Cassandra Anrisma thinks if her brother, 16-year-old Junior Rostand, had been living with her in Carmichael full time, he would be alive today.
Rostand was shot and killed on Saturday night on Akel Close, Montell Heights.
“I was trying to get my television and my Wi-Fi set up and I told him stay,” Anrisma, 23, told The Nassau Guardian yesterday.
“I think we had that conversation two days prior. I told him just give me a week or so and I will get those things set up.”
On Saturday, Rostand and another juvenile were standing outside a home when two armed men emerged from a track road off East West Highway. The men shot the teenagers multiple times and fled, police said.
Police believe his killing is connected to two others that took place on Saturday.
Anrisma said she heard about her brother’s murder while she was at work. She was scheduled to pick him up later that night.
“Usually, how I work not too far from where my dad lives, and when I get off at 10, I would pick him up and we would go home together,” Anrisma said.
Anrisma described her brother as a quiet person.
“Even though he had friends and he hung around quite a few people, you would just see him sitting in a corner, just being to himself. He was a caring person. He always looked out for family and friends. If he had it, you for sure have it. Every time he got paid, he used to come and say ‘give this to my nephew’. He always looked out.”
Anrisma said, despite only being 16, her brother didn’t attend school and instead worked various jobs to help support his family.
“COVID, it was rough,” she said when asked why he wasn’t attending school. “We lost our mother during that time, so it was really hard on all of us.”
Police said on Monday, they were trying to determine whether Rostand, who would have turned 17 in August, and the other teenager who was shot, had gang affiliations. The victim’s sister said she had been concerned about the company he kept.
“That’s why I was trying to get him to stay up by my place full time,” she said.
“I didn’t like that area at all.
“People were saying that he was a bad person, or he was just like the company he kept, and no he wasn’t.
“Every opportunity he had to work, he was basically waiting for his boss to give him the opportunity to go on the island to work. He was excited for that. He was like, ‘sister, I cant wait, so I can help you out’. He was basically waiting for his boss to give him the OK to go back to work.”
Rostand spent his days at his father’s home in Montell Heights and would go by his sister in Carmichael at night. She said he didn’t want to spend the days at her apartment because she didn’t have television and Wi-Fi, and he didn’t have a phone.
“I felt like if I did already have them things set up, he would have never been going down there anymore,” she said.
“I think he started to detest being down in the Montell Heights area.”
Anrisma described her brother as a jack of all trades who was willing to be taught. She said she last spoke to him on Friday.
“Basically, he was asking me if I cooked,” she recalled fondly.
“Well, he was asking me to cook because he’s always hungry; he likes to eat. I was like man, Junior, I’m very tired because I work at nights and I don’t feel like cooking. I still ended up making something for him to eat. Anything I ask him to do for me, he always did it, so I tend to do everything he asked me to do.”
