Montego Bay, St James-

“Woi woi woi!” The agonising cries of a devastated Bernice Adair punctuated the Maddens Funeral Home in Montego Bay yesterday as the 56-year-old mother contemplated the brutal murder of her 14-year-old son by a man who robbed him of his cellphone.

“Lord give mi strength,” cried the devastated Adair, as she grabbed and rubbed her belly, unable to accept that hours earlier her son Percival Crewe, a grade nine student of the Albion Primary and Junior High School, was stabbed to death along the Albion main road – just metres from his school.

He was on his way home.

Police reports indicate that the incensed robber viciously stabbed the schoolboy to death on discovering that the phone was not on the network that he wanted.

According to police liaison officer, Ulette Lewis-Green, the schoolboy was walking in the vicinity of the Albion playing field at approximately 12:45 pm when a man approached him and demanded his cellphone.

The youth reportedly complied and gave the phone to the man who became incensed and handed it back to him, then brutally stabbed him all over his body, saying it was not on the network he wanted.

Adair, who couldn’t cope with the murder of her last child, said she had given him the money to buy the phone so she could keep in touch with him. “A mi gi him the $3,000 fi buy di phone,” said the devastated Adair. “So mi could a call him when mi want.

She said she had no idea what kind of phone he had as she had just given him the money and told him to buy the phone. “That’s why dem kill him,” theorised his older sister who had accompanied her mother to the morgue. “Dem realise seh it nuh worth nutten.”

As the police intensified their investigations yesterday, a police source said that there was someone of interest whom the police believe could assist them in their investigation into the brutal slaying.

“We are looking at someone,” the source told the Observer West yesterday, just hours after the schoolboy was murdered.

Meanwhile, Crewe’s teachers had nothing but high praises for the 14-year-old who they said was model student.

“Of all the students he was one of the good ones,” said a tearful Audrey Bernard, Crewe’s Mathematics teacher, who wept openly at the news of his death. “He was above average, he had lots of potential,” she said.

She explained that the well-mannered and mild-tempered Crewe was the first to offer to clean the blackboard, arrange the classroom or carry her books and was mystified by the senseless killing.

His principal, Lenoval Morle, echoed this sentiment as he made an emotional statement to reporters yesterday less than an hour after the school learnt of the gruesome murder. “He had lots of potential,” said Morle, adding that it was his worst day as a principal.