Friday, December 28. Lurline Johnson had just started feeling a little better, having received a cheque for $150,000 from Quick Cash Money Transfer to help bury her mother, sister and niece who had all perished in a fire at their home in Kilmarnock, St Elizabeth on December 11.

Quick Cash CEO Kenarthur Mitchell had read the story of the tragedy in the December 12 edition of the Daily Observer and had recognised the name of one of the victims, Verona Johnson, as well as Lurline, who lives in Old Harbour, as two of his longtime customers. He got in touch with the family and on Friday made the contribution towards today's funeral.

Lurline Johnson accepts a cheque for $150,000 from president and CEO of Quick Cash money transfer, Kenarthur Mitchell last Friday, while Glenroy Henry, senior vice president of the company, looks on. Quick Cash donated the money to Johnson to help her meet funeral expenses for her mother, sister and niece who all died in a fire in St Elizabeth on December 11. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

"I feel so good about it, I cannot express how much I really appreciate it," said Lurline after accepting the contribution.
Hours later, however, her world came crashing down again with news of another death that plunged her family deeper into mourning.

Gunmen had shot dead one of her seven children - 27-year-old Clive Campbell, also known as Beenie Man - in Old Harbour, St Catherine Friday night.

"Jesus have mercy! Them just kill me son last night," the badly shaken Lurline wailed yesterday.

She alleged that her son, who lived in a section of the community referred to as School Lane, was murdered in reprisal for the recent killing of two men from another section of the neighbourhood called Highway.

"He was on the street coming from town in a little area called Highway," she cried. "Two men were killed in School Lane and nobody know who killed them. Beenie lives in the School Lane area and they say anyone they catch from that side they are going to kill them."

The Old Harbour Police confirmed the killing.

The news hit her like a ton of bricks, as it came while she and other members of her family were organising today's funeral for Verona, who was pregnant when she died; their mother, Francella Johnson, 80; and Lurline and Verona's niece, Britannia Robinson, a 10-year-old Grade Six student at Kilmarnock Primary School.

Just over two weeks ago, as the early morning fire engulfed their three-bedroom house, Verona, who had returned home from the Cayman Islands hours before, took her eight-year-old son, Deneil Stewart, and another of her sisters, Angella Johnson, to safety. She went back into the house to try and rescue her mom and niece, but got trapped.

One unit from the Black River Fire Station managed to put out the blaze, but not before everything was destroyed.

The fire, which police theorised may have been sparked by an electrical short circuit, devastated Lurline. "I can't explain because I never expected these things to happen to my mother in her old age," she told the Observer the morning after the deadly blaze.

After today's funeral, Lurline will be focusing her attentions on her son's burial.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World