Monday, May 5, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.
Nine-year-old Sacresha Bennett stood a few feet from her mother's white casket and, through a veil of tears, asked her mom to forgive her.
"I love you Mommy," said the child in a bright white dress as many of the estimated 100 mourners at Friday's funeral for Yashoma Clemons wailed. "I'm sorry if I ever did anything to hurt you. I will miss you."
For Clemons' Las Vegas relatives the funeral was the latest in a series of events that have torn the grief-stricken family. After Clemons was killed in her home, Sacresha had taken care of her four younger siblings for days at the house until their mother's body was discovered by a friend. The children initially were in the custody of the state, but their great-grandmother was able to retrieve them.
Friday, as word came from Wisconsin that Clemons' alleged killer had been arrested, Clemons' children were being split up. Child welfare officials said their fathers should have custody of them. The two fathers live in different states, thousands of miles from Las Vegas. Their great-grandmother had hoped to keep the four children together.
Only Sacresha attended Friday's services and the little girl actually had missed her mother's funeral by several minutes. Mourners had waited for her and her father, Renknocko Bennett. He said he had trouble finding the Mountaintop Faith Ministries church at 2845 Lindell Road, Clemons' relatives said.
LaFonzo McNight, father of Clemons' other three children, ages 15 months to five years, also arrived after the services had ended. He did not bring the children to the church.
After the Friday morning services, members of both sides of the family were screaming and threatening each other in the church parking lot as uniformed security officers stood between them.
But later that day, one piece of news was welcomed by members of both sides of the family -- the arrest of a suspect.
Taiwan Allen, 29, Clemons' live-in boyfriend, was arrested in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., on a Las Vegas warrant for murder with use of a deadly weapon that had been obtained by Metro Police just days after Clemons' body was found.
Officers had found Clemons' missing 1989 Toyota Camry in the parking lot of Budget Suites in the 4200 block of West Tropicana Avenue on April 22.
"We had just begun to get over the sad news that the kids are being split up, and this arrest was welcoming news," said Peter Dixon, Clemons' cousin. "We are just glad he is in custody."
Allen was traveling with a tractor-trailer driver when the two stopped at a truck stop in the cranberry farming community in central Wisconsin, where Allen was arrested on the warrant, said Metro homicide Sgt. Rocky Alby.
Alby said Allen was expected to appear in court there today. If he does not fight extradition, he could be returned to Las Vegas within 10 days. If he fights extradition, it might be necessary to obtain a governor's warrant to bring him back, and that could take several weeks.
The tragedy began April 14 when Clemons' four children were in the home when their mother was shot through the heart. They remained alone with their mother's body in the house for five days after she died, authorities said.
On April 19 a friend went to Clemons' home in the 6700 block of Tiffolo Lane near Hollywood Boulevard and Carey Avenue to check on Clemons. The woman found her friend dead inside the house, Metro Police said.
Last week Clark County Child Protective Services officials determined that the children were to be placed with their fathers. Bennett lives in Michigan and McNight lives in North Carolina.
As of early today, all of the children were still in Las Vegas.
Clark County Director of Family Services Susan Klein-Rothschild could not comment directly on the case, but said the top priorities in any case are to make sure the children are safe and, if possible, place them in the custody of responsible family. And surviving parents carry a lot of legal weight.
"When something happens with one parent, the other parent has legal rights and responsibilities for the children," Klein-Rothschild said. "If there is no reason to believe the surviving parent would harm the child," they get custody.
She warned that regardless of which side wins custody, "it is important for families to work together. It is not good for the traumatized children to see that the people they most look up to are in conflict."
But conflict appeared inevitable Friday as members of the mother's side of the family sat in church obviously upset that Clemons' children were not there. Sacresha was scheduled in the program to give "A Tribute to Mother."
The Bennetts arrived at the church after mortuary officials closed Clemons' coffin to prepare it for transfer to Davis Funeral Home cemetery on South Eastern Avenue.
"Baby, go tell your mother goodbye," shouted Sacresha's great-grandmother Lodia Fluellen, who had gained temporary custody of the children after they were placed at Child Haven on April 19.
As Sacresha approached the casket, church workers quickly reopened it so the little girl could say goodbye to her mother who was dressed in an ivory and sequined gown. Clemons' long brown hair gently flowed over the shoulders of the garment.
After viewing her mother for the last time, Sacresha was permitted to give her weeping tribute speech.
It has been difficult for family matriarch Fluellen to accept that her granddaughter's children will be split up and sent thousand of miles away.
"I was just heartbroken over the decision," Fluellen said after the services. "I know Sacresha does not want to go to Michigan, and I know her mother would not want her to go there and be away from her family here."
But Fluellen said she learned Friday it is possible that might not happen, at least with the oldest child. Bennett confirmed after the services that he is considering staying in Las Vegas, at least for a while.
"I can't say what we've decided to do yet -- stay or go," Bennett said. "I will have to talk with my daughter and see what her feelings are." He declined further comment.
McNight declined to comment. He is expected to soon take Elaisa, Larez and Elzheim McNight to North Carolina, the family said.
One family member said Clemons, a corrections officer and nurse, had set up trust funds for her children and noted there are Social Security checks for them until they are 18 and that Clemons had a sizable life insurance policy.
Dixon said there has been bad feelings between family members since before last Wednesday's meeting with county child welfare officials. He said that at Thursday's viewing it escalated into a loud argument between family members.
To prevent a similar incident, uniformed security officers were hired for the funeral. The post-funeral shouting match was brief and members of both sides got into their cars and left without further incident.
Friends at the funeral talked of how Clemons was a good mother. Just how good a mother she was perhaps answers the mystery of why her children stayed in the home with her body for so many days without leaving to ask for help.
Family members said Sacresha was well-trained by her mother in how to use the phone to call emergency numbers or family members. However, the killer took the phones from the home upon fleeing, the family said.
The children, who thought their mother was asleep, had been instructed by Clemons to remain in the house and never open the looked doors while she was in the home, family members said, acknowledging that the kids apparently had learned to follow that instruction too well.
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