Suicide is suspected in the death yesterday morning of one Brian Lee, at his home on East Avenue in Kingston. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Lee (who happens to be the son of Brasco Lee, a former Jamaica Labour Party member of Parliament and junior minister for agriculture) was an investor in the Olint investment scheme, and that he took his life because he lost a hefty sum when the investment scheme crashed in 2008.
According to the police, Lee was found dead at his home at about 6:45 a.m. His neighbours reported that they had not seen him since Sunday, and thus they forced open his door and found his body. His licensed 9mm pistol was reportedly found beside his body, which had a single gunshot wound to the head.
Sick and tired of robbers on bicycles who’ve been a menace to the community for some time now, on Thursday night (April 13), residents from the 5 East section of Greater Portmore in St. Catherine took things into their own hands, and dished out a serving of jungle justice to several armed men. One of the men was killed, while the others managed to escape.
According to reports, at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Thursday night, three men armed with guns and knives robbed several persons in the community. An alarm was made, and the residents reportedly attacked the men. One of the robbers was held, chopped and stabbed. He later died at the Spanish Town hospital. He is still unidentified at this time.
The Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) issued a warning yesterday, warning members of the public – particularly retailers and hoteliers – to be on the alert when purchasing ackees in brine (canned ackee).
The advisory was issued in wake of the disappearance earlier this week, of 40 cases of processed ackee that are not fit for consumption. The missing canned ackees were packaged by Santa Cruz Processors in Braes River, St. Elizabeth, which failed a recent inspection by the BSJ. The company was found to be operating in violation of the Processed Foods Act. According to the BSJ, they confiscated all the ackee that was found at the factory during an inspection, and all were stickered with a notice of detention. The canned ackees were however gone by the time BSJ officers returned to take them away.
According to the BSJ warning, “These products are not coded or tested, and the Bureau of Standards Jamaica cannot guarantee their wholesomeness …. The company is, therefore, not authorised to process canned ackees in brine for distribution or sale, and its products are unsafe for consumption and should not be traded.”
Santa Cruz Processors has reportedly been operating illegally for several months, and its principals are said to be in hiding at this time.
Earlier this morning, along the lower section of Waltham Park Road in Kingston, brazen gunmen set fire to items which were then used to block the road and fired shots in the air, as they protested Tuesday’s killing (by the police) of an alleged fellow gunman, who was identified only by the alias ‘Cup Head’. According to reports, the dead man was a gang leader in the nearby Fitzgerald Lane community and was a known gunman who was wanted for several crimes, including murder.
Scores of motorists and pedestrians were reportedly forced to flee the vicinity as his cronies lit fires and fired shots in protest. Police from the Hunts Bay Police Station were greeted with gunshots as they arrived on the scene, but the gunmen reportedly retreated soon after.
A man who was caught cutting down trees on a forest reserve without a permit, was ordered in court on Monday (May 10), to replant and replace the trees that he had cut down before he is sentenced.
The court heard that representatives from the Forestry Department were patrolling lands that it manages in the Mount Horeb area of Rural St. Andrew, and noticed lumber – believed to be Caribbean pine – stacked beside a house in the vicinity where illegal logging was reported to have occurred. The Island Special Constabulary Force Agro and Environmental Enforcement Unit and forestry officers went on the scene, where they saw two trees had been recently cut. 69 pieces of Caribbean pine were also observed stacked beside two houses nearby. As a result of the find, Wayne Nelson of Mount Horeb was arrested and charged under Section 31 of the Forest Act, 1996.
Nelson pleaded guilty to the charge of removing trees on a forest reserve without a permit, and the judge ordered that he replace the trees he had cut down before he is sentenced. Nelson is to replant at least two trees under the supervision of the Forestry Department before the next mention date which is on Thursday, May 27. He could be fined up to $200,000 and/or sentenced to two years’ imprisonment at hard labour for the offence.
Just last night, nine-year-old Moesha Campbell, a student of the St Peter Claver Primary School, became the 22nd child to be murdered in Jamaica for the year to date. She died in hospital last night, after doctors spent more than three hours trying to save her life.
According to reports, Moesha and other children were playing in a yard on Wavell Avenue off Waltham Park Road in Kingston when gunshots were heard. She was discovered with a bullet wound to the head.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that she was killed during a crossfire after several men had an altercation nearby.
29 year old Fitzroy ‘Te Te’ Daley, an ex-convict who is reportedly of unsound mind, was arrested and charged with murder yesterday, after he allegedly used a stick to club his sister to death during a dispute over ownership of a houses that had belonged to their late father. The deceased has been identified as 35 year old Annette Daley Peralto of Grange Hill in Westmoreland.
According to reports, at approximately 11:30 a.m. yesterday, Daley became enraged after family members agreed that one of his father’s two houses was to be passed on to his bigger sister. Although he had already occupied one of his father’s houses, Daley reportedly expressed that he (instead of his sister) should also be given the newer structure.
He then reportedly grabbed a stick, and used it to bash the back of his sister’s neck. She collapsed, and before she could be assisted, Daley reportedly used the stick to hit her repeatedly.
An employee of the RIU hotel in St. Ann was reportedly arrested by the St. Ann’s Bay Police yesterday, after he allegedly wounded a businessman during an altercation at the hotel.
According to reports, there was an altercation between a guest and a male employee of the hotel, when the businessman intervened and was wounded. The employee was charged with wounding with intent, and remanded in custody.
Jamaica’s love affair with murder, death and mayhem continued yesterday, as four persons (three men and a woman) were savagely murdered in the ‘Backlands’ community of Spanish Town early yesterday morning. The four have been identified as 34-year-old David ‘Te Te’ Williams, 29 year old Clayton Simpson, 45-year-old Garnett Greg and Sandra Wint, a 42-year-old mother of eight.
According to police reports, at approximately 5:30 a.m. yesterday, a group of men invaded the community, and dragged Williams and Wint from their house. The men then reportedly ambushed Simpson and Greg, who were on their way to work. All four were taken into the bushes where they were gagged and their throats slashed. They were also stabbed.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that the victims, who all lived close to the section of the community near several trees and a river, were attacked by men from a neighbouring community, and that the attacks may have been linked to an ongoing feud in the March Pen Road area.
Residents have described the victims of yesterday’s attack as hard-working and peaceful.
The Rotary Race To Literacy Book Drive Project, a service project of the 36th Annual Rotary District 7020 Conference to be held in Kingston, Jamaica, has broken the world record for most books donated to charity in seven days.
Inspired by the 2008 Rotary International Convention in LA, where Rotarians set the record in the Guinness Book of World Records having 242,624 books donated over a seven day period, the Rotary Clubs of Jamaica set about their own book drive beginning on May 1, and as of May 4 (4 days into the seven day campaign), 627,248 books had been donated. Significantly the world record was actually broken on the very first day, when 270,456 books were donated.
The collected books will be donated to the people of Jamaica and Haiti. In Jamaica, the primary recipient will be the Jamaica Library Service with its island-wide network of branch, school and mobile libraries. The primary recipient in Haiti will be determined by Rotary at an appropriate time. More information is available at rotaryracetoliteracy.org
