Back a yard! - Jamaican Olympians return for week of celebration

Howard Walker, Observer staff reporter
Friday, October 03, 2008



Jamaica's Olympians strike a pose in the VIP Lounge at the Norman Manley International Airport yesterday after arriving for the 10-day Olympic Homecoming Celebrations. From left are Dwight Thomas, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Maurice Smith, Kerron Stewart and Richard Phillips. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

TWO-TIME Olympic 200 metres champion, Veronica Campbell-Brown, says it doesn't matter where Jamaicans train; they are destined to run fast. She also says she has no intention of training locally any time soon.

Campbell-Brown arrived in the island yesterday, along with a number of other athletes, for the 10-day Olympic Homecoming Week to mark their outstanding achievements at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The diminutive star, along with double medallist Kerron Stewart, decathalon and team captain Maurice Smith, Dwight Thomas and Richard Phillips, touched down on Air Jamaica at 5:55 pm.

They were greeted by Sports Minister Olivia Grange; Jamaica Athletic Amateur Association (JAAA) president Howard Aris; the legendary Olympian Donald Quarrie; Insports executives Ian Andrews, and Bruce McFarlane, and family members in the VIP Lounge.

"It doesn't matter who you train with, as long as you are talented you're going to run fast," Campbell-Brown told the Observer yesterday.


Double Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown (right) walks with Sports Minister Olivia 'Babsy' Grange while waving to well-wishers on arrival at the Norman Manley International Airport yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

"I have been through the high school system and have gained a lot from it. I have been away from Jamaica since 2001 at Barton County, Arkansas and recently moved to Florida and I have been working with my training programme and it seems to work for me, so I have no interest in changing it; all I can do is improve on it,"
she reiterated.

"Jamaica is known for its rich tradition in sprinting. I am proud for my teammates," she added.

Campbell-Brown, who defended her 200 metres title in August, said she was more than happy with her performance.
"I am satisfied. I could not have asked for anything better. I have to be thankful, it was a great Olympic Games. It feels good to be home," she beamed.

Meanwhile, Stewart, who won silver in the 100 metres and bronze in the 200 metres, was also delighted to be home.
Said Stewart: "I am feeling great. I didn't expect this welcome. I am happy and proud. I am just happy to be home."

Stewart, who started as favourite in the 100 metres, said she couldn't complain after capturing two medals at the Games in Beijing, China.

"Getting two medals... I went there with the intention of getting gold, but a silver and a bronze, what more can I ask for?" said Stewart.

"Just to see three Jamaicans on the podium was most fulfilling than any thing else," she added.

Jamaican athletes took Beijing by storm and to celebrate that glorious accomplishment, government leaders will host an "around town" Float Parade in Kingston.

The athletes will board the three Digicel floats - "Olympic Dreams", "Lightning Bolt" and "Golden Girls"; which will make stops in all the major towns in the Corporate Area, including some of the athletes' own communities.

The excitement will hit the streets in the western part of the island on Tuesday when the parade is staged all over again, moving from Montego Bay through to Falmouth.

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9-month-old boy dies after being sodomised by male relative

KARYL WALKER, Crime/Court co-ordinator
Wednesday, October 01, 2008



A nine-month-old boy is now dead after being viciously sodomised by a 21-year-old male relative in the community of Arnett Gardens in South St Andrew on Monday night.
The male relative, whose identity has been withheld by police, is now in the custody of officers from the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse. He was arrested by cops from the Denham Town Police Station.

According to head of the West Kingston police division,
Superintendent Delroy Hewitt, the accused child rapist is believed to be mentally challenged and is suspected of sexually molesting the infant on more than one occasion.
"We believe that this abuse has been going on for some time.
The child died in the Bustamante Hospital for Children last night (Monday). The man in custody is our main suspect in this sordid case," Hewitt, who was clearly shaken by the incident, told the Observer.

The child's anus was severely ruptured and his abdomen was also badly damaged, police said last night.
Police said the child's mother is serving a five-year sentence in the Fort Augusta Adult Correctional Centre where he was born. He was handed over to a female relative who was identified by the inmate as someone who could care for her baby.

Police say the child's guardian left him in the custody of a neighbour when the assault occurred.

Last night, head of the Department of Correctional Services, Major Richard Reese, said the mother of the dead infant would be afforded counselling to help her deal with the tragedy.

"We have arranged for psychological support for the inmate and arranged for a visit from the child's father,"
Reese said.

