Angry Mother Confronts Girl’s Killers in Court

One by one, five reputed gang members were led into court in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday, each facing the wrath of the sobbing woman whose 7-month-old daughter they had kidnapped, then killed in a fiery crash during a police chase.

“You had knowledge of what you were doing when you got in that car,” Sonja Spencer scolded the driver, 24-year-old Kenyon “Sugar Bear” Pitts. “My baby laid on the backseat, crying until she died.”

Spencer also pleaded at times, searching their eyes for why they had done such a thing. She asked each man to write her someday from prison “if you find it in your heart” to offer the answers that might bring peace of mind.

But Wednesday, the young men didn’t apologize, or even flinch, as the mother spoke of the void they’d created in her life. Two spoke back to her, saying: “Lady, I didn’t kill your baby.” Another smirked, just as he had during the trial, a prosecutor said.

Then, one by one, they were led away in chains to begin serving multiple life prison sentences.

The mother had asked to speak to the men, and Superior Court Judge Charles Horan ordered them brought into court individually. After Spencer spoke her piece, the judge sentenced each to life in prison for abducting the baby’s father as well as life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing the girl.

Jainah Alexis Spencer died Feb. 21 after the car driven by Pitts spun out of control and hit a tree in Lancaster, about 100 miles from where she’d been snatched--clad in Mickey Mouse pajamas--from her crib at gunpoint.

Pitts and four others--Marcel “Clown” Cloud, 30; Herman “Big Herm” St. Amie, 30; Cephus “Frog” Sudduth, 25, and Ronald “Rat Man” Cains, 24--were convicted last month in downtown Los Angeles of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnap for ransom and related offenses.

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According to police and prosecutors, the gang members first abducted and beat the father, Robert Lewis Davis, 29, in South-Central Los Angeles, attempting to get money from him. He led them to Spencer’s apartment in Inglewood.

Since she didn’t have any cash, they abducted the baby at gunpoint and held her as “collateral” for additional money they hoped to get from Davis’ mother, who lived in Lancaster.

Prosecutors said the men threatened several times to kill the baby unless they received money.

After Davis and the kidnappers arrived at his mother’s house in Lancaster, his sister slipped away and called sheriff’s deputies. When deputies arrived, four of the kidnappers escaped with the baby, starting an 11-mile chase that reached speeds of up to 100 mph.

Pitts, who drove with the headlights off to elude detection, lost control when the 1984 Chevrolet Caprice hit a ditch, sailed into the air, struck a tree and caught fire.

The men suffered only bruises and broken bones in the crash, while Jainah, who was in the backseat, suffered fatal head injuries.

A sixth participant who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified for the prosecution said the baby was awake and crying throughout the pursuit.

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During her seven months of life, Jainah, who was born with a hole in her heart, became very special to her mother. She was frail but feisty. She was a fighter.

She’d just learned to say “mama” when she was abducted and killed.

“This child was particularly close to her [mother] because she wasn’t in good health,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter. “But she was a good baby. She wasn’t a complaining baby.”

The prosecutor called Sonja Spencer “an amazing woman, an incredibly strong woman” who distributed posters of the men suspected of killing her baby and attended the court proceedings religiously, despite gang members’ attempts to intimidate her.

“This is the worst thing imaginable as a parent,” said Hunter. “You can’t help but cry about it. Everybody who has dealt with this case has been deeply and emotionally affected by it.”

But the defendants, she added, “were stone cold,” apparently unmoved by the sight of the mother’s pain. “A couple of them were incredibly rude to her. I saw not one iota of remorse out of any of them. It was chilling.”