Two Alleged Murders, Two Different Police Outcomes, Why?

#1 The disappearance of Donna-Lee Donaldson & the arrest of Constable Noël Maitland.

The out­cry and nation­al focus on the dis­ap­pear­ance of 24-year-old Donna-Lee Donaldson have sur­prised me. Don’t get me wrong; I am buoyed by the idea that there is nation­al vig­i­lance sur­round­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of any per­son. Nevertheless, it appears that fol­low­ing in line with Jamaicans’ affin­i­ty for hype and glo­ri­fy­ing peo­ple in the lime­light, some lives are more impor­tant than oth­ers, which is a nation­al disgrace.
Hundreds of peo­ple are report­ed miss­ing year­ly; many more dis­ap­pear and aren’t report­ed to author­i­ties. The dis­ap­pear­ances and the wan­ton killings report­ed on the Island each year hard­ly elic­it raised eye­brows across the nation­al spec­trum. So what is so dif­fer­ent about this young wom­an’s case?
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​q​u​e​s​t​i​o​n​i​n​g​-​a​t​t​o​r​n​e​y​-​p​a​t​r​i​c​k​-​b​a​i​l​e​y​-​i​n​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​o​-​2​0​1​6​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​a​t​-​h​i​s​-​h​o​me/

Admittedly, this writer is high­ly con­ver­sant that each case rests on its mer­it. Additionally, I have no idea what evi­dence the police pre­sent­ed to pros­e­cu­tors that war­rant­ed the charge of mur­der. I could, how­ev­er, guess that the police have sub­stan­tial *cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence* that embold­ened them to charge a per­son with mur­der, much less one of their own with­out a dead body.
I have seen a lot of com­ments in the pub­lic sphere, some argu­ing that there can be no con­vic­tion with­out a dead body. To those folks, I say, that is not true; a defen­dant [can] be con­vict­ed of mur­der with­out a body being found.
It is indeed risky, and a court will be dili­gent in look­ing at the evi­dence, cir­cum­stan­tial and foren­sic, before arriv­ing at a verdict.
Those clam­or­ing for blood must also under­stand that the pres­ence of foren­sic or DNA evi­dence, includ­ing blood sam­ples in the defen­dan­t’s home or car, does [not] mean he killed any­one, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the sup­posed vic­tim had access to the apart­ment and car.
With an abun­dance of oth­er cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, that evi­dence would be one more piece of evi­dence that would lead a tri­er of facts (Judge or Jury) to rea­son­ably con­clude that the vic­tim died and that the defen­dant killed her.
It is no easy task!

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​a​t​-​a​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​a​f​r​a​i​d​-​o​f​-​w​h​y​-​t​h​e​y​-​h​a​v​e​n​t​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​r​s​-​o​f​-​g​e​r​m​a​i​n​e​-​j​u​n​i​or/

Constable Noël Maitland is now charged with mur­der, and true to form, the police are busy giv­ing inter­views to the media.
This time it is Deputy Commissioner Fitz Bailey who has­n’t learned that the less you say pub­licly in these sit­u­a­tions, the bet­ter off you are.
Remember that there is still no dead body found. As the fam­i­ly mem­bers of Donna-Lee Donaldson plead with the arrest­ed police offi­cer to tell them where her body is, we share their grief and under­stand their res­ig­na­tion and accep­tance that she [is] dead.
The police have said that their inves­ti­ga­tions have moved from that of a miss­ing per­son to homi­cide, accord­ing to DCP Fitz Bailey.
So the Police are quite pre­pared to go out on a limb to arrest and charge one of their own on a charge of mur­der even with­out a body but with­er and dry up like daisies when they are required to arrest and charge well-con­nect­ed murderers.
Given the Patrick Maitland case and the case doc­u­ment­ed below, I ask rea­son­able Jamaicans to decide whether this is a fair sys­tem that treats all Jamaicans equally.

