A man has died two weeks after a crash that also killed five children. News4’s Shomari Stone reports.
Days after hundreds of people mourned five children killed in a car crash in Bowie, Maryland, a man who was a passenger in the car has also died.
Cornell "Donte" Simon, 23, was taken off life support on Monday, his relatives told News4.
"I wish I had my child with me," Simon's mother Larissa Magloire said.
Simon was riding in the front passenger seat of an SUV the morning of Feb. 2 when it veered off Route 301 and hit several trees.
"I’m hurt right now. My child is gone. I will never see my child walk in my door no more," Magloire said.
Five children ranging in age from 5 to 15 were thrown from the SUV. Sisters London Dixon, 8, and Paris Dixon, 5 were killed along with their cousins, Zion Beard, 14; Rickelle Ricks, 6, and Damari Herald, 15. None of the children were wearing seatbelts, police said.
"This is not an easy task, but we come to celebrate these lives," a preacher said during the funeral service Saturday.
Police said Dominique Taylor, the mother of two of the children, was driving the SUV. Her current condition is not known.
Magloire said she does not blame Taylor for the crash.
"An accident is an accident. She lost her kids too," she said.
Family members and friends memorialized the children at the funeral in Upper Marlboro by speaking about their time with the kids and their love for them. Some showed personal photos of the children.
"When I would gaze into her eyes, I saw a little girl whose eyes were filled with unending joy and love," Richard Ricks Sr. said during the service. He was 6-year-old Rickelle Ricks' grandfather.
Robert Harold Jr., uncle to Zion Beard and Damari Rickelle, said he learned and grew as a person because of the children.
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"Everything about the way they were taught me so much about myself that I would've never learned any other where," Harold said.
Leslie Boone, who taught London and Paris at Northview Elementary in Bowie, spoke about the kindness the two girls had.
"London and Paris were affectionate and loved to give hugs, often waiting patiently until we were finished," Boone said.
"The minute them babies ... that thing, happened, Jesus grabbed every one of them babies and brought them in," one mourner said at the service.
An online campaign created by the father of one of the victims raised more than $27,000 in funds for the funeral.
