DI HEATHEN DEM NUH PARTIAL

‘Wickedness tun up!’
Falmouth mourns brutal murder of 72-year-old businesswoman

Most people in this parish knew Hyacinthia Wright as “a nice woman”.So when news spread Wednesday that she was brutally killed people were in shock.

“Mi can’t believe it,” said one woman standing among a crowd yesterday outside the building at 2 Trelawny Street, Falmouth, where the 72-year-old widow of the town’s former mayor, Joseph Wright, operated a hardware and craft retail business.

“Wickedness tun up,” said a man.

The slain woman’s son, Claude Hines, was too overcome with grief to speak to the media. His wife, Fay, who said Wright was also called “Miss Little”, told the Jamaica Observer that earlier this year the businesswoman spent over a week in hospital after an unknown assailant used an object to inflict a blow to her head in her home town.

No one was arrested in connection with that attack.

Wright’s body was found about 4:30 pm inside her business place, reportedly by a deaf mute who called residents who, in turn, summoned the police.

Upon their arrival, the police saw the popular Falmouth woman sprawled on the floor of the shop with a sharp instrument embedded in her neck.
Yesterday, Superintendent Clive Blair, head of the Trelawny Police Division, told the Observer that they are “following several leads”.

The grisly murder attracted a massive gathering in front of the building up to minutes after 10:00 pm when the body was removed.

“Miss Little a one friendly person. She will just see you and don’t know you and stop to talk to you,” Fay told the Observer yesterday.

“Bwoy, mi a tell you, the whole a wi break right down, right down. We have to be just trying to cope right now. Wi just weak. Wi don’t even eat from morning. Claude only drink a cup of tea,” the teary-eyed daughter-in-law said .

“We are just cleaning up the place now because the place was messy with pure blood. So we cleaning up and throwing away what to throw away,” she said, adding that her husband had no intentions of running the shop.

“Wi just going forget about it, because if wi come here every day wi just going to remember everything, so it don’t make sense,” she bemoaned.

Yesterday, Falmouth mayor, Councillor Colin Gager, who extended condolence to the bereaved family, called on the police to move swiftly to bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.

He said that a pattern is developing now of senior citizens being the target of violence in Falmouth.

He was making obvious reference to the hacking to death of 71-year-old pensioner Joycelyn Gomez near to Falmouth Post Office last year.

Damore Williams, 25, of a Falmouth, address, has been charged with that murder.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Blair promised that no stone will be left unturned in their investigation to nab Wright’s killer.

In the meantime, the Falmouth mayor is calling upon National Security Minister, Robert Montague to increase the number of police and service vehicles in Trelawny, especially because the parish is a budding tourist resort.

Wright’s husband died in October 2013, a day after he was recognised by the Trelawny Parish Council for his 22 years of service in politics. He was one of the country’s longest serving mayors.