Arrest made in 13 year old murder investigation

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - An arrest has been made in a 13-year old cold case murder investigation.

Baton Rouge Police say Sonya Kimber, 48, has been arrested in connection with the stabbing death of her business partner Monique Edwards.

The murder happened on November 14, 2000 on Linden Street, just west of Airline Highway. According to police, "Kimber apparently stabbed Edwards multiple times throughout her body after an argument."

Detectives say Edwards was holding her newborn baby when she was killed.

DNA evidence collected on Edwards' body linked Kimber to the murder.

Kimber was charged with second degree murder of Edwards and also charged with aggravated second degree battery of the baby.

A Mother Killed In Front of Her Baby
By Matt Williams
July 27, 2005

It's a murder almost five years old, and unfortunately it's been unsolved just as long. Can you imagine coming home from work to find your worst nightmare? One Baton Rouge man doesn't have to imagine, he lived it. But he does have one very big reason to be thankful.

It was November 14th back in 2000 just a little after 6 p.m., when a husband came home from work to find his wife dead. It happened on Linden Street, just north of the Howell Park golf course and west of Airline Highway.

Monique Edwards was just 35 years old, married for ten years, a graduate of Southern University, and a business owner. She is also now a murder victim, stabbed to death by someone police feel she knew.

According to Sgt. Ike Vavasseur, "We certainly believe that Monique knew who killed her. It all indicates that it's someone she let in or someone who was comfortable enough to let themselves in."

When police arrived, they found Mrs. Edwards dead. But this is how cold that killer is: there was another potential victim in the room, someone who could not protect themselves even if they wanted to. The killer didn't care about that. That other potential victim was Mrs. Edwards' newborn daughter. Born on October 27th, she was less than three weeks old when her mother was killed right in front of her.

"The child was found on the floor, inside the bedroom. The child had fallen off the bed."

The bed was tossed, the child thrown to the floor, a silent witness to her mother's murder. "You can only imagine what this poor mother thought. Not only was she fighting for her own life, but the concerns that must have run through her mind about her child."

That child is now almost five years old. Thanks to that heartless killer, she has grown up without her mother.

Monique's husband, Booker, says, "She looks at the picture and calls her by her name and not mom. That's the thing that hurts me the most; she never got to know her mom."

And her mom will never get to know her. It's a murder that's ripple effects have been, and will continue to be, far reaching.

"All the residual tragedy that people have to live with," says Vavasseur. "A child has to grow up and never know her mother; she has to explain to her children why they never knew their grandmother."

Booker says, "It takes day-by-day to get through it. The first year or two, it's hard; really hard."

And it continues to be hard, especially when your daughter sees her mother as just a picture in a frame.

Copyright 2013 WAFB. All rights reserved.