A 27 year-old man arrested by the police last week in connection with last October’s abduction of two women and the attempted murder of another in Greenwich Town, an inner-city community in the capital, Kingston, is to face another ID parade, this time for other crimes committed in the area.

The man, who police say resides at Greenwich Town, was held at Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport last week, while he was attempting to board a flight to the United States. He was pointed out at a subsequent ID parade, and was later charged with three counts of kidnapping and robbery and was being interrogated about the murder of the women.

The police said that on Thursday, October 20, 2005, at about 9:00 pm, three armed men entered a bar along First Street, Newport West and, after robbing customers, abducted three women from the bar and forced them into a motor car.

Police said it is believed that two of the women, identified as Simone Vernon and Catrina Webb, both 20, were taken to Greenwich Town, raped, shot and dumped into a toxic sewerage canal and left to die. The third woman (name withheld) survived the attack, crawled to safety and reported the crime to the police.

The marine police and the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard carried out searches of the Kingston Harbour into which the sewerage canal empties, but the bodies were not found.

A man who was said to be among the suspects in the abduction, rape and murders, was last month shot and killed by the police after he allegedly opened fire on officers. Police gave his name as Mark “Moonie” Johnson, who resided at ‘No Man’s Land’, a tough inner-city community located off the Spanish Town Road in Kingston.

In the meantime, the police said they were closing in on seven other suspects in connection with the killing of the women.

-whytetk@jamaicaobserver.com