Funeral set for Barway Collins; birth mother interviewed by African radio

Funeral arrangements have been made for Barway Collins, the 10-year-old Crystal boy whose body was found April 11 in the Mississippi River in Brooklyn Center.

The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Shiloh Temple in north Minneapolis, pastor Harding Smith, the family's spokesman, said Tuesday.

Barway's father, Pierre Collins, who has been charged with second-degree murder in the boy's death, remains in the Hennepin County jail with bail set at $2 million. Barway, whose body was bound with duct tape, had been missing since March 18.

Smith said Barway's body was released by the medical examiner to Estes Funeral Chapel in Minneapolis. Pierre Collins has relinquished all funeral and burial arrangements to him, the pastor said.

"I have tried to wait until Barway's mother gets here," Smith said. "I think it is very important for a mother to be here to bury her son."

The boy's biological mother, Louise Karluah, lives in Liberia. Barway came to the United States from Liberia when he was 5 to join his father, who had arrived a few years earlier.

Efforts are underway to bring Karluah to Minnesota for the funeral, but Smith said he believes she is unlikely to attend.

She made allegations against him that cannot be independently verified, and called him "wicked."

"I got pregnant and I decided to drop out of school," she told talk show host Mamadee Diakite in the radio interview. "The child was a very precious and loving child to me."

Karluah told Diakite that she sent her son to the United States and spoke with him on the phone until 2013.

During those conversations, Karluah said, Barway said he had been physically punished and she counseled him to "be ­obedient."

Pierre Collins called her when Barway was reported missing, she said. "For a child to be lost in America is not good," Karluah said.

Abdullah Kiatamba, of African Immigrant Services in Brooklyn Park, said he has been in phone contact with Karluah and that many in the Liberian immigrant community would prefer that Barway's funeral be postponed until Karluah arrives.

Kiatamba said Karluah's radio interview has roiled the Liberian community in Minnesota and elsewhere.

"It's one of the most popular talk radio shows in Liberia," Kiatamba said. "[Diakite] is considered extremely credible. … People are hungry for more information. The community wants healing. They want justice and they want answers. People want to know everything to help them understand this tragedy."

shannon.prather@startribune.com • 612-673-4804 Karen Zamora • 612-673-4647

Twitter: @KarenAnelZamora