BEESTON SPRING, Westmoreland – A St Elizabeth fisherman accused of invading a school yesterday in this rural farming community and chopping a clerical assistant and the acting principal was chased and beaten to death by angry residents.

According to persons who said they witnessed the bizarre incident, 53 year-old Michael Ebanks of Black River entered the Salem Primary and Junior High School at approximately 9:00 am from the rear of the buildings, shortly after the daily morning devotion.

He used a machete, the witnesses said, to attack Sophia Bent, the school’s clerical assistant, with whom he had had a relationship.

The witnesses said that Bent, who was sitting in a classroom at the time of the attack, was held by Evans who inflicted several machete wounds to her head and body in full view of several students and teachers.

“While she was being chopped she ran from the classroom into the yard and him still continue to chop her,” one eyewitness said.

The acting principal, Winsome McFarlane, apparently tried to stop Evans but was also chopped.

Evans, the witnesses said, ran from the school compound when students and teachers went to the assistance of the women. He was chased by the students, who were later joined by residents. However, he did not get far, as he was cornered by the residents, who used stones and sticks to beat him in his head and all over his body. Evans also received several machete wounds to his head. He died on the spot.

His body, clad in a pair of jeans pants, brown shoes and shirtless, remained on the narrow road for more than four hours before it was eventually removed to the morgue.

Last night, Bent was said to be in critical condition at the Black River General Hospital in St Elizabeth. McFarlane, the Observer learnt, was treated and released.

The incident resulted in the suspension of classes at the school, which has a student register of 200, and nine teachers.

Yesterday, senior teacher at the school, Agnes Tennant, told the Observer that the entire school was traumatised.

“The students and the teachers are all shaken up,” Tennant said while trying to dry her teary eyes with a soggy handkerchief. “In my 20 years at the school, it is the first time that I have ever witnessed something like this.”

The students who witnessed the incident, she said, had become afraid to stay at the school. “Some of them are even still crying and I have to be calming them down,” Tennant said.

One grade three student who said she witnessed the incident told the Observer that she was still in shock.

“Up to now I can’t believe what I saw; it’s like a show (movie) I was watching. The man really wicked,” she said, with tears running down her cheeks.

Clyde Evans, the Ministry of Education’s education officer assigned to the school, said yesterday that he was dispatched to the area shortly after the attack to investigate the incident.

He added that a trauma response team from the ministry had already visited the school and would be returning today to offer counselling.

Chairman of the school board, Tyrone Gayle, said he would be intensifying his lobby to have the school compound fenced.

“We have been asking for a perimeter fence for the school for a long time, and so we will be calling on the Ministry of Education again for the funds to put it in place, because we need to make the school more secure,” Gayle said.

In addition, he said, the board would be seeking the assistance of the police to improve security and to reassure the school population about their safety.

Residents told the Observer that up until late last year Bent and Evans lived together in Brompton, St Elizabeth. The union has produced an 11 year-old son.

However, in December she reportedly decided to discontinue the relationship and has since been living with her grandmother in Beeston Spring.

This, the residents said, angered Evans.