Grandmother charged after child thrown from walkway | Washington Examiner

Jesus Wept by Eric Hollander.  Today He wept for Angelyn. 

Grandmother charged after child thrown from walkway | Washington Examiner

I spent a long time in law enforcement and most of it was good. One thing that always bothered me, though, was how people could abuse their own children. As I spent many years in DEA the abuse I saw usually had drugs at its core and the parents involved were often addicts. That doesn't apply here, however, because in this case the maternal grandmother, Carmela Dela Rosa, age 50, allegedly picked-up her 2-year old granddaughter, Angelyn Ogdoc, and tossed her over the edge of a 6th story walkway between the parking garage and the Tysons Corner Center Mall in Fairfax, Virginia. Angelyn died at Fairfax Inova Hospital in the wee hours of this morning and the grandmother is now in jail and charged with murder. No reason has been given for this heinous act.

My wife, daughter and I have often been to that mall and when we've gone there we use that parking garage. The walls on the sides of the walkway are high enough that it is beyond belief that such an act could be accidental which leads me to the same conclusion as the police: a deliberate act leading to the death of an innocent child. That being said, my heart goes out to the mother, father and siblings of Angelyn. She was far too young to die and to do so in such a sudden and horrifying manner almost brings me to tears. As the father of a young, precocious and beautiful 4-year old daughter, I can imagine the stabbing pain in my own heart should something happen to her. Seeing a child terribly injured is a traumatic experience. The pain of seeing your own child in such a condition is unimaginable. I can also palpably feel what the police officers who arrived on the scene felt when they saw what had happened. Those feelings are the kind that come back to haunt us in the quiet of our nights and we carry them until the Lord calls us Home. Some call it PTSD. I call it heart.

It appears from the surnames that the people involved are ethnic Filipino--my wife, a proud Filipina, was immediately certain of that when she read the story--and that makes the case even more unusual because family is the center of the Filipino culture. Family is so important that you don't see the nursing homes in the Philippines that are prevalent in America. Family is so important that if someone is in the hospital the medical staff and the hospital just assumes that family members will be camping out in or by the patient's room. Even the family pets are kept at home to die feeling loved rather than put down at the vet's office if they are ill. That is not to say that there is never murder within family units in the Philippines. Those crimes do, of course, happen but something like this is very rare there. But of course, these circumstances are rare in the United States as well. I cannot imagine anyone not shocked by what happened to Angelyn.

All I can say is that she will be in my prayers today and I am certain that she is now in Heaven. May she rest in peace.

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