The infant is the fourth child to have met a brutal end last month. On Sunday, what is believed to be the remains of 11-year-old Ananda Dean, who had been missing for two weeks, was found in bushes in Red Hills, St Andrew by residents who went to investigate a lingering stench.

The same day Ananda went missing, the dissected body of 11-year-old Aamir Scott was found in a rice bag in bushes at Sandside in St Mary. His head, arms and legs were severed while his torso was cut in two. Police said a teenager has since confessed to the macabre murder and is now in custody.

Aamir was buried after an emotional funeral service at the Port Maria Seventh-Day Adventist Church last Sunday.
On September 9, the decomposing body of 15-year-old Baggio Easy was found in water at the edge of the Riverton City landfill in Kingston. Easy had also been reported missing by his parents, police said.

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Brutal murder - Headless body found in Red Hills believed to be that of missing 11-year-old girl

TANEISHA LEWIS, Observer staff reporter lewist@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, September 29, 2008

Nordia Campbell (left), mother of 11-year-old Ananda Dean, is consoled by a family friend after looking at the remains of a body believed to be that of her daughter. The body was found in Belvedere, St Andrew. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

SCREAMS of anguish bellowed throughout the community of Belvedere in Red Hills, St Andrew yesterday as firefighters removed a heavily decomposed body believed to be that of 11-year-old Ananda Dean from a steep precipice along Cypress Drive - miles away from where she was last seen after she went missing almost two weeks ago.

"A she, a she.. Oh God," Ananda's aunt, Tamika Campbell bawled, after viewing the headless remains and then falling to the ground seconds later. Upon hearing the news, Nordia Campbell, Ananda's mother, also fainted at the thought that her daughter may have been brutally murdered.

Because of the advanced state of decomposition, no one was able to positively identify the body as that of Ananda. However, some family members, including Campbell, are convinced that it is in fact the little girl, mainly because a black size two school shoes and a navy blue uniform, similar to ones owned by the seventh-grade student of Swallowfield All-Age School, were found at the scene.

Yesterday, Deputy Superintendent Carol McKenzie of the police's St Andrew North Division told the Observer that DNA tests would have to be done to determine the identity of the body.

Ananda, who lived with her family on Whitehall Avenue in Kingston, was last seen on September 17 boarding a bus en route to Half-Way-Tree after school. Several of her school books were found a day after she went missing strewn along a pathway in the community of Pembroke Hall, miles away from where she was last seen.

Firefighters help to hoist a wooden box containing the remains believed to be that of 11-year-old Ananda Dean that was found yesterday over a precipice along the Cypress Road in Belvedere, St Andrew. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

The body was discovered about 10:00 am by residents who decided to investigate the cause of a lingering nasty odour that had been plaguing nearby houses for almost two weeks.
"At first we thought it was a dead animal, but after one week passed and we realised that the scent wasn't going away some people decided to go see what it was," a resident told the Observer. "It was when they chopped out the bush and went up there they found out that it was the little girl's body up there."

It appeared that the body had been thrown from the precipice into overgrown bushes, which concealed it until yesterday.
The residents also intimated that they may have overlooked clues that Ananda's body was disposed of in their community.

"People said they saw the uniform on the road for the longest while but they never knew it was the little girl's own," said another resident who did not wish to be named.

The police are speculating that the body may have been dumped hours or a day after Ananda went missing, given the state of decomposition, which resulted in a pathologist being called in to perform an on-the-spot post-mortem. It was naked and headless. In fact, a skull was all that remained of the head. There were also suggestions that she may have been raped. However, this could not be confirmed by the police.

Yesterday, it took the firefighters from the Stony Hill Fire Department almost three hours to remove the body resting more than 10 feet from the top of Cypress Drive. Once they were able to access the body, it was then put in a wooden box and hoisted up onto the road, keeping the scores of residents that gathered to see if the body was truly that of Ananda - the girl whose picture had been posted on fliers, placed on light posts, buses and in stores in the Corporate Area - in suspense.

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A family grieves for two young children - Boy accidentally kills 3-year-old sister with licensed gun

By KIMONE THOMPSON
Sunday, September 28, 2008

GLEN Green last spoke to his three-year-old daughter Gabrielle yesterday morning. She called him and said she had something to tell him which she couldn't tell anyone else.

