B2 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019
Attorney Casey Lingan told the
judge that Ebrahim could have
stayed away f rom Jholie after that
burst of violence but didn’t.
“He has a second chance after
the first choking,” Lingan said.
“This is the fork in the road where
he tells us who he is.”
On the day of the slaying,
Jholie met Ebrahim at a parknear her home, where they ar-
gued about his placement at Bry-
ant High School, an alternative
school. Ebrahim put Jholie in
what he would tell detectives was
an “MMA-style chokehold” until
she passed out.
He lowered her body to the
ground and then choked her
again for nearly a minute with
both hands. He then propped her
body up and choked her a third
time for another three to five
minutes, until his hands grew
tired and he stopped.
Ebrahim covered Jholie’s body
in some leaves. In the days that
followed, he would return with a
butcher knife and scratch out a
shallow grave. By then, the search
was well underway.
On the night of the slaying, to
buy some time, Ebrahim texted
Zhane from Jholie’s phone, writ-
ing as Jholie, to say she was
headed to a party in Norfolk. He
initially told police that he had
not talked with Jholie, before
eventually admitting that he
killed her. Jholie’s body was
found in the park two weeks after
her slaying.
“I’m sorry,” Ebrahim told Jho-
lie’s family before he was sen-
tenced. “I apologize for not treat-
ing your daughter with the ut-
most respect.”
[email protected]Mount Vernon-area home, Zhane
testified. Jholie vanished, spark-
ing an extensive search that went
viral online and generated help
from hundreds of volunteers.
Family members’ suspicions
immediately turned to Ebrahim,
whom Jholie had met at Mount
Vernon High School. He was a
stellar student who had been
accepted to multiple colleges and
played basketball, but he had
anger issues.
In September 2017, he assault-
ed Jholie, an incident that led to
his removal from Mount Vernon
High School. Ebrahim then
blamed Jholie for his landing in a
school for troubled teens. Pros-
ecutors said that anger grew into
hatred.
Zhane testified that roughly a
month before her sister’s slaying,
Jholie told her that Ebrahim had
choked her into unconsciousness.
“She said she knows how death
feels,” Zhane said Jholie had told
her of the choking incident. “She
remembered it so vividly.”
Jholie told her twin she would
cut off contact with Ebrahim, but
she never did.
Prosecutors said Ebrahim
thought at the time that he had
killed Jholie and even texted a
friend to say that he needed to
find a place to hide. The incident
was never reported to police.
Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s
SENTENCING FROM B1
clump of food stuck in his bowel.
So, in addition to his checkup,
veterinarians wanted to examine
his digestive tract.
“Pandas, not just in captive
situations but even in the wild, as
a species they seem to have a
propensity for gastrointestinal
disease,” said the zoo’s chief vet-
erinarian, Don Neiffer.
“With him in particular, actu-
ally with all animals, when they
go to another institution... or
another country, there’s usually a
pre-shipment examination that
occurs,” he said.
“But because he has this his-
tory of a gastrointestinal obstruc-
tion, and he more recently was a
little off because of [a] mucus
stool, we really wanted to take
the opportunity to just work him
up,” Neiffer said.
“We’re not expecting to find
anything,” he said. “We want to
make sure that there’s nothing
that we’re missing.”
(The zoo said after the pro-
cedures that everything seemed
fine.)
As the veterinarians worked,
Hutcheson, the technician, and
panda keeper Marty Dearie
worked on getting the inked paw
prints on pieces of white paper.
“This is for those of our team
who’ve been with him since he
was a cub,” said zoo spokeswom-
an Annalisa Meyer. “This is like
the most perfect memory... that
you can have.”
It’s a panda signature, she
said.
[email protected]exhibits all the signs of pregnan-
cy, but no cub is delivered.
Mei Xiang, who has had nu-
merous false pregnancies in past
years, was artificially inseminat-
ed in March and is near the end
of her 90- to 185-day gestation
period.
As observers kept a close eye
on her in the panda house, Bei
Bei was on the table under a red
heating blanket to keep him
warm during the examinations.
He’d had some gastrointesti-
nal problems in recent weeks.
And he underwent successful
surgery in 2016 to remove a“we cracked the code,” she said.
“So it’s almost like it’s the end of
that era. So what fills in that
space?”
“A lso, we were big on giant
panda population management,”
she said. “The National Zoo, we
really kind of helped create the
breeding plan for the entire glob-
al panda population. Again, box
checked.... So what comes in to
fill that space?”
Meanwhile, the zoo has been
waiting to find out whether Mei
Xiang might be pregnant or is
experiencing a false pregnancy.
In the latter case, the pandafemale, and Tian Tian, 22, a male.
By prior agreement with the
Chinese, all giant panda cubs
born in U.S. zoos must be sent to
a breeding program in China
once they turn 4. Bei Bei, a
subadult, turned 4 in August.
Two National Zoo cubs already
have been shipped to China in
recent years. Ta i Shan, a male,
was moved there in 2010, and
Bao Bao, a female, was moved in
2017.
In addition, the extended 20-
year Chinese lease of the two
adults will be up Dec. 7, 2020.
China owns and leases all giant
pandas in U.S. zoos.
The National Zoo says it has
not discussed in detail with Chi-
na what will happen then.
Would the zoo keep its two
adults on a lease extension, and
study them as they grow old?
Would China exchange them
for a younger breeding pair?
Should the current tension
with China continue, would that
be a factor?
Zoo officials declined to specu-
late.
But Brandie Smith, the deputy
director, said Wednesday that the
zoo has to decide where it wants
to take its giant panda program
next.
