FUELLED by her own childhood experiences with sexual assault and incidents of incest that she’d witnessed, Susan Higgins helped track down Troy Ellis, the man accused of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Talia Thompson in Discovery Bay, St Ann, in 2023.

Just shy of three years later, her actions have earned her national recognition. Higgins is among four Jamaicans slated to receive the Badge of Honour for Gallantry at this year’s national honours and awards ceremony scheduled for October.

Ellis, while receiving treatment at hospital under police guard following Talia’s death in September 2023, reportedly escaped. But Higgins later encountered him on the road and played a key role in getting him back into police custody.

For the 50-year-old, the national recognition is deeply personal.

“I feel happy and blessed to know that I can be a help to the helpless and a voice of the voiceless,” she told the
Jamaica Observer.

“When I opened the paper [last Thursday] and I saw Susan Higgins, mi dear! It was 140 people and fi mi name in there, me seh! No man, me feel good,” she added, erupting in laughter.

Talia was allegedly raped and murdered on September 23, 2023. Ellis, who was reportedly known to the family, was subsequently taken to hospital after allegedly injuring himself.

When Higgins heard that he had escaped from police custody, she said she immediately felt a sense of urgency to do something.

She said she was on her way home and her daughter was with her. When they got to the vicinity of the Firearm Licensing Authority office in Discovery Bay, she noticed a man attempting to conceal his face when the motor vehicle headlights illuminated him.

She said she immediately became suspicious and asked the driver to turn the vehicle around.

When they approached the man, Higgins said she began questioning him about his injury, deliberately remaining calm and acting as though she was simply curious about why he was on the road so late. She recalled Ellis telling her that he had recently been discharged from hospital.

Higgins said she continued to speak with him through the window of the vehicle while it drove slowly beside him, at the same time her daughter was conducting a quick online search. The search, she said, confirmed that the man she was speaking to matched the description of the escapee.

“I told him to pull up his shirt to let me see his wound. I was just playing slick because I wanted to see if he had a gun on him. When I saw that he didn’t have a gun, I asked him where he was going, and he said ‘Portland Road’,” she recalled.

“I said, ‘Do you need a ride?’ And he said, ‘Yes,’ not knowing it was the police me a carry him to. I said, ‘All right, when you reach your destination you tell me.’ During the ride, he was talking so intelligently to me. He didn’t show any sign of [being of] unsound mind, so I talked to him and talked to him until he said, ‘Me a come off here so.’ When he said that, me dumb, deaf, and blind, and stopped talking. I took him straight to Discovery Bay police,” said Higgins.

When they arrived, Higgins said the station’s door was closed, so she instructed her daughter to knock.

A cop came outside and Higgins said the driver immediately announced that they had found the man wanted in connection with Talia’s death. At that point, Higgins said Ellis became aware that he had been identified and attempted to resist.

She said she struggled to restrain him before eventually getting him into the police station, after which his identity was confirmed and he was returned to police custody.

For Higgins, the decision to intervene was not about recognition or praise, it was about doing what she would hope someone else would do if her child was in danger.

“Too many times children are being murdered, raped, left abandoned. As a woman, I didn’t get the love and the care of a parent. I actually grew up in the wild because my parents gave me away to a family, and [a man] attempted to rape me. It made me so aggressive, and I said if anybody ever do this to any pickney, if me catch them, me a go unalive them, but I did my best that night to not do what I wanted to because my little daughter was there and I couldn’t bear to do it,” she told the Sunday Observer.

“So many kids get raped and murdered, and so many of these cases go unanswered. I said, I am going to stand up and be a voice for the voiceless and a help for the helpless,” said Higgins.

“I will do whatever I can to protect the kids of our society,” she said. “I didn’t know the parents or the grandparents of that child, but I feel elated that I can help a mother to get some form of justice,” said Higgins.

“As I go along, I will always try to help somebody. My living will not be in vain,” she declared.