Seventh-Day Adventist Church appeals to deacon suspected of murder to surrender

The Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church in Jamaica is urging the suspect in the murder of a 25-year-old Manchester student to surrender to the police.

Linton Stephenson, 59, a deacon in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Mandeville, has been named as the suspect.

He is also wanted for illegal possession of a firearm and assault.

Stephenson, also called 'Jawbone', is wanted in connection with the killing of Khyhymn Campbell on August 28.

The police believe Campbell was killed at Stephenson's Bloomfield Street home. Her body was later abandoned along the Marshall's Pen main road in the central Jamaica parish capital. Campbell's body was found on the back seat of a vehicle, stuffed in an igloo, with her throat slashed.

"We use this medium to unequivocally condemn what appears to be the recent cold and brutal murder in Manchester of yet another female member of the community," said Pastor Everett Brown, president of the SDA Church in Jamaica.

Brown furthered called for Jamaicans, including members of the SDA Church, to immediately come forward if they can help the security forces.

Seventh-Day Adventists affirm the dignity and worth of each human being and decry all forms of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and acts of crime and violence, Brown said.

Stephenson was on parole after being released from prison for the killing of a woman in St Mary some time ago.