But before Glen got to hear the secret, he got news that his baby girl, also called Gabby, was dead. She had been shot in the face.
A distraught Orinthia McCalla, grandmother of three-year-old Gabrielle 'Gabby' Green who died at hospital yesterday, is comforted by close friends of the family. The little girl was accidentally shot by her eight-year-old brother at their home in Independence City, Portmore yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)


A distraught Orinthia McCalla, grandmother of three-year-old Gabrielle 'Gabby' Green who died at hospital yesterday, is comforted by close friends of the family. The little girl was accidentally shot by her eight-year-old brother at their home in Independence City, Portmore yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Even more tragic was that the fatal blow was dealt by the girl's eight-year-old brother as the two played innocently with a loaded gun.

"She call mi and say 'daddy hurry up an come home because mi have something to tell yuh, an mi nuh waan tell nuhbaddy else'. An mi sey it so strange because yesterday (Friday) mi an har and har mother go buy some tings and she just stuck on to me. She nuh lef me. Mi carry har go shop an she say 'daddy mi want dis', an mi buy dem give har. An now mi nuh get fi hear wha shi did waan say," he said, using a black handkerchief to wipe the tears that had welled up and were streaming down his face.

And although the impact on the father and other relatives must be unbearable, it is Gabby's brother whose memory will perhaps be forever haunted.

When the Sunday Observer visited the house where he lived with his sister, mother and maternal grandmother in Independence City, Portmore near midday yesterday, he was crying uncontrollably.

He sat at the feet of his grandmother, Orinthia McCalla, laid his head in her lap and wept sorrowfully. He is only eight, but he knew what had happened. He knew his sister had died. He knew he had accidentally caused it.

"Ah [him] mi sorry fah," one woman said. "Di poor thing look like him ah tun eediat. Him nuh stap scratch scratch himself like supp'n ah bite him."

Neighbours soon after took him to the paediatrician at the nearby Child Care Medical Centre to be examined
and counselled.

McCalla said she and her daughter were in the kitchen preparing breakfast at the time of the tragic incident. They thought the children were at the front of the yard where they had left them playing. They didn't know the game had changed or that it had moved inside the house until the ear-piercing explosion rang out, signalling that something had gone horribly wrong.

"Ah di explosion we hear an we bolt go inside. We meet him ah di doorway ah bawl and then we see har," McCalla said, sitting in a chair across from her house as the police processed the scene.

She went from staring blankly into space, glancing up at the skies calling on God.

"Wha mi a go do? Wha mi a go do?," she cried out. "Mi gran' pickney dem, mi gran' pickney dem."

The children, she said, had apparently been rummaging through the suitcase of an uncle who had just returned from abroad. He had told them he carried gifts for them but the children couldn't wait; they went to find it themselves. What they found however, was not sparkly gift wrap or shiny ribbons. It was their uncle's 9mm pistol.

The Gregory Park police reported yesterday that the firearm was licensed, but they took the uncle in for questioning. He was released pending investigation.

"Yuh know why mi feel it so?," asked McCalla. "If mi did have pickney weh bad and weh go outta di way [mi probably woulda seh is pay back, but mi nuh have no pickney like dat. Ah dat mek mi feel it so," the mother of four said. "Mi family come so far. Everybody big now and nutten [bad] neva happen. Why now? Why now Jesus? Satan is a liar. Ah bind him and sen him back to the pit of hell where him belong," she said, her tone sad and low.

Neighbours described Gabby as "nice", "friendly", "pretty" and "bright". "Nobody nuh pass pan di road an she nuh call to them," one man said.

"She was a pretty, pretty baby. She was sweet and sensible, we lickkle sunshine," McCalla said, recounting things her granddaughter had said.

"To how she pretty and bright, mi just say to miself maybe she neva come here to stay."

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Orlando 'bomber' said to be on

BY TYRONE S REID
Sunday, September 28, 2008

THESE days, Lucille Rodney is longing for one thing. She wants her 'son' Kevin Brown to be reunited with his family.
The April 2008 mugshot taken of Kevin Brown, shortly after being taken to the Seminole County Jail in Florida.

For months she has waited and prayed for the day when she'll embrace him again like only a mother can. But from all indications, she will have to wait a while longer as the federal case against Brown is still before the courts and he is still being held in prison without bail.

