A strip sign which reads, ‘Big sale on mattresses’, runs across the doors of Bargain Furniture in Mandeville.

But the people in the bustling town centre know no sale is on, for although it’s just past midday the store is padlocked and chained shut.

“What you taking picture for? Look how long dat deh store lock,” one person from a nearby lottery line shouts at the Observer photographer.

In fact, the store has been closed for the most part since last December when its owners, elderly couple Richard and Julia Lyn were abducted and brutally murdered. The almost-month-long investigation into their whereabouts culminated in the discovery of their decaying bodies at a dumpsite in Manchester.

About four months after the Lyns were laid to rest, the Sunday Observer journeyed to their hometown to see what had become of their business and their home and to see just how, if at all, those with whom they were close were carrying on with their lives.

An in-law of the Lyns, Marcia Distant – who has worked next door to the Lyns at another family business, Supreme Feeds – said their absence has created a void on the strip.

“That’s why sometimes we don’t even go outside, because I used to trouble them, you know, especially Mr Lyn. Mrs Lyn now, me used to take care of her, you know, if you see her coming, you make sure that she has a parking space and if he (Mr Lyn) is gone out, we keep an eye…,” Distant said.

Distant said she had opened the store at intervals during the months since the Lyns’ death to sell what was in stock, but that majority of the items had been sold.

She added that the store had been sold to the Moo-Pens – long time family friends of the Lyns and operators of Moo-Pen’s supermarket, which is on the other side of Bargain Furniture.

Those three businesses – Supreme Feeds, Bargain Furniture and Moo Pen’s supermarket – side-by-side, is the way Distant has always remembered it “from Mandeville build”.

But now the three businesses will turn into two when the Moo-Pens expand their supermarket into what was Bargain Furniture, and Mr Lyn’s Justice of the Peace office.

The Lyns’ home

It is 1:30 in the afternoon and the gate and front patio lights are on, but number 14 Battersea Drive is deserted. The afternoon sun and asphalt driveway greedily soak up the water leaking from a nearby garden hose. The lawn at the front and plants seem well kept.

The pastel-painted, approximately 3,000 square-foot house in Ingleside, Manchester, was virtually cleaned out by robbers, who abducted Mr and Mrs Lyn sometime between December 15 and 16, 2006.

Distant said most of furniture that the police had recovered was still at the police station, as the pain of reclaiming them was too much for friends and family.

“What’s the sense you go for them? And do what with them?” she asked.

She said the Lyns’ two stolen vehicles -a Toyota Rav 4 and a Toyota Corolla station wagon- which were recovered by the police, were in the possession of other family members.

But it’s still uncertain as to what will happen to the house.

There are no curtains in some of the widows at the house, but there are blinds in others. Still, others are opened, just wide enough for air to get in. And the grilles, devoid of the yellow tape that draped them in the early days of the police investigation into the couple’s disappearance, remain locked.

The men who have been charged in connection with robbing, abducting and murdering the Lyns – Lennox Swaby and Calvin Powell – are scheduled to return to court on June 27, 2007. They are still without legal representation on the murder charge.

The Mandeville police have said some lawyers have shown interest in representing the men, so perhaps by June the ball could get rolling. But for now, the matter is still at mention stage, the very earliest of court proceedings.

In the meantime, the deceased couple’s two adult children have returned overseas, where they live, with one vowing never to return to Jamaica, Distant said.

“The son (Maurice Lyn) will never return. The daughter (will come), but he’s not coming back,” Distant said.