RESIDENTS of Bamboo River, an impoverished community in Morant Bay, St Thomas where nine-year-old Courtney Walker was last week sexually assaulted and brutally murdered, are blaming themselves for not taking action.

Scores of residents told the Sunday Observer that the man suspected of sexually assaulting and murdering the boy had shown signs of sexual deviance, but they never reported any of the alleged incidents to the police.

They alleged that the man had attempted to abduct more than one child from the community in the past.

“Is just last week him try lead a girl in the bush, but some little boys saw what was going on, and stone him. Is that save the little girl,” one resident alleged.

“One time him try lead two girls in the bush and the same thing happen. Is from them time there him shoulda dead,” the resident added.

The residents also say they suspect the man has been responsible for several acts of bestiality.

“We feel he is behind several attacks on animals. We have seen animals stabbed up and their throat slashed in the bushes, and we strongly believe that those animals were molested. From time to time we have also found several bloody shirts in the bush,” one woman said.

But while the residents are wringing their hands, the Morant Bay police say they never received reports of these suspicions.

“We have not been informed of that. Why didn’t they tell us? It’s only after the boy dead we start hear these things,” a cop at the Morant Bay Criminal Investigation Bureau said.

Courtney was found suffering from multiple stab wounds and slashes, in a bushy area near to an apple tree. He was taken to hospital where he died while undergoing treatment.

Medical tests conducted on the child’s body found that he had been sexually assaulted. He was stabbed more than 30 times. His face had multiple lacerations and his tongue was almost cut out, police say. In addition, the child’s two heels were slashed, while the flesh of his arms and calves were almost severed.

On Friday, grieving residents pointed to a spot in the bushes where Courtney was found in a pool of blood. Several blotches of blood were seen at other spots, suggesting that the child had been dragged mercilessly through the thick brush.

Residents of Bamboo River told the Sunday Observer that the man suspected of carrying out the heinous crime was seen taking a bath in the nearby Johnson River soon after the suffering child was found.

“People see him passing with a bloody knife, and (also) when him go and bathe in the river. The boy cold because him just go siddung in Morant Bay like nothing never happen,” one man said.

The suspect, who residents say live in the nearby community of Springfield, was held by police as he sat in front of a furniture store in the parish capital. He was then tested to find out if he had had any physical contact with the murdered child. The police say they are awaiting the results of the test.

The man has not yet been charged, the police said.

Soon after his arrest, an angry mob descended on the Morant Bay Police Station screaming for blood.

The mob staged a vigil outside the station for several hours, and were still chomping at the bit to get their hands on the suspect so they could deliver their own brand of justice.

“People like that must not live and eat out our taxes. Can you imagine the pain that child must have felt before he died? Justice take too long in Jamaica and we want a chance to show the Government how those wicked and heartless people must be dealt with,” a female relative of the slain child said. She did not wish to be named.

For Courtney’s mother, 30-year-old Roma Taylor, the sudden loss of her child is devastating.

On Friday Taylor and some of her relatives attended a meeting at the Morant Bay Primary School where Courtney was a third grader. Courtney was slaughtered during school hours. He should have been in class, but his mom, who has four other children, said she could not afford to send Courtney to school that fateful day.

“My head feel like it blow off. I don’t know when I will be able to get over this,” Taylor said in a soft voice. “I never had any money to send him to school. If he was in school that would never have happened to him. They robbed him of his life,” she cried.

Friday’s meeting was called by the school administration and was attended by all teachers, guidance counsellors, political representatives, the Child Development Agency and the Victims Support Unit.

As several people paid tribute to the young boy, school principal Esther McGowan and guidance counsellor Pauline Pinnock-Henry could not hold back tears.

Tears also flowed freely in Bamboo River, where Courtney’s grandmother, 62-year-old Sarah Carlyle also resides.

Carlyle had her right leg amputated and is confined to a wheelchair.

“I cried all night last night. I can’t believe this reach CJ. I have lived here for years and this never happen in Bamboo River before. A woman never get rape round here yet,” Carlyle told the Sunday Observer.

The grieving grandmother could hardly contain herself, and shook uncontrollably as she looked at a photograph of Courtney’s slashed face on a cellular phone owned by a female neighbour.

The murder has driven fear in the hearts of the more than 100 children who call Bamboo River home and, according to one mother, her children were still traumatised.

“My daughter is very afraid, she keep on saying the man going come back and kill her,” the woman said.