IN the 18th century, a rebellious slave by the name of Jack Mansong or ‘Three Finger Jack’ fled the plantation and became a menace to the British slave masters who branded him a bandit and put up a reward of £300 on his head.

After an unsuccessful attempt at killing a slave trader, Mansong was captured, jailed, and sentenced to death.

But on the night before his execution he escaped and kidnapped the slave trader and held him captive in a cave in the hills of St Thomas.

Mansong was killed by the Maroon leader named Quashie who tracked him down and shot him.

Three Finger Jack was the first wanted man in Jamaica and since his death over 200 years ago, hundreds of criminals have made Jamaica’s most wanted list.

It was not so easy to define who the most infamous of the criminals were.

Deputy Superintendent Delroy Hewitt, head of operations at the Kingston West police division, who has over 30 years of policing experience, posited that the most dangerous man to have ever made the police wanted list was ‘Copper’.

The National Intelligence Bureau chief Albert Edwards agrees, saying Copper would be his best bet.

Dennis ‘Copper’ Barth was the leader of the East Kingston-based ‘Hot Steppers’ gang which staged a number of successful bank robberies in the latter half of the 1970s.

Police say Copper was a cold-blooded killer who mastered the art of disguise.

He was shot and injured by police during a shoot-out in West Kingston. Several rounds of ammunition were taken from him but Copper managed to escape custody soon after.

In May 1978, Copper was killed by police after he and his cronies failed in their bid to rob the Caymanas Park race track in St Catherine. A $5,000 bounty was on his head at the time of his death.

According to Hewitt, Copper was not afraid to challenge the police in a shoot-out.

“I was a young policeman at the time. Copper always took on the police. There were many clashes. I was among the police patrol that captured him in Tivoli Gardens,” Hewitt said.

More than a decade after Copper’s demise, Wayne ‘Sandokan’ Smith, became public enemy number one after he masterminded and executed a brazen evening attack on the Olympic Gardens police station.

Three policemen were shot and killed during the attack and weapons and ammunition were stolen from the station armoury.

The incident caused national concern and police and soldiers launched a manhunt for Smith in Waterhouse, Tower Hill and other areas of Kingston where the gangster was believed to frequent.

Despite constant curfews and raids to nab the cop killer, police never got their hands on Sandokan as he was cut down by gunmen in Tower Hill in 1989.

The same year Sandokan was killed, another dangerous criminal arose from the criminal underworld. His name was Nathaniel ‘Natty’ Morgan, the leader of a ruthless gang which used as its base the Riverton City dump.

Morgan was wanted by cops for murder, shooting with intent, car-jacking and other crimes.

Police say Morgan and his gang invaded a wake in Seaview Gardens which was being held for one of his victims and executed at least six men who were in attendance.

The gangster escaped from the gun court in 1990 and remained at large until he was cut down in a hail of police bullets after the cops had cornered the gang in Lakes Pen, St Catherine, eight months after.

According to head of crime in the South St Andrew police division, Deputy Superintendent Oswald Eyre, Sandokan and Natty Morgan were two of the most dangerous criminals.

“These gunmen nowadays are community criminals who sneak up on innocent people, but Sandokan and Natty Morgan were national criminals who went all over the island and robbed and killed. Many times they managed to escape police dragnets,” Eyre said.

Deputy Superintendent Hugh Bish of the Denham Town Police agrees with his colleagues that Copper, Sandokan and Natty Morgan were three of the most dangerous criminals in Jamaican history.

“There is a long chronicle of dangerous wanted men over the years and it would be really hard to say which one was the most infamous. There was Copper, Sandokan, Natty Morgan and Joel Andem. But the list is long, as some dangerous criminals have been produced by this country,” Bish said.

Joel Andem had been at the top of the most wanted list for four years before he was captured in the rustic district of Clarksonville.

Andem has been charged with two murders, conspiracy to murder, 10 counts of shooting with intent, 12 counts of illegal possession of a firearm, kidnapping and robbery with aggravation.

Even though the names of Copper, Natty Morgan, Sandokan and more recently Joel Andem are easily recalled by seasoned cops, the list of dangerous criminals is long.

Anthony ‘Starkey’ Tingle was the most wanted man in 1980 and 1981. Tingle was the leader of an Arnett Gardens-based gang and was killed in a house in Jones Town during an alleged gun battle with police in 1981.

Conrad Levy, better known as the ‘Phantom Killer’, was suspected of killing close to a dozen people in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He acted alone and dressed in women’s dresses and wigs before stalking and killing bad men and others who were terrorising his east Kingston community.

He was caught by the police in 1991 and was sentenced to death, had his sentence reduced to life, but escaped prison 11 years after.

Levy was killed on Christmas morning 2002 during a shoot-out with members of the now defunct Crime Management Unit, which was led by Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams.

Winston McCarty, also called ‘John Crow” whose stomping ground was the hills of west rural St Andrew, was the leader of the John Crow gang who the police had blamed for a number of murders, shootings and robberies.

John Crow was killed by police after he was seen firing a gun salute at a dance along the Essex Hall main road in St Andrew in 1996.

He was challenged by a member of a police party who were travelling in an unmarked Toyota Hiace minibus and lost the ensuing gunfight. A Glock 19 pistol was taken from his body, police say.

walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com