The Mary Lynch Story — On trial, on stage

Adidjah Palmer, aka Vybz Kartel, perhaps had the most scintillating murder trail in Jamaica in recent years. However, there was another trial which had the nation in a vice-grip, awaiting the verdict. It was the 1992 Mary Lynch murder trial.

Now, Mary Doyley Lynch, who has since dropped the Lynch from her name, is ready to tell her side of the story, and everyone will have a chance to see it.

On November 4, Whirldwird Entertainment will premiere The Innocence of Guilt: The Mary Lynch Story at the Green Gables Theatre in Kingston.

"Doyley's story is contrary to what is in the public domain it's a rewrite of history," CEO of Whirldwind Entertainment Michael Dawson told The Gleaner.

"I've never seen something so polarising. On one hand, you have those who say, 'she's innocent', and on the other, 'why she kill the man?' It was our O.J. Simpson, before Vybz Kartel. It's a big one for us," he continued.

According to Dawson, the infamous widow (who now goes by her maiden name Doyley) needed someone 'brave' enough to tell her story. Dawson was recruited, based on his work as co-author with Adidjah Palmer on The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto.

"I knew it was going to be a challenge," he confessed.

"It was supposed to be a book." Spurned by the resounding effects of the #MeToo Movement, the author decided instead to take the story to the stage.

"It feels like at the time of her incident, they didn't appreciate abuse as they do now," Dawson explained.

Doyley, a former upper St Andrew housewife, spent 14 years behind bars for the 1992 murder of her husband Leary, a former bank executive.

"Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus. It has been 14 long years, but the Lord has kept me. I don't have much to say to you (the press) right now, but thank you my family, thank you," she said after being released from the Fort Augusta Correctional Centre in St. Catherine in 2007.

Doyley's role will be taken on by Rosie Murray, who has a shining history with Whirldwind. Murray was cast in Tek Yuh Han' Offa Mi, written by Dawson. That play confronted men about domestic abuse, and Murray earned an Actor Boy Award nomination.

Murray, who is recouping from a major heart attack suffered last year, revels in the opportunity to tell Mary Lynch's side of the story.

"This is an actress' role. This is going to stretch me to the limit. Having gotten the script and now that I've started the work, I'm grinning from ear to ear," she said," Murray told The Gleaner.

"Many things have not been told, and there are certain truths she would like to get out there. I just want to be able to do it in a truthful manner, to be believable as Mary. I may not look like herbut getting her tone and characteristics and speech rhythm ... I want when I open my mouth and start speaking, they'll say, 'Oh yeah, that's Mary'."