After leaving Baltimore in January 2007, members of the group stored the suitcase in a shed at a home where they were staying in South Philadelphia, then left for Brooklyn, N.Y., where city authorities found them in May.
Murder charges
Five members of the group have been charged with murder. They include the group's leader, Queen Antoinette, 40; the boy's mother, Ria Ramkissoon, 21; Trevia Williams, 21; Marcus Cobbs, 21; and Steven Bynum, 42. Authorities are still seeking Bynum in the New York area.
Bail hearings for Antoinette and Williams are set for today. Ramkissoon was brought before a judge yesterday and ordered held without bail.
Standing in court with her hands shackled behind her back, Ramkissoon, 21, wore a purple jumpsuit, rocked nervously side to side and shook her head slightly when Judge Theodore B. Oshrine read the charges.
In arguing for the judge to give Ramkissoon bail, her attorney, Steven D. Silverman, said that the woman was unduly influenced.
"You have intervening circumstances," Silverman said. My client was not in control. ... I'm convinced in talking to her that she's been grossly over-charged."
But Oshrine denied bail, pointing to the "very serious allegations" and saying that Ramkissoon might pose a flight risk.
Ramkissoon moved back to Baltimore this year after the other members had been arrested in New York and was living in an East Baltimore homeless shelter when she was arrested over the weekend. Silverman said his client had willingly returned even though she knew homicide detectives were investigating the disappearance of her son.
Silverman said in court that his client was born in Trinidad and came to Maryland when she was 8 years old. She graduated from Northwestern High School and had been living with family in the 2900 block of Woodland Ave. in Northwest Baltimore.
In her interview, Smith said she joined the group because of a promise that she would have free food and lodging, "but it really wasn't free because they took away your freedom. They suck you into this crazy lifestyle."
After she was kicked out and pulled her children away in 2006, she said, she met with a city Department of Social Services caseworker. "They said that I was trying to do the right thing," she said.
Clarence Brown, a spokesman for the Department of Social Services, did not return phone calls yesterday.
Secret death
