Resort robbery suspects still not charged
FOUR men who were taken into custody in connection with last week’s murder/robbery at a Negril resort had still not been charged up to press time yesterday.
“The men are still under interrogation,” Inspector Artel Colley from the Savanna-La-Mar police station, where the men are being held, told the Observer.
He could not say when, or even if, formal charges would be laid against the men — three of whom were picked up following the incident, while the fourth asked a Justice of the Peace to take him in.
The men, who range in age from 20 to 35 years, are all from the Negril area, Colley said.
Some time after 2:00 am last Thursday a group of five men entered the Falcon Cottages in the West End Area of the resort town and attacked the watchman who had to seek treatment at the hospital. The watchman reportedly went back on the job when the robbers struck again, at about 4:00 am.
The result of that second attack was the shooting death of the gardener — Robert Legg, 30 — and the robbery of seven tourists. The culprits made off with some $50,000 in cash and jewellery.
In the wake of the incident, tourism authorities quickly stepped in to stem any possible fallout. They facilitated the removal of the affected guests to alternative lodgings, persuading them to stay in the island and finish their vacations.
Meanwhile Prince and Maud Nunes, the proprietors of Falcon Cottages, have been left to pick up the pieces of their business. The resort, which they said was only recently refurbished at a cost of $1.4 million, lost most of its 20 guests after the attack. The Nunes’ have also had to lay off some staff members as they mourn the death of the gardener who had become more like a member of the family after his 11 years with the resort.
Since the incident, there have been calls, from some sections of the tourist industry, for the police to clamp down on crime. Lawmen stepped up security in the resort town through an increase in the number of policemen and police patrols, Westmoreland superintendent, Cecil Fletcher, said last Friday.
