As most Jamaicans welcomed the new year in celebration and worship, two murders — one described as brutal, given that the victim was mutilated — left family and people who knew the slain men badly shaken.

Odaine Christopher Lewis, a 39-year-old assistant operations manager at Royal Decameron hotel in Runaway Bay, St Ann, was shot dead sometime after 1:00 am, while the dismembered body of an unidentified man from Central Village in St Catherine, who is believed to have been mentally ill, was found on the street, just outside the gates of a construction company in the parish.

On Thursday, clothes and blood satins were seen at the spot where his body was found.

People in Central Village who knew the homeless man expressed shock at his killing.

Some said he was not a troublemaker and could not understand why someone would want him dead. One resident said that the man may have attacked someone in the area with a machete near Christmas and therefore surmised that his death may have been linked to that incident.

“Him always come and beg me a money. It’s just the other day he said that I am a kind lady and anytime him get nuff money him a go carry some and give it to me,” one woman told the
Jamaica Observer.

“I don’t know his name, but he is always walking around. It is a surprise to me. Oh, God! Which brutal somebody would do that. He wasn’t a mad, mad man; he was just homeless. He isn’t a troublemaker. He just walks around and beg likkle food and so forth. The last time I saw him he was cutting across the road to go on the other side. A who coulda chop him up so?” she lamented.

In relation to the assistant manager, the Observer was told that after celebrating the arrival of the new year with co-workers and guests at the hotel he went home and, as he exited his Toyota Axio motor car, he was pounced upon by a gunman who pumped multiple bullets into his head and upper body.

The Observer spoke to Lewis’s relatives who said that the family was shocked and devastated by his murder.

“It tore our hearts out,” his father, Clifton Lewis, said.

“He was an easy-going, no-nonsense person. He was very quiet and reserved. He had no children, but he was working at Decameron for just under 10 years. He went there as a waiter [and] moved up the ranks to a dining room supervisor, then food and beverage coordinator, and then assistant operations manager,” the elder Lewis shared.

A female relative struggled to comment on Thursday afternoon, explaining that she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that he had been murdered. Despite not being able to say much, she still managed to share that she loved him very much.

“He was well-loved by family members on both sides. He loved his job and was very passionate about it. He was very proud of his promotion last year around June. He got manager of the quarter because as he was appointed in the position, he just took it on and gave it his all and began to receive commendations for it,” she shared.

“He did his work properly. He was very neat and organised. Everything he did, he did well. He was a loving individual, especially with family. He was so excited about his promotion,” she added.

Another relative commented that during a visit to Lewis’s workplace after the murder, the management team and his co-workers spoke very highly of him.

“It was very moving when all of them said the same thing about him. They said you hardly knew which department he belonged to. He would see something that needed to be done and he just got it done. Even the guests spoke highly of him. He was well-loved. As one of his co-workers said, not everyone is going to like every decision you make, but for the most part, persons really loved and appreciated him.”

Police have not yet identified a motive for the killing, despite claims circulating on social media.

From January 1 to December 28 last year Jamaica recorded 1,138 murders, 259 fewer than the same period in 2023.