Many will remember how Brown, the boy Rodney raised from age five like her own, was arrested at the Orlando International Airport last April while the world sat and watched via live broadcasts - and how he was branded "the Jamaican terrorist". Brown, a former American Army veteran, was about to travel to Jamaica to visit friends and family when he was detained at the Orlando International Airport in Florida after a search of his luggage revealed bomb-making material. The story made international media headlines on April 1 when the image of the tall, robust-looking Jamaican sat handcuffed on a pavement outside the main airport building as law enforcement officers conducted their investigation into the 'mysterious contents' of his travelling bag.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the liquid substance found in Brown's luggage was nitromethane, a potentially explosive formula. Galvanised pipes, end caps, two containers of BBs, batteries, bomb-making literature and a rocket igniter were also allegedly found in Brown's luggage. A laptop computer was removed from his carry-on bag for analysis by the FBI. A judge later ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed against him. He was subsequently charged by the FBI with attempting to place an explosive device on an aeroplane and incarcerated at the Seminole County Jail. He has been in police custody since the arrest.

An FBI criminal complaint later stated that Brown told authorities he wanted to detonate the materials on a tree stump in Jamaica, but later said he was going to show friends in his home country how to build explosives like he saw in Iraq.

Speaking with the Sunday Observer recently at her place of business in St Andrew, Rodney said she has to travel regularly to Orlando to visit Brown, who is being represented in court by two lawyers - one of them Jamaican-born. She noted, too, that he is being closely monitored while incarcerated, and is to return to court in early October.

"He's on suicide watch up there. They are watching him very closely. He was on high-alert but then he came off and they are still treating him for his mental condition. He says he is a bit fed up because a lot of mad people are there and he is not like them," said Rodney, who last visited Brown in August. "The lawyers are working very hard to get the case dismissed because some experts that have been consulted say the equipment he was carrying in his luggage did not pose a threat to passengers on the plane. So because of the federal charges, it is not going to be as easy as we hope. The last hearing was on August 27."

Brown, who went to the US to pursue college education, joined the Army in June 1999. With the dawn of 2003 came the Iraq War. Brown went to serve during the second six months and served double time after his stay was extended - leaving Iraq in early 2005, a little before the brutal murder of Sandra Palmer, his biological mother in Negril. She was strangled. And while the three main suspects have been brought in by investigating officers, three years later, the case has been put off several times. They are due in court on October 3.

Brown's mother-in-law Karen Holt said Brown wasn't the same after returning from Iraq.

"This is not [like] him," said Holt, who lives in North Charleston, South Carolina with Brown's young son. "It has to be a mental issue for him. I know if they looked through his medical records... I'm sure they will see... He's not a terrorist."
Just two days before his mother's murder Brown married a fellow Army officer and made plans to honeymoon in Jamaica. His son, now four, was also born around that time.

According to the Rodney family, the former US soldier sank into a deep depression following his departure from Iraq. The depression, they believe, became compounded when he learnt of his mother's murder, and he subsequently began abusing alcohol.

"The war changed him. The war depressed him, because afterwards he had to seek medication. He became unstable because of his experiences. He saw many of his friends die and heard gunshots 24/7 during his stay over there," Rodney explained.

"And I know for a fact that since his mother died three years ago it has been with him. At the funeral, he got off right there. We had to call a doctor for him. He couldn't believe that his mother died like that. The news was hard to swallow," she said.

"I am still baffled as to why he would have that in his luggage. I can't say why. I can't think for him," his aunt Carmen told the Sunday Observer in an April interview.

Psychologist and human relationship expert, Dr Veronica Salter, said grief and mental anguish can severely alter a person's state of mind and functioning.

"Severe grief is a terrible thing and it can cause anyone to have a breakdown. Grief can certainly alter your state of mind. A lot has happened to [Brown], especially his mother's murder and going to Iraq. The sort of stress he's been exposed to is enough to cause serious mental and emotional damage," Salter told the Sunday Observer. "War is a very traumatic experience. The episodes of violence, one right after another, can take a strong toll on anyone. I am very seriously concerned about what's going to happen to him. I am not one to judge, but he's clearly in need of psychiatric help."

In the meantime, Rodney points out that today Brown is physically healthy and is eating at the prison. But she says the expenses she has to foot to travel to and from the United States are eating away at her savings and she fears her textile business might suffer.

"When I go to Orlando, a million media people surround me up there. It's costing me a lot of money and it's really getting on my nerves. But I am trying to cope. The family is trying to cope. It is very hard. But we get emotional support from people because whenever I go to court, two representatives from the Miami Consulate fly up there with me," she said. "Right now, I am hoping for the best because I really want the case dismissed so that Kevin can focus on getting better and getting his life back on track."

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