‘I WANT TO HUG THAT MOTHER’ Brave woman wants to comfort mom of murdered girl

Even as Susan Higgins accepted the Badge of Honour for Gallantry on Monday for helping to recapture a man accused of murdering eight-year-old Talia Thompson, her thoughts were with the mother who lost her child in a horrific act of violence.

Higgins, who helped take the accused, Troy Ellis, to the police after he escaped from hospital custody in October 2023, said she hoped to meet the grieving mother one day to offer her comfort.

“I tell myself that I wish someday I could meet that mother. Just to give her a hug, because at the end of the day, even though I can’t bring back this child, and I can’t even fathom what it would feel like as a mother to lose a child in such a manner, I would like to give her some comfort and some sound words of power,” Higgins said.

She was speaking after receiving the national honour from Governor-General Patrick Allen at King’s House on National Heroes Day.

Young Thompson was a grade four student at Discovery Bay Primary and Infant School in St Ann. The beloved child was crowned Mini Miss Discovery Bay in 2022 and returned to the pageant in 2023, participating in the event the Friday before her murder.

Ellis, who was accused of the killing, was taken to hospital after reportedly attempting suicide. However, he escaped from the St Ann’s Bay Hospital on September 30, 2023, while receiving treatment under police guard.

The following night, Higgins encountered him near Ultimate Jerk Centre in St Ann. He had serious injuries, believed to have been self-inflicted. Although she did not know the man, Higgins became suspicious after speaking with him. She persuaded him to enter her vehicle and subsequently took him to the Discovery Bay Police Station.

“It was late [at] night. Way up minutes after 10 p.m. I just single-handedly held him. What happened is, I lured him into my vehicle, and the driver was in the front seat, and I talked to him so nicely. I gave him the confidence that I’m there for him and I’m trying to help him,” Higgins said.

She said his responses to her questions strengthened her suspicion that he was the man being sought by the police.

“Given the fact that he’s walking on the streets helpless, I didn’t know it was him. But based on his reaction when I was questioning him, he confirmed his name; and I questioned him and based on the responses I got, there were so many arrows pointing to him,” she said.

Higgins, a mother of four children ages 40, 35, 30 and 23, said she thought about the injured man as someone who needed help. At the same time, she was mindful of the mother whose child had been killed.

For her, the tragedy was difficult to contemplate from the perspective of a parent. While she could not undo what had happened to young Talia, she hoped that meeting the child’s mother might give her an opportunity to offer a measure of comfort.

Ellis subsequently pleaded guilty to Talia’s murder in the St Ann Circuit Court and was sentenced to many years in prison.