Today we start a weekly series looking at how the relatives of victims of crime have been coping with their loss. The series, titled ‘Victims’, will hopefully point the state in the direction of those in need of emotional assistance and prod people with information on these heinous acts to share them with the authorities.

Sleep has become a difficult function for Sharon Folkes. In fact, ever since her son, 11-year-old Aamir Scott, was savagely butchered just over two weeks ago in Sandside, St Mary, Folkes admitted that she has not been getting much sleep. That’s because each time she closes her eyes, images of her son appear in her mind.

“All I see is his smile. He used to smile plenty and he was a pleasant child,” Folkes told the Sunday Observer on September 24, a week after the gruesome discovery. “I have only been getting about three hours sleep because everytime I close my eyes his image just comes up in my mind.”

Folkes, 34, is a picture of devastation. Her normally bright eyes were puffy and red, displaying her grief. She sits with her right palm supporting her bowed head, obviously trying to come to grips with the tragedy which has befallen her, her relatives and the entire community in which Aamir lived all his very short life.

On September 16, two days after Aamir was reported missing, his body was found cut to pieces and stuffed in a rice bag at the base of a tree in bushes less than a mile behind a house he had visited.

Early reports said Aamir went to the house, occupied by two teenagers, to charge the battery on his cellular phone.

An autopsy revealed that Aamir died from haemorrhaging. His head, arms and legs were severed and his torso was cut in two. Residents of Sandside say there were no blood stains either on the bag in which his remains were dumped or near the spot.

During the interview, Folkes could not rid her mind of her son’s cheerful smile and generally pleasant disposition. Neither could she accept that she would no longer be able to cuddle him in her arms or check his homework.

All over the district, adults and children were seen sporting badges bearing Aamir’s image, but Folkes could not bring herself to acknowledge that the image was that of her only child.

“I am still in denial,” she admitted. “When I see him on the badge I ask myself, What is he doing on the badge?”

A week after the murder, as she watched her male relatives and neighbours dig a grave in the Port Maria Cemetery where her son was eventually laid to rest last Sunday, Folkes said: “I am trying to deal with it, but it is very hard.”

There was an emptiness at Folkes’ home two days after Aamir’s body was found, as relatives and friends with tear-stained faces sat in silence around the distraught woman.

Folkes seemed to be lost in thought as she reflected on the terrible end her only child met.

The most the weakened mother could muster at times was a series of sighs.

The pain was no less for Aamir’s father, Dwight Scott, who also sat with a blank stare. Scott could barely find words to describe the trauma he was going through.

“This is not easy for any of us,” he said. “Our child was a sweet boy who should have never been dealt such a cruel blow. I don’t know when we will ever be able to get over this tragedy.”

This is not the first time that Folkes and her relatives have had to deal with tragedy. In December 2004, Folkes’ nephew, Oral Henry, was killed a few metres from their home during a dispute with a man from the district over a woman. Henry, who was 20 years old at the time of his death, was stabbed seven times and died on the spot.

His mother, Folkes’ sister Maxine Plunkett, has still not got over the loss of her son and sinks into bouts of depression regularly.

The reality of Aamir’s murder hit Plunkett hard, and she collapsed several times on hearing that Aamir’s remains were found.

“I just kept falling down,” Plunkett said with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I wanted to go and look but I just couldn’t manage it and the people wouldn’t let me either, because they know of my condition.”

The police have since released five of six teenagers held in connection with the macabre murder, as one of the youngsters, a 16-year-old, has reportedly confessed to the murder, claiming he acted on his own. Police say the boy told them he killed Aamir because the two had a dispute a few weeks ago.

But the alleged confession has not gone down well with the residents, who staged two demonstrations to express their chagrin at the release of the suspects. They refuse to believe that Aamir was killed by one person.

The residents also claim that one of the suspects is a professional butcher.

“Them kill him and drain out all him blood before them joint him up. Anybody who do that know what them was doing,” said a man who gave his name as Herbert Goode.

On September 17, residents took the Sunday Observer on the quarter-mile trek into t he hills where the remains were discovered.

About 200 metres up the hill, the unbearable stench of the rotting carcass of a dog offended the nostrils.

The residents claim the dog was killed and left just off a tiny foot path as a decoy.

“See it deh, them kill the dog and dash him dung so when the place start stink people woulda say a di dog a smell. Them people yah a cannibal, man,” said a youth who claimed to have led a search party.

When the residents arrived at the spot where Aamir was dumped, police yellow tape still cordoned off the spot. One of the residents stumbled across a bloodied knife which was handed over to the police.

The gruesome murder has sent the entire district into mourning and the irate residents torched to the ground, the house where two of the teenagers lived. And despite the act of arson, the residents still thirst for revenge.

They claim only one of the six suspects was born in the district and brand the rest as troublemakers from another district known as Free Hill in the parish.

“We can’t make them mash up we good, good district. Them boy deh nuh come from bout yah and look how them do the little pickney,” one woman wailed.

The woman’s sentiment was popular with the over 50 residents who had gathered at a small shop in the community.

“Them a gi pure problem and we don’t want no more a dat round here. We going stand up and tek back the district,” one man claimed as he took a long drag of a flashlight-sized marijuana cigar.

Based on the mood of the residents, grief will remain in Sandside for a long time to come.

“We are all victims of the vicious crime,” mourned one woman. “Aakim was conceived in this district. We know when his mother was pregnant with him. He is everybody’s baby here and he certainly never deserved a cruel death like that.”