Mi nah no more Nana fi carry mi go school’ were the repeated cries of the youngest child left behind by Hermalyn Bell, residents of the usually quiet community of Duxes in Point Hill, St Catherine, informed the Jamaica Observer.
The normally serene and peaceful community was plunged into mourning on Wednesday as neighbours, relatives and young children of the 45-year-old woman watched in horror as her attacker, a man she was said to be intimately involved with, chopped her to death in the yard she occupied with her children.
“Nana”, as Bell was affectionately known, was in the process of getting ready to go to a cadet meeting for her 12-year-old son when she was pounced upon. One neighbour told the Sunday Observer that if one should go around the community and ask what happened, the children would say “Prickle kill Nana.”
“Prickle” is the name of her attacker, residents said, even though the police have not released his identity.
Bell, who was described as a nice and jovial person by residents, was not formally employed, but did everything she could find to do in order to survive. “She mostly do har days work, pick chicken, help out here and there to make a living,” one resident said.
One male resident said that Bell did not have any children with her attacker and insisted that justice must be served. “Him always a chop up man, but mi never know him wouda chop up woman too. Mi no rate weh him do as a man. Regardless a wah gwaan, him couda go about it a neda way. Worse him and har no deh like that. A no him woman — him not even get no pikney wid har,“ the man said.
“Justice fi done, him nuffi see the light of day again,” chimed in another resident, who described the crime as “brutal”. “It was terrible, terrible. Brutal, not even mi son no waa eat no food.
“Every weh you go people a mourn, from big to little. Is not a bad woman, she is a good likkle woman. She was very helpful — anybody ask har fi help, she help them. A mus’ busy she well busy or sick if she cyan dweet,” the male resident ended.
When the Sunday Observer spoke to one of the older sons of the deceased, 18-year-old Ramone Bedward, he tried his best to hold back tears as he sighed and looked into space for about a minute, trying to express how he felt about the gruesome murder of his mother.
“She was a good mother, she hardly go road, she no lef’ yard,” Bedward lamented.
One of his older sisters, Yanique Bedward, 23, said that she witnessed the attack and tried to help her mother, but was threatened with the machete used in the murder. She had bruises on her hands and her knees that she sustained after falling with her four-month-old baby in her hand.
The siblings told the Sunday Observer that nobody has been to the house since the gruesome murder and shared that the younger children (five, nine, 12 and 15 years old) were currently staying with their father who lives up the road from them.
Ramone declined to visit the scene of the crime, saying he did not want to be reminded of the gruesome images of his mother’s lifeless body. “Mi a go memba if mi go up there, mi a go see har,” he whispered.
When the Sunday Observer visited the scene there were trails and splashes of blood all over the yard and in the one-room dwelling …telltale signs of the brutal murder that unfolded in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday.
Residents who said they witnessed the incident told the Sunday Observer that Bell’s attacker chopped her in the head first, and as she tried to run to the neighbouring house where her daughter resides, he dragged her back across the yard while inflicting more chops to her body, rendering her unconscious.
Residents and relatives said they were afraid to approach because it was like he was possessed.
“Him wait until nobody big no deh inna the yard, him wait till a bare pikney deh ya,” one resident told the Sunday Observer.
Residents disclosed that the attacker allegedly got a call a day before when he shouted: “Mi nuh do the crime yet, mi about fi do it.” They added that the murder was planned because for some time he was talking about “creating the biggest crime scene in Jamaica”.
“Mi hear him seh him a go create the biggest crime scene inna Duxes, but nobody never know say a this him did a talk bout. Him say him have six people pon him list,” one resident said, adding that: “Can you imagine what him did a go do to the other five people if a so him do har?”
“Him create one a di biggest crime scene fi true because nothing like this never happen a Duxes yet,” chimed in a relative of the deceased.
“Not even meat mi no see man chop up so, and you know if yu chop up meat yu chop it wid care. The man deal wid har wicked star,” another relative lamented.
But residents say the attacker, who was a farmer, was a known troublemaker and nobody in the community really liked him.
Bedward disclosed that her mother and her attacker were not together. She said that her mother started having intimate relations with her attacker after she started washing clothes for him, after which she began cooking for him, from which point he started to visit her. However, she reiterated that her mother, time and time again, told him that she does not want a relationship with him “because him controlling and demanding”.
“A whole heap a nights she run him and tell him fi gwaan home and him sit down a the doorway a watch har.
“Sometimes him hide up a da likkle shed pon da hill deh and watch har,” Bedward said, pointing to the spot a few metres from the house.
“A whole heap a time dem argue and nothing neva happen, so wi never expect this,” said Bedward.
“All a wi fearful fi wi life”, added another resident. “Mighty God! man like dat no fi walk back pon road, you mad man?” she bemoaned.
“Imagine. Oh Jesus. Him mash up wi Christmas. It’s a bloody Christmas; him mess wi up. The likkle baby see everything and she cry wicked. She wouldn’t stop,” she moaned.
Relatives argued that the accused killer had apparently planned the whole thing because he sold his lands where he grew peppers, pineapples and other crops for a living.
They added that he left a bag at the crime scene that contained all of his important documents, such as his birth certificate, tax registration number, passport and bank cards, among other things. The bag was confiscated by the police, they said.
When asked what will happen to the young children and where will they live in light of them avoiding the house they once inheritated, residents said that their father would take care of them.
However, Bell was scheduled to get a house through Food For the Poor at that same location, residents said.
One resident added that the children will just have to make the best of it.
Authorities from the Child Development Agency have since arranged counselling for the two children who witnessed the ghastly killing.