TUESDAY night’s murder of two baby brothers — ages three and one — in Swamp District, Moneague, St Ann, has not only left relatives and residents grief stricken but also puzzled.

The two brothers have been identified as three-year-old Shamir Henry and one-year-old Amair Saunders. The 22-year-old father of Amair was held by the police as a suspect in the double murder.

On Thursday, Oreann Wilks, the mother of the suspect, struggled to hold back tears as she spoke to the Jamaica Observer via video call from overseas. She recalled seeing her baby grandson on a video call moments before he was killed.

“When mi a talk to mi daughter Tuesday evening she told me that she had Amair. She brought the baby in the video and pushed him up in the camera. That was the last I see Amair. I am trying to hold it, but I don’t know how much of it I can hold. It is taking a toll on me,” said Wilks.

According to Wilks, her son, who could be hit with a double murder charge, is seen as a hard-working, easy-going young man who was never troublesome or violent.

That view was shared by several residents in the usually quiet community who said the suspect was not a smoker and it struck them as a surprise when they learnt that he allegedly consumed marijuana tea mixed with milk moments before the double murder.

Wilks also expressed surprise at the allegation that her son was a drug user and denied the claim.

She said she could not understand why her son allowed others to influence him to drink the tea.

“Every thought I think, this is what I think about. My brain is all over the place. I had to still come to work despite all of this. I didn’t want to be home by myself. I don’t know what might happen,” said Wilks, who took a short break from work for the interview.

In the meantime, Sinclair Saunders, the distraught grandfather of one of the children and father of the suspect, was heartbroken by the killing of the minors but harboured a lot of sympathy for his “good” son.

“He doesn’t even smoke ganja or cigarettes,” said Saunders.

The grieving father said that when he arrived at the family yard from Ocho Rios on Wednesday, he went down to the farm on the property and saw his son lying on his face.

“You can see that they beat him up. All him a seh is ‘Daddy, mi dead. Daddy, dem kill mi.’ He couldn’t understand any correspondence from me and I couldn’t understand any from him. Him mad out. Him gone mad, mad.

“I found a pot with about half-pound of weed that was boiled. All of a sudden a particular person comes back to boil ganja tea and give to him. Fi wah? You know from when that person nuh come ‘bout yah. About half-pound a weed the police dem tek out di pot,” Saunders claimed.

Neighbours were also devastated as they learnt of the tragedy. They said they found it strange when they heard that the 22-year-old allegedly killed the children. According to the residents, he never came across as a harmful person.

One resident told the Observer, “It’s fully strange. He is a youth we wouldn’t expect to do anything like that. He is a youth who travels by himself most times and he will catch crayfish from the waters.”

Another resident said they never saw the suspect as a threat of any kind.

“If you’re a human any at all, you must feel it, especially if you have children. Mi know him [the suspect ] from him a likkle youth and mi never really see him as a troubled youth. I was here on Saturday and he was going out with crayfish. He begged me a ride and I carried him.

“He is not known as a troubled youth, but it’s a sick situation. The children, I feel it for them. They can’t even talk properly. They can’t even do anything. They were like lambs to be slaughtered. You have to wonder what could possess a youth like him to do a thing like that. Those are babies,” the resident said.

Up to press time the police had not indicated if the suspect had been charged while there was no word on the mother of the children, who had also been taken into custody by the police on Wednesday although she was not considered a suspect.

Initial reports from the police are that the suspect was at home with the mother of the two children about 8:00 pm Tuesday when he began acting strangely after consuming the weed-laced tea.

The mother, upon seeing what was happening, went to Moneague Police Station and reported the incident.

The police responded and went to the house where the suspect was seen; however, the children were not found. Their bodies were found Wednesday morning in bushes close to the house, after bloodstains were seen in a room of the building.

Three-year-old Shamair Henry

Sinclair Saunders, the father of Alaine Saunders who is the murder suspect in the death of two baby brothers in St Ann, shows a pot in which marijuana was reportedly boiled and allegedly given to his son as tea. The father said that the pot contained many marijuana seeds. (Photo: Jason Cross)