Attempted murder-suicide rocks Lawrence Tavern
Published:Friday | June 28, 2019 | 12:34 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
A St Andrew family, though still in shock, is breathing a sigh of relief as their youngest sibling regained consciousness after her common-law husband 25-year-old Jermaine McKenzie took his own life, thinking he had strangled her to death yesterday morning.
As news of the bizarre incident spread, it sent ripples through the usually quiet and remote farming community of Lawrence Tavern.
“She has short-term memory and is not remembering clearly. She can’t pinpoint anything. She remembers being strangled. She knows things from the past like her family and maybe her parent’s number, but she don’t even know today’s (yesterday) date,” the would-be victim’s older sister told The Gleaner shortly after she was discharged from hospital yesterday afternoon.
“She mentioned Jermaine and we told her he is dead, but I’m not sure she understands,” the sister added.
The Gleaner understands that minutes before 5 a.m. yesterday, neighbours heard rumblings coming from the home.
“The noise sounded more like somebody have a fits and in a seizure. I didn’t know what to do,” a resident said.
When nobody emerged from the room, as the couple customarily leaves early for work, a resident decided to check on them.
“We nuh get no answer when we a knock. We say this nuh look right. This was about after 8 we made checks. We pull the back door and we see blood and the room was in darkness,” a neighbour said.
Further checks were done and the woman, who is said to have been the youngest of 11 children, was seen motionless under the bed.
“We deh in a the room and a say she dead and is like she hear and start move her foot, and we draw her out from under the bed and we a say him must deh in a the house. When we look behind the door, we see him hanging from the closet,” another person added.
The police were summoned and took the woman to seek medical attention.
The police theorise that Lawrence had slit his wrist before hanging himself.
“We nuh see no injury. She couldn’t speak and was pointing to her back. All we see around her was vomit and faeces,” one of the first responders told our news team.
FAMILY DISTRAUGHT
The sister said the family was having a hard time processing the unfortunate events.
“The entire family is distraught. You see this happening all the time and never once think it would reach our doorstep. It’s 11 of us born from same mother and father. We just have to be strong for her and protective. We are going to ensure she gets grief counselling and a psychiatric evaluation.”
The residents say they never saw this incident coming as they thought the two were deeply in love and was a model couple.
“Me see dem go buy ice cream and walk together all the time and thing. We shock! A just last night him go buy food for the two of dem and go in so we shock fi wake up to this in a the community,” one resident told The Gleaner.