In May 2005, Joslin Sims’ son Rayburn was murdered by gunfire in Durham, NC.  Since that time, Joslin has become involved with the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham (www.nonviolentdurham.org).  In June 2006, Joslin told her story to the Coalition so that they would have a record of her voice, her pain, her grief.  These are her words:  
 
My name is Joslin Sims.  My son Rayburn Sims was murdered at the corner of Leon St. and Broad St. on May 21, 2005.  He was thirty years old.  When I got the call, I didn’t know what to expect – my son, Billy, said, “Momma, he’s gonna be alright.”  Once I got to the hospital and it took them a while to come and get me, I realized then that it was worse than what I thought.  And once they took me back there and told me that he was dead, I didn’t accept it.  I couldn’t accept it.  I said, “He’s not my son.  He’s not dead.”  I started screaming.  And then I kept thinking, why would somebody kill him?  

He’s not a statistic, he’s a person.  He was my son, he did everything for me.  Anything involving his kids, he was there at the school for them; anything concerning my family, he was there because he was a family person.  Since he died, nothing is the same.  We still laugh a little bit and have our cookouts, but we all know that he’s not there.  Since Rayburn was murdered, I’ve been having nightmares.  I dream of him in the morgue, and when they are cutting his body I wake up because I felt the knife cutting me.  I go to the Parents of Murdered Children meeting, and that helps, but then when you leave there, it starts all over again.  For a while there, I had to drink a couple beers just so I could go to sleep.  I’m irritable at work with people, and I know it’s because of this.  It’s horrible.  It’s like a nightmare. 

I pray every night that God would do a miracle and bring him back, that I would wake up one morning, and my baby would be alive.  It’s a circuit – these thoughts just keep going round and round, and no matter what I look at on TV – cause there’s a lot of violence on just about every station now – I’m still seeing it in my head.  Over and over I see it in my head.  O God, I’m tired of seeing it.  I see him running, and jumping, trying to get inside that car to get away, and I know he’s scared.  And I should have been there to protect him – I should have been there because he was my baby.  

God, who put that gun in that boy’s hand, or whoever it was that killed my son?  That person is just cold, some little young punk, probably.  Somebody who thinks it makes them a man to carry these guns.  They’re nothing but cowards.  If he had something against my son, he could have gone to him, and they could have had it out hand to hand.  I want to know who, I want to know why.  I don’t want them to face the death penalty, cause I don’t want their mother to know that they’re going to die.  But at least they’re locked up, they can’t get out and hurt anybody else.  At least their mother can go see them and hear them.  I have to go to the grave to talk to my son.  He can’t talk to me.  He can’t answer my questions…  

To the mothers of the children who have been murdered, I say to you: I feel your pain, I have been there.  What we’re doing is we’re learning to live with our pain.  The pain is not going away.  We have to live on for our other children and family members.  But we’re only half-alive.

Joslin Sims’ son Rayburn was murdered by gunfire in Durham, NC.  Since that time, Joslin has become involved with the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham (www.nonviolentdurham.org).  In June 2006, Joslin told her story to the Coalition so that they would have a record of her voice, her pain, her grief.  Click here to hear an audio recording of Joslin’s story. [l]

These are her words:   
 
My name is Joslin Sims.  My son Rayburn Sims was murdered at the corner of Leon St. and Broad St. on May 21, 2005.  He was thirty years old.  When I got the call, I didn’t know what to expect – my son, Billy, said, “Momma, he’s gonna be alright.”