“We’re talking about where we
want our research to go in the
future,” she said at the zoo. “A big
part of our research was on giant
panda reproduction.”
With the birth of three cubs,PANDAS FROM B1weren’t all filled. An hour before
the place opened, parents were
already waiting, and many held
detailed lists of their first
options followed by their
backup options followed by the
backup options to their backup
options.
After my son expressed an
interest in soccer, I looked up
programs and realized I had
missed a recent deadline. The
next time the sign-up period
opened, I filled out the online
application in time but wasn’t
fast enough. He got wait-listed,
and then rejected.
Finally, a few weeks ago,
another parent sent me an email
telling me she had just signed
her son up. I had flown 10 hours
and was in a different time zone,
but I dropped everything to do
the same.
This time, he got in.
On Friday, he will finally put
on those cleats and attend his
first soccer practice. I hope he
loves it, or at least doesn’t
despise it.
Mostly though, I hope his
shoes still fit.
[email protected]Present-day me now laughs at
postpartum me.
When I called that day care, a
kind woman who answered the
phone told me I could pay $75
to be placed on a wait list and
then whispered “but don’t waste
your money because you won’t
get in.” Receptionists at other
places also described limited
space and told me that people
often sign up before they even
have children. The one day care
that seemed the most
promising, and which I did pay
to consider my application,
called to let me know that my
son finally made it to the top of
the wait list. By that time, he
was 3 years old, and I had a
second child.
More recently, my husband
and I decided to sign our boys
up for a summer camp that
came highly recommended and
was convenient for our
commutes. We quickly learned
that if we wanted them to have
any chance of getting in, we
needed to pay for a membership
to the organization running the
program and then stand in line,
hoping the slots we wantedthose children while also trying
to figure out how best to take
care of our own — and, in this
area, many parents learn
quickly how that comes with
unique challenges.
The first time I realized
parenting in the Washington
area was going to be different
from in other places, my
firstborn was weeks old. I was
on maternity leave and finally
had time to start looking into
day-care options. There was a
day care I passed by every day as
I walked to the Metro, and I
assumed I could just call and
arrange for him to get in.during these ‘comparison’
conversations or when scrolling
on social media — I ask them to
tune in to their avatar, to their
inner voice, to their own morals
and values, rather than using
others’ stories to determine the
decisions they make for their
children.”
Tuning in, instead of tuning
out. It’s a helpful tool that many
of us should probably keep
close, especially because there
will inevitably come moments
when we’re not fast enough at
the keyboard or standing close
enough to the front of the line.
It should go without saying
that this type of parental angst
is a luxury. Parents struggling to
financially survive in this high-
cost area have other worries.
The homeless families living in
hotels on New York Avenue NE,
which I recently told you about,
have to stress about how to get
their children to and from
school safely and on time.
The problems they and other
struggling families in the region
face deserve our attention, and
more. They deserve resources
and solutions. But we can helpparents,” put pressure on
themselves and their children.
“A ll of this is reinforced by the
fact that there is a lot of
comparison and judgment when
it comes to parenting,” s aid
Bailey, who has a master’s
degree in clinical psychology.
“Parents are talking to other
parents about what their kids
are involved in and what it takes
to be successful. People aren’t
shy about giving their opinions
because often insisting that they
know what it takes to build a
better future for their kids
makes them feel more in control
of the often-unpredictable job of
parenting.”
She teaches parents every day
how to reduce that pressure.
One strategy she calls “tuning
in, instead of tuning out.”
“I ask them to create an
avatar of the type of parent they
want to be, based on their
values,” s he said. “Then I ask
them to use that avatar to be
their North Star when it comes
to making parenting decisions
for their child. And when they
see other parents doing
different things — especiallythe demand.
This week, hundreds of
thousands of students started
school in Maryland and
Virginia. Those pictures of them
holding signs declaring they are
entering first or fifth or 10th
grade are adorable achievement
markers. I look forward to
seeing them every year.
But for the first time, I found
myself also thinking about the
achievements of the parents
behind those cameras. I found
myself considering how much
time and energy they spend
throughout the year to give their
children opportunities to excel
in and out of school.
I also found myself
wondering whether they have
their own cleats, something that
has caused them to question
whether they are doing enough.
Rachel Bailey, a family
specialist in the Washington
region who is raising two
daughters in Northern Virginia,
said she has seen how mothers
and fathers, “especially in this
area of well-educated, successful
VARGAS FROM B1
THERESA VARGAS
Shiny, unused cleats symbolize perils of parenting in this ultracompetitive area
Bei Bei prepares for departure to China
PHOTOS BY JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POSTTHERESA VARGAS/THE WASHINGTON POST
Will these soccer cleats ever be
grass-stained by Theresa
Vargas’s 6-year-old son?Giant panda Bei Bei, top, undergoes a general exam — attended
by National Zoo veterinarian James Steeil, above left, and chief
veterinarian Don Neiffer — on Wednesday, ahead of his travels.
As Bei Bei leaves, the zoo is entering a time of transition, with its
20-year lease on its two adult giant pandas expiring next year.Te en’s ex-boyfriend gets
life term in her slaying
“No one in this situation
has to suffer but you.
You think you won by
ending my sister’s life,
but you are in for a
rude awakening.”
Zhane Moussa, the twin sister
of Jholie Moussa, in a statement read
in court before the sentencing
of Nebiyu EbrahimFBIJholie Moussa was strangled by
her onetime boyfriend, who
received a life sentence.
S0120-2x2.25“Away from the
noise and bustle”
Discover great area
neighborhoods
in “Where We Live,”
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