The ex-wife of Lester Ross, Sharon Ross, testified in court against him. Sharon testified that her ex-husband called her one day when she was at the store and told her to get home right away. When she walked in, he was frantic and she was shocked.
Sharon told police on December 20, 2010 that in May 2009 she left MaSarah alone with Lester and when she returned she found MaSarah dead. Lester told Sharon that her death was an accident.
“He was telling me MaSarah was jumping on the bed and she fell off the bed,” she said. “He said, ‘I put her in the tub, I tried to revive her. It was just an accident.'”
Sharon said that Lester kept Masaraha’s body in a deep freezer at their home for several months and never contacted authorities. He never even contacted the child’s mother for that matter.
On October 14th, 2009 Ronkeya Holmes, MaSarah’s mother, traveled from her home in Savannah, Georgia to Winterhaven, Florida to pick up her daughter. Lester was supposed to be caring for MaSarah while Ronkeya finished technical college.
On October 18th, Ronkeya told family members that she was meeting Lester at Walmart to pick up MaSarah. Family members told authorities that Ronkeya said she was having difficulties meeting up Lester and that as soon as she picked up her daughter she would be going back to Savannah. Ronkeya’s aunt says that she saw Ronkeya logged into Facebook in the morning hours of October 19th. Her aunt said she tried to message her, but got no response.
After a subpoena from police, Facebook says her account was active from 11:46 p.m. on October 18th until 12:08 a.m. on October 19th. Facebook reported to authorities that the IP address traced back to Lester’s house.
Police report that Ronkeya made several calls to her family from her cell phone on October 20 to try and get her vehicle out of the Seminole County impound. Her family reports that she sounded stressed and that when they offered to come get her she would hang up.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 was the last time anyone heard from Ronkeya.
MaSarah and her mother, Ronkeya, were reported missing on October 20, 2009.
To hide the fact that he had murdered his own daughter, Lester decided that he had to kill Ronkeya as well. Before Ronkeya arrived at their home on October 18th, Lester asked Sharon to buy rat poison and melt the pellets on the stove. Then he instructed her to mix the rat poison into a bottle of Coke from their refrigerator. Sharon followed Lester’s commands and then left the Coke bottle on their kitchen counter.
At some point, Lester gave the Coke to Ronkeya. A few hours later, Sharon stumbled upon Lester with Ronkeya’s lifeless body inside his home office.
Lester forced Sharon to help him move both Ronkeya and MaSarah’s bodies into his car. He then forced Sharon to drive to an orange grove in Winter Haven to help bury their bodies. Lester made Sharon drive back to their home and when they arrived he wrapped a cell phone cord around Sharon’s neck and told her that if she ever told anyone about what had just happened, he would kill her.
Over a year later, on December 22, 2010, Sharon led authorities to their shallow graves. It took over a year for the remains of Ronkeya and MaSarah to be positively identified, but once they were, Lester was indicted on murder charges.
Lester declined to speak when Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance asked him if he wanted to say anything before the sentence.
On February 18, 2016, Durrance sentenced Lester to consecutive sentences of life in prison for the death of Ronkeya Holmes and 30 years for the aggravated manslaughter of his daughter, MaSarah Ross.
Lester showed no emotion as he sat with his lawyers then was fingerprinted by bailiffs.
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