What Are The Police Afraid Of Why They Haven’t Arrested The Murderer/​s Of Germaine Junior

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.