GREEN TOWN, Trelawny — Up to late Monday afternoon the Trelawny police were seeking a man in connection with the brutal murder of his estranged lover who was hacked to death on her yam farm here Monday morning.

The deceased has been identified as 41-year-old farmer Garcia Williams, affectionately called Julie, who lived in Mendez Town, Trelawny.

Police report that about 9:15 am Williams had an altercation with her ex-lover while she was working on her farm.

It is alleged that Williams ran after she was attacked by the man, who was armed with a machete. But she did not get far before he caught her and used the weapon to inflict a single chop wound to her neck.

The attacker then escaped from the scene on foot.

Residents claimed that jealousy was the motive for the incident.

When the Jamaica Observer arrived on the scene Monday afternoon a large group of people was seen still milling around a short distance from the crime scene in the small farming community.

Sydney Williams, a cousin of the deceased and who also cultivates yam near to her farm, recounted that on Monday morning he was alerted by a resident that she had gone missing.

He said that shortly after a police team, accompanied by other residents, went in search of the missing female farmer, he became curious when he heard her dog barking continuously on the plot of land she farmed.

“This morning one of my cousins came and told me she heard that the man was beating Julie and they went to search and didn’t find her. I told her to report it at the police station at Wait-a-Bit. The police went in search and I went to my field and heard Julie’s dog continue barking. I said something funny because I knew the dog don’t leave her. When mi hold down mi head I saw a green shirt. Mi call the other girl and told her,” Williams said.

People in the crowd vowed that vigilante justice would have been meted out to the suspected killer had he been caught.

“Right now, if they catch him is another murder again. I hope the police are first to capture him and do their job because the residents are riled up now. If they caught him this morning they would have killed him,” one person in the crowd told the Observer.

Councillor Desmond Smith (Jamaica Labour Party, Lorimers Division) condemned the killing.

“Very unfortunate to hear of this very heart-rending incident. I would like to ask our men to stop killing our women. Women are the ones who keep the family together. It is very sad. I hope that this bad incident don’t reoccur around here,” he said.

The councillor appealed to individuals to seek counselling whenever they are confronted with domestic problems.

“Wherever people are going through their difficulties they don’t seem to talk; they allow it to [become] pent up in them. And when they can’t hold it any longer they tend to take it out in these kind of ways and form,” Smith said.

“I think the community elders, family members, JPs should be able to see when their loved ones, their family members are going through these things; normally these things just don’t happen overnight. You hear a man having a problem with his woman and you see him acting strange and depressed, I think family members, church people, leaders in the community need to start playing active roles in trying to counsel these people. Talk to them once they know they are going through problems,” he said.

After recording the second-lowest number of murders across the island last year, the murder count in the parish now stands at four, following a triple killing early January.

“It is only the beginning of the year. We were the second-lowest parish where murders were concerned last year and to see this year we got a triple murder in [the] north and now this in [the] south, I am very disturbed,” Smith said.