For the last 41 years, members of The MOVE Organization have given interviews and spoken about the children who died on May 13, 1985 inside 6221 Osage - the “chosen” MOVE house for the police confrontation.
Suzanne LeVino aka Sue Africa aka Ria has spoken about her son Tomaso that died whenever she is interviewed.
Here are three interviews done in the last 10 years:
2016 Interview
“Tom was only 7 years old”
2018 MOVE “press conference”
“Tomaso, 6-year-old baby that was in the house”
May 2021 by Philadelphia NBC10
“Tomaso Africa 8 years old”
3 interviews.
3 different ages for Tomaso.
The correct answer is: None of the above.
Tomaso was born on August 6, 1975 so on 05/13/85, he would have been 9 years, 9 months old.
If you have ever interviewed or spoken to Sue, she has bragged about being the first MOVE mother to give birth according to John Africa’s “natural” teachings. No hospitals, no doctors and no “technology”. Sue gave birth on hay and had to chew through the umbilical cord and clean off the afterbirth with just her tongue. Leader Vincent Leaphart (John Africa)’s rationale - this is how animals do it and how humans did it before the system forced us to be “civilized”.
MOVE called up local reporters to come document the newsworthy evidence of “John Africa’s teachings”.
This is a newspaper photo taken of Sue and newborn Tomaso on “the hay where it happened”.
I don’t know about you, but for me this image gives off “Virgin Mary in the manger” vibes which I believe was Leaphart’s inspiration considering that his first name for MOVE was “The Christian Movement For Life”.
Neither Sue nor Tomaso were taken to get checked out by a doctor.
Pennsylvania law required that all births must be legally registered within 10 days. Tomaso was never registered and was never issued a birth certificate. That then become the standard for all MOVE births up until, and even after May 13, 1985.
Sue re-enact the 1975 manger photo 10 months later, in June 1976, for WPVI’s film crew that MOVE invited into their headquarters.
MOVE reprinted the 1975 birth on hay photo in their newspaper FIRST DAY.
They also used it in their MOVE history booklets (20 Years On A Move and the follow up, 25 Years On A Move).
Suzanne LeVino (alias Sue Leon, aka Sue Africa aka Ria) and everyone in MOVE knows exactly when her Tomaso was born, and exactly how old he was when he died.
Most importantly, MOVE only agrees to speak with reporters, activists, and academics who will not ask questions they do not want to answer and who won’t fact check them even when they are clearly contradicting themselves or lying.
In all three of those interviews, Sue makes Tomaso younger in order to garner more sympathy for her, not him. And by her, I mean MOVE because their is no individuality in an authoritarian high-control group aka cult. There is only the narrative which is to serve the MOVE agenda in that moment.
Iin the last interview with NBC10 in 2021 about Penn Museum and MOVE remains, Sue was not the only MOVE mother to lie. Consuewella falsely stated that her daughters, Katricia and Zanetta, were a year younger than they actually were.
The children inside 6221 Osage were not babies or even toddlers, but they were minor children that never should have been inside the row home that MOVE had fortified for a police confrontation.
In my podcast I have repeatedly mentioned the legal names, ages and biological parents for all six of the children known to be inside MOVE’s fortified 6221 Osage HQ on 5/13/85.
I am going to provide this findable and verifiable information again here so that anyone researching or talking about MOVE can do it accurately:
Katricia Dotson D.O.B. 09/15/70 , hospital birth. Mother: Consuewella Dotson; Father: Nathaniel Galloway (not MOVE).
Oyewolfe Ward D.O.B 12/22/71, hospital birth. Mother: Rhonda Harris Ward; Father: Andino Ward (not MOVE). Escaped 6221 Osage on 5/13/85. Accidental drowning (09/20/2013). Age 41 when he died.
Delisha Holloway D.O.B. 04/29/72, hospital birth. Mother: Janet Holloway, Father: Delbert Orr. Age 13 when she died.
Zanetta Dotson D.O.B 08/22/72, premature hospital birth. Mother: Consuewella Dotson; Alleged Father: (James) Conrad Hampton (Consuewella’s Uncle by marriage that recruited her into MOVE). Age 12 when she died.
Phil Demar Phillips D.O.B 12/9/73, hospital birth. Mother: Janine Smith; Father: William Phillips. Age 12 when he died.
Tomaso LeVino D.O.B 8/6/75 , born at MOVE HQ, no birth records, Mother: Suzanne LeVino; Father: Robert Moses (left MOVE in 1981). Age 9 when he died.
My final point is this: Reporting the documented facts about these six children on May 13, 1985 matters. What happened to them inside MOVE in the years, months, days, hours, and minutes leading up to May 13, 1985, matters just as much.
Quick P.S.: Tomaso had more than one name, which was a MOVE “strategy”.
This is what Sue said in 1978
Sue states that her son is two and named JOHN, and that JOHN’S father is age 1, according to the teachings of John Africa.
It has sometimes been explained to me that Sue’s son was first called JOHN in order to show reverence for MOVE's founder, "John Africa" (Vincent Leaphart). I have wondered if it might mean more than that.
While hiding out in Rochester with Vincent for three years, Sue started going by Maria ("Ria" for short), and she started JOHN by a new name: BOO BOO or BOO, for short.
A Philadelphia police officer in the Civil Affairs Division provided the visual identification of the remains found in the rubble of 6221 Osage. He knew the child as BOO.
“It has sometimes been explained to me that Sue’s son was first called JOHN in order to show reverence for MOVE's founder, "John Africa" (Vincent Leaphart). I have wondered if it might mean more than that.”
Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That Tomaso may have been born to Ria and… John Africa??