Two weeks ago, five men were brutally murdered in Flower Hill, St James. The disturbing incident hurled the usually quiet farming district into the glare of the media spotlight and has left some residents fearful and some demanding answers. The Sunday Observer examines the ongoing struggle in the community to come to terms with the tragic event and why life in Flower Hill may never be the same.

Edna Miller doesn’t live in the worst community in St James. It is not the greatest either. It’s a down-on-its-luck community with its share of socio-economic problems. There are roads in need of repair, a consistent water shortage problem, unemployed youths and decaying infrastructure.

There are wooden houses, concrete dwellings with water tanks on the roofs and some unfinished buildings. But the people, many of whom are subsistent farmers, work tirelessly to make ends meet.

Welcome to Flower Hill – a district with a population of about 1,000 residents, located in North West, St James, about 15 miles from the bustling tourism mecca of Montego Bay.

Miller, 65, who has been living in Flower Hill since she was a child, describes it as a closely-knit community that has never had a pressing crime problem. Councillor Trevor Parkinson (JLP – Salt Spring Division) agrees.

“Flower Hill is a quiet farming community. The people who are living there are Christian-like. In all my years that I have been living in this parish, I have known Flower Hill to be a humble community with humble people,” Parkinson tells the Sunday Observer at the St James Parish Council.

He readily admits, however, that things are far from perfect, and says that he has been lobbying for improvement to infrastructure and for the construction of a community centre, as the children have nowhere to play. He also bemoans the lack of employment opportunities for young men in the community.

Superintendent of police at the Montego Bay Freeport Station, Warren Clarke, says that while Flower Hill is not a hot spot for crime in the parish, acts of violence – including shootings and armed robberies – have taken place there in the past. He also says that with the recent upsurge of crime in St James, the rustic nature of the district appeals to criminal elements. But the veteran policeman is quick to point out that the people of Flower Hill have generally been peace-loving and respectable citizens.

On Friday, when the Sunday Observer visited the community, the cool breeze, lush vegetation, well-kept yards and the absence of noise created an inviting and relaxing atmosphere. On New Town Lane in particular – where the brutal murders took place – a donkey is tied out in one yard. In another, two small dogs lie asleep under a mango tree. Further down the lane, Miller’s four-year-old grandson runs into a yard being chased by a shy-looking young girl.

Looking around, you would never believe that an incident of such savagery took place here. But it did. On the night of January 24, a group of armed criminals entered the community and fatally shot five men. Miller’s 51-year-old brother, Lloyd Ishmael – affectionately called Don – was among the victims. Huan Cole, 27, Devron Harris, 21, Lestin Morris, 32, and Ransford McFarlane, 39, were the others.

Harris was beheaded by the rampaging gunmen, who left with his head in their possession. His head was later found along King Street, in front of the Burchell Baptist Church in Montego Bay. Leaning against the wooden gate at the entrance to her yard, Miller says the incident has left the entire community in shock and disbelief.

“I’ve been living here since I was five and nothing like this never happen in Flower Hill. I wasn’t born here, but I grew up here and this is the first we experience anything like this. It awful. It awful bad,” she says, slowly shaking her head.

The night that changed everything

Miller, a short and sturdy woman, says the night of Wednesday, January 24 began like any other. She ate dinner with her daughter, her niece and her grandson, and by 8:00 pm, they gathered around the television set to watch the news.

“The first thing mi can remember is that we watchin the CVM news and all of a sudden we hear a heavy sound. Mi daughter say to me ‘Nana, a wah go suh?’ and after that is about dozen gunshot we hear. As me hear it suh, me turn off the light,” she says. “After that, mi guh lie down and mi hear the phone ring and mi ‘fraid fi answer it. When mi answer it, it was a tailor man from down the road calling me. Him ask me if me alright and me say ‘Mi can’t talk to you now because me inna dark’ and him tell me fi just keep calm.”

Miller says the tailor had known at that point that her brother had been killed, but he said nothing. From where she lives, Miller could see her brother’s house. There was a light on, so she assumed he was at home.

She was wrong.

Shortly after, she heard shouts, the sound of running feet and then a long period of silence. Minutes after 9 o’clock, her phone rang again. This time, she got the tragic news. A few blocks up the lane from her house, at a yard described as a regular hang-out spot for men in the community, her brother’s bullet-riddled body lay lifeless.

Ishmael (a mason), Harris (a farmer), McFarlane (also a farmer) and Morris (a construction worker) were killed inside the unfinished building at the premises while Cole, who residents say was of unsound mind, was killed outside the yard. It was reported that the men were boiling a pot of porridge when the criminals attacked.

Miller says she is finding it hard to cope with the loss of her youngest brother, who she describes as a humble and hard-working man who got along with everyone in the community.

“Mi couldn’t believe. Mi never want to believe because Don is a man weh nuh guh nowhere. Him only go to work and come in,” she says. “To me, that night it look like him just leave the house to run go buy the weed and come back because him door leave wide open. The key and everything was there,” she says, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “Him was mi backbone. Is me raise him ih nuh. Don was good man. Woah, Don gone.” At this point, she can no longer hold back the tears.

Three women remember their loved ones

Ask Annette Rhoden about her son, Devron Harris, and she will immediately tell you that, despite his good qualities, he was not the perfect son. Growing up, he displayed signs of delinquency. But she is quick to point out that during the past few years, he decided to turn his life around by occupying his time with work.

He took on several different jobs, including farming and welding. Rhoden says things were going well until that night when the gunshots rang out. She was not prepared to hear that her eldest child and “one bwoy pickney” was killed in the attack, or worse, that he was beheaded.

“Lawd, it rough. Mi nuh know what to tell you seh.

