‘We still have nightmares’
CYDONEY Kelly went home on the morning of Friday, June 1, 2018 to bloody steps outside her family’s Warwick, Manchester, home. When she cautiously made her way inside she discovered her brother’s headless body. Beside it lay the head drenched in blood.
Terrified, the woman started wailing uncontrollably, drawing the attention of neighbours who ran to the house to check what had happened. After the police were called Kelly phoned her sister, Shawna-Kay Porter, and informed her that their brother was murdered in the most barbaric way.
Porter recalled hurrying home and the sight of her brother’s body on the floor, raw blood and separated head, she says, haunts her to this day.
“Even talking about it now, it’s like it just happened. We still have nightmares because I am living at the same house now. We cannot get over that, and the fact that we didn’t find out exactly if it was the guy who the police said did it or somebody else, adds to that,” Porter told the Jamaica Observer.
We haven’t gotten over it. Every day it plays back in my mind… I don’t know. Maybe it is because I came home and saw him on the floor,” Porter added.
After the scene was processed and the body removed by undertakers, Porter, with the help of a neighbour and the neighbour’s nephew, had to clean the house — wiping the spot where her brother bled out after his head was severed with a machete.
“Sleeping at nights, I used to feel so afraid. If the wind blew too heavy, mi feel like mi a go dead. That’s how I used to feel. As time went by it isn’t so extreme but I can still see him on the floor and it’s like I can see the action of what took place. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to experience this. You will never get over it, never,” Porter said, unable to mask her emotion.
Shawna-Kaye and Kelly had been caring for their brother, 31-year-old Ainsworth Porter, as he had suffered a seizure after being hit by a motor vehicle in 2004 and had sustained a severe head injury.
The day after his murder, the Manchester police launched a manhunt for a man identified as Howard Munroe, said to be of unsound mind and who they believed carried out the horrid attack.
Another Warwick resident was also chopped on the same day and was hospitalised in critical condition. Police believed Munroe was the same attacker.
“I don’t even know how he [Munroe] would get into the house. My brother couldn’t even run to help himself. The accident in 2004 affected his mobility; that is why we had to stay with him,” Shawna-Kay said.
“If somebody can’t walk or fight back, how could you do something like that to them? When he was walking, he had to use a cane. If he made a bad move or bad step, he would fall, so I just couldn’t imagine that somebody with a heart could really do something like that. You’re stronger than the person. How could you do something so gruesome?” she asked.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Corporate Communications Unit had reported that the attack occurred about 8:50 am.
In addition, Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifford Chambers had said that Munroe escaped in bushes after the alleged attack and was believed to have fled the parish.
Chambers noted that other police divisions were notified to be on the lookout for the alleged killer.
After the murder, infuriated residents set Munroe’s home ablaze and attacked his caregiver, who was subsequently taken into protective custody, police said.
Kelly, who has since moved from the house, told the Sunday Observer that stumbling upon Ainsworth’s body sent her in a tailspin for years. In fact, she got over the tragedy just last year.
“I was still afraid and worried, even when I leave Jamaica. I didn’t go to therapy, I just prayed about it — and I always pray that the police will catch the killer so that I can be at peace. I know that my brother was disabled and he never deserved a death like that,” she said, despondence in her voice.
Staying in that house after what she saw wasn’t an option for her.
“It was hard for me because I have to walk with it every day. I was seeing it and picturing it, and after a while it got scary… I had to have someone to sleep with me at home and stuff like that,” she told the Sunday Observer.
“I don’t live at the same house anymore; my sister still lives there. She is braver than I am. I could not live there. I even tried to sleep there a couple times but it was too scary for me,” Kelly added.
Meanwhile, the family said it hasn’t heard anything since. Shawna-Kay, unsatisfied, told the Sunday Observer that for the last four years she questioned whether the police actually considered the family’s pain.
“I have spoken to the police multiple times. I ask them if they could get some form of identification to put out and stuff and they said they couldn’t do that, so I don’t know. I don’t think it was investigated thoroughly,” she said, adding that she often thinks of her brother’s killer.
“Sometimes I wonder if he’s alive and what he is doing. I am still fearful. I am in the same house. They [police] said it’s him, but nobody knows for sure.”
Reflecting further on the tragedy, Shawna-Kay speculated that had she been at the house at the time of the murder things may have been a lot worse.
I can’t really emphasise on it to say this could’ve happened or that could’ve happened, but just maybe,” she said.
“I was operating a cook shop, so I went to get some groceries. After that, I stopped by my cousin in Hanbury and she asked me to stay the night; that’s why I wasn’t here at the house,” she explained.
“The community is a quiet place… this was unexpected. It was very unexpected. We never dream of this. I thought it was safe to leave him here because we never encountered anything like that,” Shawna-Kay said.
“Yes, we had incidents in the community and an incident with a lady around the corner from us, but we were not expecting these things around here. I am two years older than him. We were normal siblings; we had disagreements and stuff but I took care of him in whatever way I could,” she said.
Recalling the day of her brother’s funeral, Shawna-Kay said she remembers being outside the church.
“Our father had to come down from overseas to bury him. My youngest brother was overseas also and he came down to assist in burying him. I went to the funeral, but I didn’t go into the church. My other sister didn’t come to the funeral. The burial was right in front of the yard and I stayed in a car out by the gate. I wasn’t really paying much attention. I was lost in space, I guess.”