KILANCHOLLY, St Mary — Sylvia Bailey wonders what life would have been like if four-year-old Shadice Williams, 13-year-old Sue-Ann Gordon, and 14-year-old Dwayne Davidson had not been slaughtered by their 34-year-old cousin Jeffery Perry as they slept at home. She thinks her nieces and nephews would have made a world of difference in their mother’s life.

“Dwayne who would have been 36 years old, Shadice 25, Sue-Ann 34. I know they would have made their mother proud and her life easier,” Bailey told the Jamaica Observer.

Her sister Sonia Bailey Williams, who shortly after the January 2005 murders moved to St Ann to hold onto her sanity, now lives in Kingston with her only surviving child, a boy who was two years old at the time. According to Bailey, neither of them has recovered from one of Jamaica’s most shocking triple murders.

“When she remembers, it come like something lick her brain. I’m not sure if my nephew remembers [details] about the incident, but he gets emotional about it.” Bailey said.

She said she and her sister have been there for each other during and after the murders that changed Kilancholly forever.

“This is something that will never go away. I don’t even want to see that man come out. It hurt me, it hurt the family,” said Bailey.

Perry was originally convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for the gruesome murders. In 2012 his death sentence was overturned by the appellate court and he was sentenced to 45 years to life.

The children were stabbed and their throats slashed as they slept at home. Perry reportedly went to the deceased house and wept bitterly over the deaths of his cousins.

He later confessed to the murders, saying a voice told him to kill, and led homicide investigators to the spot where he buried the knife used in the savage crime.

The killings rocked Jamaica and left the residents of the normally peaceful, rustic district in shock and disbelief.

Twenty years later, Sylvia Bailey is still struggling to understand why Perry killed his cousins.

“Each time me think about it, boy, I feel a way and I have to put God first,” she told the Observer.

She still remembers that fateful day like it was yesterday.

“I was home as I wasn’t feeling well, and it was raining, and I had my young son with me. My sisters, including the children’s mother, were at the church doing preparation for the church luncheon the following day,” Bailey recounted.

Her sister Sonia left her four children sleeping at home – a board house a few metres from Bailey’s house.

“It was the noise and commotion that woke me. When I got the news that the children were dead, everything died in me,” Bailey said, her voice heavy with sadness, pain etched on her face.

She is still puzzled because she is unaware of any incident that could have sparked Perry’s unimaginable act.

“We and him talk good, never heard of him and anyone in the community had anything. He would ask Sonia to charge his light even after the incident,” Bailey pointed out.

She said the Kilancholly side of the family provided shelter for Perry after he ran into a spot of bother in Kingston.

“What I heard was that he got into some trouble where he killed a man in self-defence and did his time; but the family of the man had threatened him that is why he was living back in the community,” said Bailey.

Perry’s family had left Kilancholly when he was a boy. According to Bailey, the family remained close despite the geographical distance but since the murders the relationship has become strained.

“We used to check up on each other, call and thing and visits. Now nothing, because of what happened,” was all she was willing to say on the touchy topic.

She recalled that she was the one who had recommended Perry for a security job at the neighbourhood school.

“When a church brother asked me if I knew anyone who would want the job, I thought of him as he had his young son to take care of,” Bailey said, shaking her head as if in regret.

She still cannot believe Perry pretended to help after the children’s lifeless bodies were discovered.

“He helped in the search for the murderer; he wept with the mother. Little did we know he was the one,” said Bailey, anger pushing up the sound of her voice.

She said no one in their family suspected Perry. But others from the community soon began to have their doubts.

“It was the candlelight [vigil] that made persons start to point fingers as he burnt clothes in the yard and then left the community,” Bailey recalled.

“Him call that aunt [who lived in St Ann] and tell her everything and she took him in, and he took the police to the spot where he buried the knife,” she added, her voice devoid of sympathy.

She is left to wonder what if Perry had not taken the lives of her nieces and nephews, his young cousins.

“These were bright, promising children with a bright future. You can image if they were alive now!” said Bailey.