The West Savaged By Multiple Murders

Errol Mangaroo (left), is being comforted by a family member as he mourns the death of his son Byron, who was recently murdered in Logwood.
Errol Mangaroo (left), is being com­fort­ed by a fam­i­ly mem­ber as he mourns the death of his son Byron, who was recent­ly mur­dered in Logwood.

Despite the many crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives the police have tried in their quest to rein in law­less­ness, the year 2015 will go down in his­to­ry as the most mur­der­ous in the annals of west­ern Jamaica, espe­cial­ly in regards to the parish­es of Hanover and Westmoreland.

Up to mid-October, Hanover, which was the nation’s most peace­ful parish up until a decade ago, had reg­is­tered 54 mur­ders — the high­est mur­der count in any one year in the parish’s history.

During October, the sit­u­a­tion reached cri­sis pro­por­tions when six mem­bers of one fam­i­ly were slaugh­tered by gun­men and their ten apart­ment board house burnt to the ground. Four oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers were injured in the attack.

A month ear­li­er, between Sunday, September 13; and Saturday, September 19, Hanover reg­is­tered sev­en mur­ders in rapid suc­ces­sion. The inci­dents includ­ed a triple mur­der in St Simon and a dou­ble-mur­der in Georgia.

The mur­ders, the major­i­ty of which took place in the Lucea police dis­trict, has ele­vat­ed Hanover to the sec­ond most mur­der­ous parish in the island behind St James, which is clos­ing in on 200 mur­ders this year.

In Westmoreland, which has emerged as a major crime hot spot in recent years, the parish has wit­nessed sev­er­al cas­es of mul­ti­ple mur­ders this year. In July, 53 year old Rose Murray and her daugh­ter Latoya Daley were shot dead in their Little London home in the pres­ence of two children.

Earlier this year, the parish also had a quadru­ple mur­der in Whithorn District, where 14 year old Shawn Clayton, 20-year-old Romario Drummond, 22-year-old Theodore Tennant and 16-year-old Demar Doeman, were attacked and mur­dered while play­ing video games at a busi­ness estab­lished in the com­mu­ni­ty. The police sub­se­quent­ly linked the killings to the illic­it lot­tery scam.

In St James, which has been the haven for ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty since the emer­gence of the lot­tery scam in 2006, mul­ti­ple mur­ders has become com­mon place. The month of July stood out as in the 24 hour peri­od between July 16 and 17, sev­en per­sons were mur­dered in dif­fer­ent inci­dents. The car­nage, which start­ed in Norwood, end­ed on the streets of down­town Montego Bay.

The per­sons killed in Norwood were, 31-year-old Sean Hudson, 40 years old David Dilbert and his 31-year-old rel­a­tive, Patrick Williams. The oth­er per­sons killed else­where were: 63-year-old taxi-oper­a­tor Phillip Campbell and his 42-year-old nephew, Kevin Campbell, of Rose Heights; and craft ven­dor Elizabeth Robinson, who was killed in the heart of down­town Montego Bay.

Within recent weeks, on the advice of the National Security Minister, Peter Bunting, sol­diers have been deployed to the main crime hotspots across the region while the lead­er­ship in the var­i­ous police divi­sions have been strength­ened in a new resolve to bat­tle the lawlessness.
The West Savaged By Multiple Murders