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Below is one of sev­er­al arti­cles I wrote fol­low­ing the killing of a reg­u­lar Jamaican, Germaine Junior, at the home of a so-called promi­nent Jamaican, now dis­barred lawyer Patrick Bailey.
To date, nei­ther the fam­i­ly nor the cor­rupt and incom­pe­tent Constabulary has pro­vid­ed a shred of an answer to the dis­traught fam­i­ly of mis­ter Junior or to the queries of this hum­ble writer.
And so I ask the Jamaica Constabulary, what is the dif­fer­ence between these two cas­es except that one is a low­ly cop and the oth­er .…… well, we don’t exact­ly know just yet but trust me, we intend to find out who killed mis­ter Germaine Junior.
We also intend to find out whether or not Police cor­rup­tion taint­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion pre­vent­ing an arrest in this case.

On the one hand, we have a reg­u­lar Jamaican, Germaine Junior mur­dered in the home of a promi­nent Jamaican [sic] Patrick Bailey. Body found, no arrest.
Social Media clout-chas­er [alleged­ly killed] no body found, ordi­nary Jamaican arrest­ed.
JCF, Please explain.

What Are The Police Afraid Of? Why Haven’t they Arrested The Murderer/​s Of Germaine Junior?
A repost from 2017

I gen­er­al­ly avoid com­ment­ing on cas­es under police inves­ti­ga­tions for sev­er­al rea­sons. (1) You nev­er know how inves­ti­ga­tions will turn out; eat­ing crow is not some­thing I par­tic­u­lar­ly relish.

(2) the police deserve all of the def­er­ence they can get to do an already dif­fi­cult job. With that said, one homi­cide has caught my atten­tion amidst the litany of oth­ers, not for any par­tic­u­lar defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic except that it seems that par­tic­u­lar homi­cide should not be too dif­fi­cult to solve.
Nevertheless, over a year has passed, and still, the deceased’s fam­i­ly has not got­ten clo­sure as the police have not made an arrest.
Now I under­stand that it’s easy to shrug and say, “join the line; there are thou­sands of unsolved mur­ders in Jamaica,” but again, the cir­cum­stances of this case cause me to sec­ond guess my def­er­ence to the police on this one.

The case involved the death of 51-year-old Germaine Junior at a home sup­pos­ed­ly owned by an attor­ney at law, Patrick Bailey, over a year ago.
According to local report­ing, the deceased was stabbed sev­er­al times and shot once in the head.
The deceased man was report­ed to be a nat­u­ral­ized American cit­i­zen and was sup­pos­ed­ly vis­it­ing the Island upon his death. Mister Junior’s fam­i­ly is incensed at the police for good rea­son. The fam­i­ly insists if their loved one were a promi­nent per­son, the case would have been solved long ago. They bemoan the fact that the police have been in con­tact with them only once in the last year since mis­ter Junior’s death.
A cou­ple of points have stuck out like a sore thumb, in this case, leav­ing much room for spec­u­la­tion in the absence of bet­ter report­ing and more infor­ma­tion forth­com­ing from the police.

♦ Patrick Bailey is a promi­nent attor­ney who eas­i­ly fits into the cat­e­go­ry of the prover­bial big man accord­ing to Jamaican culture.
♦ Was mis­ter Junior there as his guest, if not his, then whose?
♦ Who else lives in the home of attor­ney Patrick Bailey if anyone?
♦ Police report­ed that Bailey stum­bled upon the body at about 4:30 am in his own house as he was asleep even though mis­ter Junior was alleged­ly shot.
♦ If the homi­cide hap­pened in a sec­tion of the res­i­dence out­side mis­ter Bailey’s earshot (assum­ing the res­i­dence is large enough that Bailey would not have heard a gun­shot), nev­er­the­less, who gets up and walk around the house at 4:30 am?

♦ How could Bailey sleep through what must have been a strug­gle, much less the sound of a gun­shot in his house?
♦ The state­ment that he stum­bled upon the body at 4:30 am could only have come from Bailey him­self, which gives it lit­tle cred­i­bil­i­ty under the circumstances.
♦ A prop­er coro­ner’s inquest should nail down approx­i­mate­ly what time mis­ter Junior was killed, as against Patrick Bailey’s assertions.
♦ The Police report­ed that there was no forced entry to Bailey’s house. This is absolute­ly crit­i­cal evi­dence as it demon­strates that who­ev­er killed mis­ter Junior had access to the residence.
♦ A knife believed to be the one used to stab mis­ter Junior was alleged­ly found beside his body, was it checked for fingerprints?

