Still no charges in murder of Clarendon teen found in pit
CLARENDON, Jamaica — Three individuals who have been held by the police on suspicion of involvement in the disappearance and subsequent murder of Derricka Rogers remain in police custody.
According to Observer Online sources, a woman and two men were taken into custody on Saturday, May 31. Up to Wednesday afternoon they were still being questioned and it is unclear whether or not charges will be laid.
The 19- year-old sales representative’s relatives had earlier expressed concern at what they saw as the police’s slow pace in apprehending an individual who is said to have seen her last.
But Observer Online sources stressed, Wednesday, that the trio were taken into custody before Rodgers’ body was discovered, June 1, in a cesspit at an unoccupied property in Milk River.
According to the police, Derricka left her Gravel Hill, Clarendon home Tuesday, May 27 to visit her boyfriend and was last seen at Milk River Bus Park in the parish capital, May Pen. Her father Derrick reported her missing on Wednesday, May 28, when she did not return home and attempts to reach her by phone were unsuccessful.
On Monday the distraught dad told the Observer that the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death and how the Milk River police handled the case had left him hurting badly.
“You see when we go the yard where the youth used to stay, we see two manhole. When we get permission to access the property, we call the owner and she said four years ago was the last time she did any work on the building so nothing new not supposed to be there,” he said.
According to Derrick Rogers, police and residents saw a fresh layer of concrete sealing a pit.
“The police made a call and them say they cannot pull the pit until tomorrow and mi get mad and start cuss and seh, ‘We ah go burn down the house.’ A so dem say, ‘Alright, we will open it.’ We say, ‘Alright, if them pull it and she not in there we have to buy back the cement — and we have no problem with that.’ From we pull the pit a di bag we see with the girl inna it. That cut me up bad, bad. Mi know seh a she.”
” From we go there we just connected to the pit, so you see when them tell me say we couldn’t open the pit until tomorrow, if you cut mi you nuh find no blood. Mi tell dem seh, ‘A now mi want her,’ and then the people start gwaan bad. Mi know seh she in there, because me feel it. She in there from Tuesday and mi decide seh mi want her now, so a so dem open it,” said the broken father as he chronicled the chilling details of how his daughter’s body was recovered.
