Even before funeral services were scheduled to begin, people were lined up in and around the church off Cincinnati-Columbus Road around 10 a.m. Thursday.
Visitors milled around the church, speaking in hushed voices and offering condolences to one another. People both young and old were there to pay respects to Amber, whose body was laid out in the sanctuary at Zion, wearing a purple and gold T-shirt, holding a cell phone. Letters and other trinkets, including a Michael Jackson T-shirt, a Tweety Bird pillow and a packet of Mentos were places inside her coffin.
Lakota Local Schools teachers and officials, including board members Jamie Green, Jeff Rubenstein and Joan Powell, were seen at the funeral.
For two hours, friends and family members paid their respects at Robinson’s casket, offering final hugs and soft caresses.
As the service got under way, Robinson’s mother, Tascha, shook in her seat, sobbing, “My baby, my baby.”
Her pain sent the sanctuary into a fit of uncontrollable sobs and moans. As pall bearers began preparing the white casket for closing, Tascha Robinson leapt up and down, letting out short bursts of agony until the clamor around her overcame the organ music. It took several family members, fanning her tear-streaked face, to help her back to her seat.
“If Amber were here...,” Piphus said. “I think she would tell you right now to get refocused. You don’t need a hostile mindset right now.”
“In her memory, we have an opportunity to plant seeds of fruitfulness,” Piphus said. “...not bitter herbs. Anger, frustration might be brewing inside you, but you must realize you have a choice.”
There were no words for Akili Barnes when she learned of Robinson’s death last week. Just tears.
“It makes me realize just how short life is and that I can be gone tomorrow,” said Barnes, 15.
The night Robinson died, West Chester Twp. police officers responded to a report of a disturbance just before 8:15 p.m. that night and found her lying in the middle of Triangle Drive at West Wind Drive with a stab wound.
She was transported by ambulance to Mercy Hospital Fairfield, where she was pronounced dead.
Testimony in Butler County Area III Court in West Chester on Tuesday, Sept. 15 from witnesses and police officials about Robinson’s death indicates she was walking with her father away from the fight when she was fatally stabbed.
Khrendon D. Gray, 18, of Meadowglen Drive in Springfield Twp., is charged with murder in the death of Robinson, a 15-year-old Lakota West student. He is being held on $1 million bond in the Butler County Jail.
Gray’s case was bound over to a Butler County grand jury.
At the funeral, students discussed the tension Robinson’s death has created within Lakota West High School.
“Our school is different now. Everybody is just trying to hide their pain and anger,” said Erica Hawkins, 15. “Everyone is trying to hold back the pain because she was so popular.”
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