ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Karen Rolle thought one of her children was joking when she found out her daughter was dead.

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“I didn’t believe it at the time,” she recalled, staring off into space. “I said to my girl, ‘Do not play with me.’”

It wasn’t a joke. Orange County deputies say Joanna Gomes-Simo, Rolle’s eldest daughter, had been strangled by her boyfriend just a few days into the new year.

According to an arrest report, Gomes-Simo and the boyfriend, Pierre Floriant, had a rough relationship, with Floriant being arrested in December for striking the 29-year-old mother of four.

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She had been expecting her fifth child. He wanted an abortion.

The report said Floriant told deputies he reached a breaking point and put his hands around Gomes-Simo’s neck as she slept, knowing it would cost both her and the unborn child their lives.

It was a tragic end to what Rolle admitted was not an easy life. One of seven children, Rolle said the family never had much money growing up in The Bahamas.

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Gomes-Simo had one child, then moved to the US in her early 20′s to seek a better life, Rolle said. The young woman found housekeeping jobs in the Orlando area to survive.

“She said it was going to be better for her,” Rolle said.

Gomes-Simo never went back to The Bahamas to visit, but the two talked on the phone every few days. Rolle said large parts of the conversation were about her heart condition. She said Gomes-Simo pushed her to start the US immigration process to move in and help care for the grandkids.

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The conversations never turned to Floriant, though, and Rolle said she still knows very little about him. She was aware her daughter was trying to leave him. Shortly before Christmas, she said Gomes-Simo called from Kentucky, announcing that she planned to move there in the near future.

The family believes Floriant found out shortly before her death.

Rolle said she plans to move to the US to care for her grandchildren as soon as she is awarded custody. That’s something the Department of Children and Families and a judge will have to decide, though. For now, she said she’s allowed to visit them for a few hours every afternoon. She said she wouldn’t be able to move them to The Bahamas without a court order.

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The other task at hand is burying Gomes-Simo’s body. She’s not alone in that effort, receiving help through kind-hearted members of the Orlando-based JUMP Ministries for needs like transportation.

“I just want to ask him why,” she said, of Floriant. “He could’ve done something but not killed her. Let her see the children grow up.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help her pay for funeral costs and the children’s upbringing.

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