KENDAL, Hanover — Allegations of infidelity regarding a 73-year-old woman whose husband has been charged with killing her and her 80-year-old confidante have left residents of this rural community with a lot of questions. One of the main ones is why 84-year-old Roy “Tiger” Nesbeth did not ask for help when his marital problems began.

“I am saying, how come the man has a problem and he doesn’t see anybody to talk to them and get counselling or advice before he goes and do that? And he was not a vicious person, so I don’t know,” former Hanover Champion Farmer Philmore Clarke told the Jamaica Observer during a recent visit to Kendal, in the parish.

He said the Tiger he has known for 40 years was “a nice, calm and helpful man in the community”.

“The last time I saw him, I was going [to] Green Island and he was coming up from the house of the same lady who he [allegedly] killed and I paid his fare. He was paying, but his money was big so I said, ‘I will pay your fare’; and he also promised me some cane top,” reminisced Clarke.

According to the police, about 5:00 pm on August 20 relatives found the body of retired nurse Patsy Allen in her house in Kendal, Hanover, with stab wounds to her neck. Two hours later the relatives of her caregiver, Teka Anderson-Nesbeth, found the caregiver dead at her home. She had stab wounds to the head. A search was launched for Anderson-Nesbeth’s husband after efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Residents told the Observer that Nesbeth hid for days in a hut near his farm, which is located across the road from Allen’s house. They said that after he became ill he sought out the pastor of a nearby church, confessed, and asked to be taken to the police.

“How he went to the man of God to carry him in? Why him never go to the man of God at first to talk to him? He would not have done that if he had spoken to the man of God,” argued Clarke who said Nesbeth is a friend.

According to residents, Anderson-Nesbeth was said to be involved in an extramarital affair with one of Allen’s much younger close relatives. The allegations are that her husband confronted her and she told him their marriage was over. It is said that Nesbeth accused Allen of supporting the affair.

One resident of Grange, who only identified himself as Campbell, has also been left stunned by the charges levelled against Nesbeth, who he knew as a “kind and nice man”.

“I don’t know what got him to go and do that… Kill his wife and the lady that his wife looks after? He is somebody you see up and down, going to his [fields] every day, planting his things them, and all of a sudden… something must [be] wrong,” said Campbell.

He said that apart from hypertension, Nesbeth appeared to be healthy and strong and had showed no sign of mental illness.

Meanwhile, more details have emerged about Allen, one of the murder victims. Like Nesbeth, she was originally from Trelawny. She lived in England for years then returned to Jamaica with her husband after they built a house on the island. Her husband, residents told the Observer, made a trip to England but died there before he could rejoin Allen in Jamaica.

Allen later returned to England for treatment after a cancer diagnosis, and eventually returned to Jamaica, where the man now accused of killing her arranged for his wife to be her caregiver.

A woman who gave her name as McCullough and said she went to the same church as Allen remembered her as a soft-spoken and nice person.

“She is humble, mannerly, easy-going, and I never hear her quarrel. She is just simple,” she said.

“To tell you the truth, I cried so much because I was in church the Sunday [when the news broke] and I could not stand up. I cried until, because I felt it all in my belly. Even now I don’t like [to] talk about it,” McCullough added.

While some in the community have described Nesbeth as a Christian, his murdered wife’s church sister had a different opinion.

“He visited the church but was not really a Christian. When you invite him to church he tells you he is a Christian more than who up here,” she said.

Nesbeth was remanded when he made a court appearance on August 29 and is to return to court on September 29.