Mothers mourn families’ fates

In a way, both have lost a child. But the manners in which Dominique Samuels and Rodrick Taylor left their families are worlds apart.

Still, the mothers of both were grieving yesterday after Taylor was sentenced to life in prison for killing Samuels two years ago.

“I still have compassion for your mother,” Edwina Samuels, Dominique’s mother, told Taylor in court. “As a mother I feel for her that she has a child that could do something so despicable.”

Taylor, 37, was found guilty of strangling the 19-year-old and then burning her body in Franklin Park, in one of the city’s most heinous homicides on record.

His mother, Hattie Session, is a reverend in his home state of Georgia. Like Edwina Samuels, she spoke of God’s role in the case and offered compassion for her fellow matriarch, all while backing the defense’s claim that Martin McCray, Session’s own nephew, was the killer.

“My heart goes out to the [Samuels] family because they lose twice,” Session said. “They lost Dominique but at the same time lost the opportunity to get the person who did this.”

But while Session fights to clear her son’s name, Edwina Samuels can only fight the pain of knowing her daughter met such a miserable fate.

“I had to put my baby in a double grave meant for me,” she said in court. “I begged God to take my life, begged him to let me die because the pain was so unbearable.”