LINTON PARK, St Ann — Thirteen years of marriage ended in distress for TraceyAnn Harris on Tuesday. That was the day her husband Richard died. He had, as usual, responded to a neighbour’s appeal for help, leaving his family at home to go on a cattle-buying trip.

The grieving widow told the Jamaica Observer that she knew her 45-year-old husband was in danger after several calls to his phone went unanswered. That was unlike him. He had left home with just a cup of tea to warm his stomach and she thought he would be hungry.

“That’s when I started to call to find out where he is and the phone just went to voicemail for a while. Then I got really concerned because the type of person that he is, he would have called or be home between 2:30 or 3:00 in the evening,” she said. “Night came and my heart began to leap because I knew that my husband was in danger, I felt the pain of my husband. I was up all night hoping I would see him coming through the street, and here we are. My husband is dead and I know he died hungry.”

Richard Harris’s body was found in Home Castle, Brown’s Town, St Ann, along with 75-year-old Samuel Johnson from his community. Both men were shot to death. They had journeyed from Linton Park to purchase two head of cattle in Retreat, approximately eight miles away.

Yesterday, her grief still fresh, TraceyAnn struggled to understand why anyone would harm the man she said had one of the purest souls. They rarely fought, and her husband was not often upset with others, she said.

“When I went on the scene and saw my husband down on his face my whole body felt like it was breaking down. My innocent, loving husband who wouldn’t hurt no one,” she cried. “If he was a man that makes trouble I could understand; but he was never that person. He was the breadwinner of the family and if anyone in the house is sad he will find means and ways to comfort us and to try and make sure I’m happy.”

Her last memory of her husband is of him laying bricks, Monday morning, as her 21-year-old daughter mixed mortar for a home improvement project.

“Him and mi daughter out there a work and laugh because they live good; she mix the concrete and him lay the blocks. The gentleman come ask him just to follow him and go for the cows and he left what he was doing in the house to follow him. Knowing my husband, he never says no; he decided to go and this is the end result,” she said, her voice heavy with resignation.

TraceyAnn added that her husband often went out with Johnson on his trips to buy cattle as it was not in his nature to disappoint a neighbour.

“He was the hero of the community. Nobody will ever call on that man and he says no. Even when he is sick he will put out the effort and pretend that he is fine just so he can help with whatever. Anybody have problem with their animal or anything in the community they can call him because he will be there. Right now, the whole place is grieving. Nobody don’t eat or sleep because it take a toll on everybody,” she told the Observer.

“Right now, seeing his clothes and all that makes me crumble in pieces. I just miss my husband,” she added.