Jolene Payne, an 89-year-old retired nurse who lives at the complex, told WND she was an eye witness to the incident and gave her account to police the day after it happened.
“This happened three weeks ago around 3:30. I was sitting on my porch patio and I looked over and saw this boy taking pictures with a camera,” Payne told WND. “He was from Africa or somewhere overseas, standing outside the laundry room taking pictures of kids in the laundry room.”
She said she immediately walked over to the laundry room and opened the door.
“I found them in there. I knew there was something going on because the boy (with the phone camera) was acting funny, he was taking pictures but he was telling the two younger boys what to do,” she said.
She said the boy filming the assault is 14 and the two who were inside the laundry room with the girl are ages 7 and 10, all of whom she described as having “dark cloudy skin and curly hair.”
When she flung open the door she found a disturbing scene.
“The door was cracked enough for him to see the pictures he was taking. I opened that door and I almost fainted when I saw what was going on and here I’m a nurse,” Payne said. “What a pitiful thing for a poor little girl to go through.”
The “little tiny white girl, 5 years old,” was standing there with her clothes off. The two younger boys were also naked.
“The police came and then the next day detectives came and talked to me alone,” Payne said.
“All I know is what I told them. The worst thing was the way they peed all over her clothes and on her too, and I thought that was one of the meanest things I’ve ever saw done,” she added. “And we know those kids must know a lot more than the kids in America of that age. I’ve never seen any of them do anything like that to little girls, and we have a lot of children around here.”
“The little girl had no clothes on. The boys took them off. The littlest boy said ‘we didn’t do it, he told us to,’ pointing to the older boy. They’re just kids that have a mother and they moved here from overseas. The women don’t even talk any English, some of them do, but others don’t. They wear long dresses and long black things on their heads.
‘She was scared to death’
There was no knife involved, Payne said.
“I saw two boys and one little girl scared to death,” she continued. “I told them boys you better get your clothes on. She was scared to death, crying ‘Grandma Jo, Grandma Jo, help me.’ I’m not her grandmother but that’s what all the kids around here call me.”
The little girl’s mother is not in good health and her father works during the day, Payne said, adding that the parents are close friends of hers.
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