SANDRA Mohammed has not had a good night’s sleep since last February. Every time she goes to bed, she sees images of her sister’s, nieces’ and nephews’ lifeless bodies lying on a beach in St Thomas – their throats slashed.

“As soon as a I close my eyes, everything starts coming back,” Mohammed said, exhaling heavily as she sifts through the painful memories deciding which ones to share and which ones to keep tucked away in the dark recesses of her mind.

More than anything else, Mohammed wants closure. She wants a speedy trial and she wants justice for her murdered relatives.

People in Duhaney Pen, St Thomas, still talk about the gruesome Sunday, February 26, 2006 murders that continue to haunt Mohammed’s sleep.

The bodies of Sandra Mohammed’s niece, Farika Martin McCool and her children, eight-year-old Sean Chin and three-year-old Lloyd McCool, were found on the Blue Mahoe Beach in the parish early that Sunday morning – their throats slashed. A third child’s body, that of Sandra’s Mohammed’s nephew, nine-year-old Jessie Ogilvie, was also found on the beach, his throat slashed. Martin McCool also had stab wounds to her back.

But the trauma did not end there. Three hours later, the body of little Jessie Ogilvie’s mother, Terry Ann Mohammed (Sandra Mohammed’s sister), was found 12 miles away in an area called Needham Pen. Her body was badly burnt. Her throat, too, was slashed.

They had all been savagely murdered.

That was Sunday. Still, four days later, on Thursday, a sixth body, that of six-year-old Jhaid McCool, who had been missing since the weekend, was found covered by board in a shallow grave in St Mary. She had been strangled to death.

Police reported that the suspect in the murders, Michael McLean, led them to the young girl’s body. McLean, who has been in custody for more than a year, was Terry Ann Mohammed’s boyfriend.

“From the very first time she showed me him, I never liked him,” Sandra Mohammed said of McLean. She said while she and McLean had limited association, something about him was off-putting.

“I don’t know if she loved him, but she was afraid of him, I know,” Sandra Mohammed said.

The police say there are numerous stories surrounding Mohammed’s and McLean’s relationship, some of which they cannot confirm.

“It came to us that he was a little more than abusive,” Acting Deputy Superintendent of Police Carlos Bell told the Sunday Observer.

Bell, who is in charge of crime for St Thomas and is the investigating officer in the case, said the police had learnt that on one occasion, McLean took Terry Ann to the police station after he had allegedly beaten her badly, and forced her to report that she had been raped.

“There are a lot of things,” Bell said, adding that the police could

not divulge some

sensitive case information or compromise the upcoming trial.

Novelette Ellis, who said she and Terry Ann were good friends, said she had warned Terry Ann about McLean from the very first day she

met him.

“The day when she came and she said, ‘Mi find a boyfriend,’ mi say ‘Yeah’, and he came and when he left, I say, ‘Don’t talk to him,'” Ellis said. Throughout the course of Terry Ann’s and McLean’s two-year relationship, Ellis alleged that McLean would beat her repeatedly.

“Sometimes she talk, sometimes she hide it,” Ellis said, clearly still torn up about her friend’s murder and the circumstances leading up to it.

“People talk bout it all di time,” Ellis said.

Terry Ann’s father, George Mohammed, 95, whom everybody calls Ba’ia Lal, recalled that McLean spent plenty of time with the family.

“Mi know di bwoy. Den him nuh sleep inna room deh wid mi dawta,” Ba’ia Lal told the Observer recently, from his living room.

Meanwhile, Sandra Mohammed is keeping up with the court case, which has been at a virtual standstill for about a year, until two weeks ago. She says going to court as often as she can has just been “dreadful”.

McLean, who is currently serving a three-year sentence for an unrelated crime, appeared in court on April 5, when the matter was transferred from the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court to the Supreme Court.

The court had been awaiting outstanding forensic reports on the murders until April 2 when those reports were tabled. In court, McLean, a tall, bulky fellow who wore matching grey pinstriped pants and shirt, looked unremarkable.

Sandra Mohammed is anxious for the trial to get under way, but admits that she is “not really looking forward to it, because there are things I don’t want to hear”.

“I feel deeply that justice is going to be served. I just want to hear what he has to say- his side of the story,” she added.

She said her father also wants to go to the trial. But at 95 years old, he is too weak.

In the meantime, however, Ba’ia Lal just misses his loved ones. Even though he eagerly shares stories of a huge funeral procession for the six, and how “(Opposition Leader Golding) Bruce and (Prime Minister Simpson Miller) Portia “come look fi mi,” there’s no doubting the depth of his pain.

“Sometimes mi (still) cry,” Ba’ia Lal said, his eyes welling up. Within seconds the tears came rolling down his

taut face.