Mi don’t know why this happen,” she says. To her knowledge, her son was not involved in any activity that merited such a brutal end. “Him go work everyday. Him do all kinds of work. Before him dead, him was working at a construction site and him do him likkle farming. Mi can’t believe him dead like this. Mi just can’t believe it.”

Rhoden says what she will miss most about her son is his jovial spirit and seeing him play with his younger sister, Ann-Marie.

“Him always listening to him music and him always making him sister laugh,” says Rhoden.

Like Rhoden, Shernette Clarke (McFarlane’s cousin) is finding it extremely difficult to accept the fact that she will never see her relative again. She says his mother, Delores Clarke, is devastated.

“We are not coping very well. He was such a loving person. If someone was hungry they could depend on him for a plate of food and some comforting words. He wasn’t a bad person at all. But they always take the good ones,” says Clarke, a middle-aged woman of medium build.

“We are all trying to be strong, but deep down we are dying. There is not a day that passes that we don’t cry and talk about him. It’s hard to get over it. We are trying to put the funeral programme together and it’s the hardest thing to sit down and do.”

One look at the face of McFarlane’s sister, Andrea, and you know she has been crying steadily recently. Her face bears the mark of deep grief. She remembers her brother as a peace-loving Rastafarian and father of two whose life was all about farming.

“He was an understanding man. You could sit down and talk to him. There are so many things to say about him, but words can’t express it all. To go to his funeral is going to be hard for me, but I have to go,” she says in a quiet, unrushed tone. “He was a very hardworking farmer. Three times a day you will see him go down to his farm [in Heartfield] and come back up. He also used to take care of an elderly gentleman who passed off.

“Whenever I go down to his farm I have to cry because to know that he was a young man and to see the level of cultivation of his farm, it just break my heart. His farm is very big. Down there, you find coconut, carrot, beetroot, sweet pepper, gungo, bean, banana, cane, cabbage and plantain. Him plant everything and he put his all into it,” she says.

The three women agree that one of the hardest parts of their daily routines now is to walk pass the yard where their loved ones were murdered. They say, too, that while no one has fled the community since the bloody attack, the residents of New Town Avenue are terrified.

A climate of fear

For as long as there have been murders in Jamaica, family members of victims have often feared becoming targets. In Flower Hill, there is no exception. But it is not just the relatives of the deceased who are fearful, it is the entire community. Flower Hill is one big family.

“To be honest, it’s not a bad community. I don’t know what has gone wrong nowadays,” Clarke remarks. “You could leave your house open and go out and come back, but after what happened, nobody not taking any chances. Everything change.

“If I go downtown and evening catch me on the road, I am not coming up here. I prefer to find somewhere on the road and sleep.”

Miller says since the killings took place, whenever evening approaches, Flower Hill becomes a ghost town.

“Everybody ‘fraid. If you think you bad come down here after 6 o’clock. You won’t see nobody on the road or in the lanes. Not even ants. I don’t even want to keep a nine-night fi Don. Mi nervous.”

Since the murders, Rhoden says she has become a “fugitive”, as her children refuse to sleep in the house.

“Ah road mi deh pon. Di pickney dem ‘fraid so we don’t sleep in the house. We only come up here in the day and then leave in the evening,” she says.

Superintendent Clarke describes the situation as unfortunate and says that the residents are clearly traumatised.

“The community, quite naturally, would have been traumatised since the incident, but we are hoping that on a psychological level things will return to normal as soon as possible,” says Clarke. “The fact is that areas like Flower Hill have become a haunt for criminal elements and gangs from within St James, and because of its remote position in the parish, we have had problems getting on top of the problem.”

Crime in St James

Last year, St James had a record 178 murders. So far this year, there have been 27 reported murders in the parish – an increase of 37 per cent when compared with the same period last year. Clarke believes the increase in crime in the parish has resulted from a decline in moral standards, among other things.

“There has been social decadence and decay in the parish, and as time passes, it worsens. There is an absence of social fundamentals and a lack of proper infrastructure being aggravated by a developing population. When people are living in this kind of reality, the environment clearly produces criminals,” Clarke argues. “I would compare the situation to a woman who sweeps the street and as she sweeps, someone comes and messes it up again. It is clear that if we don’t deal with the problem, merely dealing with the symptoms is not going to work.”

Meanwhile, without going into details, Clarke says the investigation into the Flower Hill murders is progressing steadily.

“There are several leads that are being pursued, but my warning to the criminals would be to hand themselves over because we are determined to get them,” he says. “They are going to come to justice, and there is evidence that we are determined to bring them to justice. We would rather they just turn themselves in. We don’t want anymore spectacles like what has happened in the past.”

At the same time, Clarke says he wants to assure the residents of Flower Hill that the police will be paying some attention to that area.

“Because it is all of 15 miles away [from the town centre], there are ways that we have considered to treat that area,” says Clarke. “There are time and space challenges, but one of our main objectives is to reassure residents that they are safe – with the hope that the fear of crime will be reduced soon.”

The superintendent adds that despite the limitations the police force in St James face, they are committed to the task ahead.

The way forward

No one knows how long the pall of gloom will continue to hang over Flower Hill. But for the residents, one thing is certain – one night has changed life as they know it. And as the bereaved relatives await autopsy reports and make funeral arrangements, they are hoping that the apprehension of the criminals responsible for the bloody slaughter, will bring them some amount of comfort as they try to move forward with their lives.

They are also hoping that the financial support they have been promised by their member of parliament, Horace Chang, (and other sources) to help with the funeral expenses, will be forthcoming. In the meantime, Councillor Parkinson says mobile phone provider Digicel has promised to fund the construction of a basic school in Flower Hill, and he hopes that this venture will provide work for some of the young men in the community.