Viviane

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Viviane Ron-Yaakov, the mother of suspected granddaughter killer Ronnie Ron, said the accusations against her son were "hard to believe." Speaking at a press conference at her house in Shaked, where she is under house arrest for her suspected involvement in four-year-old Rose's disappearance, Viviane said Ronnie was always "a good boy who everyone liked" and that she was "very worried about him." "I feel so sorry for him and I hope he will tell the truth and only the truth," said a visibly-shaken Viviane. She said she was extremely worried about her great-granddaughter and believed she was still alive. "I have been going though a very difficult time. I am constantly worried, concerned, but I believe that she is alive and that one day she will come back to us," said Viviane. Rose was the daughter of a French immigrant couple that divorced in 2007. The mother, Marie Pisam has been living in Israel and began building a new family with Ron, the father of her ex-husband, Ben. Marie and Ron convinced Ben, who had returned to France, to let Rose join them in Israel. Rose returned, but not, however, to live with her mother and grandfather, but rather with Viviane. On May 12, Ron took his granddaughter from his mother, but it took over three months before Viviane contacted the Child Protection Center in Jerusalem to express concern over Rose's whereabouts. "When I learned of her disappearance, I became worried and informed the authorities that the girl was missing," Viviane maintained at the press conference. Viviane explained that Ronnie had originally asked her to take care of Rose just like she looked after her other great-grandchildren. She said Rose was ill when she returned to Israel from France but would not go into details about the nature of her illness. She said her great-granddaughter lived with her for about two months but stressed that Ronnie and Marie had cared for Rose well. "They treated her very well. They dressed her nicely, took her out. I don't know what went wrong," she said. Viviane claimed that before Rose returned to Israel, she had been abused by her grandson Ben's second wife. Viviane said she had lost contact with her grandson. Ronnie is suspected of murdering the four-year-old girl and dumping her body in the Yarkon River, He was remanded for a further 15 days on Tuesday in a hearing at the Ramle Magistrate's Court. Rose's mother, suspected of knowing about the murder and failing to report it, was remanded for a further nine days. Israel Police Inspector General David Cohen said that Rose's father, Ben, was refusing to cooperate with police. In an interview with Channel 2, Ben said that he believed his father and his ex-wife killed his child. He described his ex-wife as someone who could be a good person but who also had an "evil" streak. He claimed he didn't know his father very well.