Two weekend deaths reported, missing man found dead
Thirty-three-year-old Mark Ricketts, a Jamaican-born resident of London, succumbed to injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident in Montego Bay on Saturday night.
Ricketts, who hails from Derrymore Road in Kingston, was travelling with Petulia Barclay, when their Mitsubishi motor car collided with a Toyota Sprinter station wagon occupied by Dwight Waite and Trudy-Ann Murray both from St James.
Information provided by the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) is that the vehicles, registered 8142EC and 7914EE respectively, were travelling in opposite directions along the Howard Cooke Boulevard when, on reaching the traffic lights at Catherine Hall, they crashed into each other leaving all four passengers with serious injuries.
They were taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where Ricketts was pronounced dead and the others admitted in serious condition.
Another visitor to the island, 65-year-old Timothy Loranger of Philadelphia in the United States died Saturday night after a snorkeling outing went bad and his body was found afloat in Negril, Westmoreland.
The police report that the man had gone out to sea with a friend who, upon returning to shore, discovered that Loranger was not with him and raised an alarm. Investigators from the Negril police are awaiting the results of a post mortem to determine the cause of death.
The weekend’s death toll increased further, as in St James, human remains were on Friday discovered in the district of Blue Hole.
The St James police say they believe it to be the body of 45-year-old Harold Anderson who had been missing for a month. They say that at about 6:00 pm on Friday, Anderson’s brother decided to conduct a physical search of the Blue Hole area for the missing man when he stumbled across skeletal remains on a dirt road in the area. He called the police who later discovered articles of clothing belonging to Anderson at the site.
No motive has yet been identified for the killing, neither has any suspects, but the St James police say they are investigating.
In the parish of Manchester, a licensed firearm – reportedly missing since December 22 – was recovered by a resident and handed over to the Christiana police on Friday.
The gun, a Walter P99 semi-automatic pistol bearing the serial number FAD 1311, was saved from the hands of criminals and brings to 10, the number of guns taken off the streets of Manchester since January 1, 2006.