♦ If Mister Junior was liv­ing abroad at the time and was only vis­it­ing the Island, why would the police and oth­ers allege that he was a care­tak­er of the residence?
♦ The fact that mis­ter Junior’s body was found with mul­ti­ple stab wounds sug­gests a crime of pas­sion cou­pled with the fact that he was also shot.
♦ Was Patrick Bailey’s per­son checked for marks indi­cat­ing whether he was involved in a strug­gle, or did the police take his word that he slept through a stab­bing and a shoot­ing? If not, why was it not done?
♦ Why was Patrick Bailey ruled med­ical­ly unfit to give state­ments to police by Doctor Jeptah Ford at the time?
♦ According to local media reports after the inci­dent, Patrick Bailey’s doc­tor and client, Jephthah Ford, instruct­ed that he be con­fined to bed after report­ed­ly exhibit­ing signs of being unwell. Ford also said he was not fit to give a state­ment at the time.

♦ Why was Bailey giv­en spe­cial priv­i­leges when even police offi­cers trau­ma­tized by instances of fatal encoun­ters are forced to give a quick account­ing as to what occurred?
♦ Who else had access to the res­i­dence, if any­one, and what was their rela­tion­ship to mis­ter Junior?
♦ Did the police check Patrick Bailey’s house for bloody clothes or clothes recent­ly washed?
♦ Did the Police check out­hous­es (if applic­a­ble) and garbage recep­ta­cles for poten­tial bloody clothes?
♦ If the police deter­mined there was no forced entry to Bailey’s house, how could they sum­mar­i­ly rule him out as a suspect?

I am mak­ing no assump­tions about who killed this man; I am not say­ing any­one, in par­tic­u­lar, is respon­si­ble. I am say­ing that the Police should get up off their back­sides and do the inves­tiga­tive work, and who­ev­er killed mis­ter Junior should be ban­gled up and bun­dled off to jail. Bailey was report­ed to be arro­gant when con­tact­ed by the media assert­ing quote,” any­thing dem seh, mek dem seh it. I have no answer; just pub­lish what­ev­er they say. My back is broad. I have no com­ments, no com­ments, no com­ments! Just sim­ply, you report what­ev­er you want to,”
According to local media report­ing, Assistant Commissioner of Police Élan Powell, who had the crime port­fo­lio at the time of the homi­cide, insist­ed that the police were hid­ing noth­ing and the inves­ti­ga­tions would be done, and the chips would fall where they may.

This state­ment does lit­tle to assuage the anger and dis­trust the fam­i­ly of mis­ter Junior har­bors as it relates to the police’s abil­i­ty to bring the killer of their loved one to justice.
Clearly, what­ev­er the under­ly­ing assump­tions and pre­sump­tions in this case are, a human being was mur­dered, and some­one is respon­si­ble for his unlaw­ful killing. This can­not be a dif­fi­cult case to solve one way or the other.
If the own­er of the premis­es, a well-heeled lawyer, did not kill the vic­tim, some­one else did in his house.
It does not require rock­et sci­ence to fig­ure this case out; if no one broke into the house and there was no one else in the house, then the per­son in the house is the killer, or the per­son in the house knows who killed mis­ter Junior and has aid­ed and abet­ted the coverup of this hor­ren­dous murder.

This case is a trav­es­ty and should not stand; the police can­not be that incom­pe­tent or, worse, pissed-scared that they are unwill­ing to arrest the killer or killers.
Whatever the police know caused them to rule Patrick Bailey out as a sus­pect ought to be made pub­lic or told to the griev­ing family.
Bailey deserves no spe­cial treat­ment or def­er­ence under the law over and above any­one else, which would give the police rea­son not to divulge how they deter­mined he was not a suspect.

In February of 2016, Assistant com­mis­sion­er Powell told a Gleaner Editor’s forum that the police did not wish to name the sus­pects in the mat­ter but sought to assure that the police were active­ly pur­su­ing the case.
Since Powel was in charge of crime at the time, both he and the head of crime must now give a prop­er account­ing to this bereaved fam­i­ly as they are duty-bound to do.
There should be no more mur­ders swept under the rug because some­one knows some­one who knows someone.
This should not be allowed to stand, and the fam­i­ly should not stand for it; they are right in demand­ing answers.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Share this arti­cle and call the offices of Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson and demand answers to these killings. The police are hired to pro­tect and serve; we need answers in the Germaine Junior mur­der case.