Mother, 13-year-old son killed prior to Trenton hostage standoff are remembered at funeral service

All four of Carmenlita Stevens' remaining children attended the funeral service for their mother and brother.

TRENTON - There were no coffins for Carmenlita Stevens and her 13-year-old son Quavon.

The 44-year-old mother of five and her teenage boy were cremated prior to a funeral service at Shiloh Baptist Church this morning in Trenton. Both were killed by Stevens' live-in boyfriend, whose two-week confinement of her surviving children led to a 37-hour standoff with law enforcement last weekend.

All four Stevens' surviving children: 19-year-old Javon, the two daughters ages 18 and 16, and Stevens' 4-year-old son, attended the service. Stevens 18-year-old daughter, Nyesha Foster, was one of the speakers who memorialized her mother.

"I just want to say, 'Mommy, I love you,'" Foster said.

"Whenever she made a move, I made a move," Foster said. "Whenever she was sad, I was sad."

Foster, who told the congregation she wants to be a preacher, took time to comfort a sobbing family member at one point during the service.

Though the tone of the funeral was geared towards celebrating the lives of Stevens and her son Quavon, the absence of a casket and lack of a burial service was noticeable.

"We know the circumstances of Carmenlita's passing," Shiloh pastor Rev. Darrell Armstrong said. "We know the circumstances of Quavon's passing."

The bodies were cremated, Armstrong said, but pointed out that in the Christian faith the body matters little after death.

"I need you to understand that though their ashes are with us, a body cannot inherit the kingdom of God," he said.

Police have said that Gerald Murphy killed Stevens and Quavon about two weeks before Trenton officers conducting a wellness check made the discovery, which started a 37-hour standoff with Murphy.

Javon ran out of the basement where he was being kept the afternoon of May 10 when police arrived.

The remainder of the surviving children were kept in a second floor bedroom of their home on Grand Street until early last Sunday morning, when the State Police rescued them and shot Murphy dead.

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