RESIDENTS of Orange Hill in St Ann are promising that they will not harm the mother and stepfather of three-year-old Nevalesia Campbell who was brutally murdered two Sundays ago in the community.

The residents were responding to news that the couple was denied bail when they appeared in the St Ann Parish Court on Thursday last because it was feared that their lives were at risk. Safety was cited as the reason why bail was denied.

Mahalia Poyser and her common-law husband Roy Downs were charged under the Child Care and Protection Act after it was revealed that the child was abducted and killed after being left at home alone with her twin brother.

“They can be granted bail; we can’t blame them. We blame the one who carry out the act,” Karl Brown, a member of the community, said.

“This is where he (Downs) born and grow; he safe man,” he added, while a businessman in the community, who did not wish to be identified, said: “If them going to be harmed, a no from nobody here.”

The residents also believe that the child’s stepfather should not have been charged.

“The youth never know anything. A work him a come from,” one man stated.

“Everybody know him. I know him as a good guy. Him fi come a road,” another man added.

According to the residents, Downs stopped at a party on his way from work without knowledge that the children were home alone and should not have been held accountable for what occurred.

The residents insisted, too, that Downs is a respected young man in the community.

However, many of them said they did not know the mother of the child because she had only moved there recently.

While many believe that the two should be granted bail, one man said he believes the two should spend some time in jail for their actions.

“Dem fi serve some time. I am a father of a two-year-old. You cannot get up and leave your two-or three-year-old,” he said.

Days after the murder of the infant, residents continue to express shock at the killing.

The Orange Hill residents who spoke with the Jamaica Observer North and East said their community is a relatively quiet one.

“This is a good community,” one man said, noting that there have been crimes in the area, but that their community is a relatively peaceful and safe one.

Members of the community were shocked to learn that one of their own was responsible for the gruesome killing.

Alexus Newland, otherwise called ‘Dal Dal’, has been charged with the murder of the child.

“It’s a gruesome act bredda, whoever do it,” Brown said.

Newland was reportedly among a group of people who searched through sections of the community last Sunday to find Nevalesia who was reported missing.

According to residents, he was also the one who stumbled upon the body and alerted other members of the search party.