays seems to renew painful memories of the dark days of that December.
As the season approaches, Griffith-Sandiford returned to the gravesite where Michael’s remains are buried. She placed a holiday wreath on his marble stoned marker.
Although she regularly visits the Bushwick cemetery to plant and replant seasonal flowers, this year seems particularly reflective.
Perhaps, because this year her visit was not as long as usual.
‘My kids and I used to spend an entire day there; we would just pass the time there. But on a recent occasion we were told an individual wearing black was seen disturbing the stones; since then we just clean up the debris, leave some flowers and make the best of the little time.”
“I can’t believe so much time has passed,” the still-grieving Christian mother said, “It still feels like yesterday.”
Catch You On The Inside!
