A Jamaican man missed his 11-year-old daughter’s funeral because he was denied a temporary U.S. visa. Kenny Smith has yet to be let into the country after traveling to the U.S. Embassy in Port Maria, Jamaica last week, and recording a video pleading for Donald Trump to intervene.
Smith’s daughter, AbbieGail Smith, was laid to rest Monday (Jul 24). According to USA Today, the child was found stabbed to death on July 13. She had been reported missing a day earlier.
Her body was discovered wrapped in a blanket on the roof of a New Jersey apartment complex where she lived with her mother.
Smith’s visa application was denied because he was deported in 2001 following an arrest for drug possession (one report states that Smith was busted with less than an ounce of crack cocaine, while another cites a marijuana arrest). Abbie’s half-sister, Kenish Smith, was also denied a temporary visa. The sister said she wasn’t given a reason for her rejected application.
Abbie was born in Jamaica but moved to the U.S. with her mother as a baby. She was a fifth-grader at Joseph R. Bolger Middle School in Keansburg, N.J. Her 18-year-old neighbor, Andreas Erazo, has been charged with the murder. He accused of stabbing Abbie in the neck before dumping her body.
Authorities have not yet released a motive, according to CBS New York.
Abbie’s mother came face-to-face with Erazo, their upstairs neighbor, at a court hearing last week. “You killed my daughter! I hope you rot in jail,” she said.
Smith now hopes to be granted entry into the U.S. to attend Erazo’s trial. “I’m a loving father. I preach love. I have to see justice served,” he said in an interview with NJ.com. “I want to be at the trial. I have to do what a father is supposed to do and stand up for his daughter.”
“Please, I have to see where she was killed. I want to look into the killer’s face.”