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Killing shocks mother's counselor

Woman says something must have happened to fill the eyes of the optimistic girl she knew with rage and hurt

By Karl Fischer
November 1, 2006
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Teresa Moses wanted love.

That thought surfaced repeatedly for counselor Venus Sweet, who knew the determined 16-year-old girl working her way through Kennedy High School while raising a baby in the late 1990s.

"She just wanted to be loved, like so many young women who find themselves in the confinement, for lack of a better term, of parenting that young," said Sweet, who worked with Moses in a support group for teen mothers in Richmond.

Sweet says the now-23-year-old woman who police say brutally tortured and killed her 8-year-old son last week was not the girl who visited her office with a rambunctious toddler, talking about future careers.

"She said she wanted to be a firefighter, then she wanted to go to medical school. She was smart and quiet. We used to joke that she was a teeny bit sneaky, you know, because she was so quiet."

Moses is not a monster, Sweet said, though she does not condone the abuse police say Raijon Daniels suffered at his mother's hands.

"She never gave me the impression that she would ever do anything like that," Sweet said. "Something must have happened ... she must have snapped."

At the home of Moses' grandmother Tuesday evening, a friend of the family declined to speak about what had happened.

"We'd really appreciate some privacy right now. This has been really devastating to all of us," she said.

Sweet said she believes something very wrong must have happened to the girl she remembers. And she wonders why no part of the public safety net, particularly Children & Family Services, intervened.

"It floored me. I've known that child for five or six years now. I've known her since she was 16," said Sweet, who now works for Alameda County's Social Services Administration. "I have a picture of her in her cap and gown. When I compare that picture to the one I saw (after her arrest) ... I saw anger, rage and hurt in her eyes."

Moses was among the first girls from the support group to earn her diploma. The nonprofit support group helped members work on parenting and life skills, self-improvement and self-evaluation, Sweet said.

Sweet now holds out little hope that Moses will receive what help she needs.

"Guess what, she's not going to get the help she needs there. They're going to prosecute her and probably never let her out again," Sweet said. "And if she is mentally unstable, she is going to stay that way."

Reach Karl Fischer at 510-262-2728 or kfischer@cctimes.com

 

 

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