Caught in Trelawny - Mom’s on-the-run ex-partner held as person of interest in 8-y-o’s death

The Trelawny police yesterday held the man being sought as a person of interest in connection with the murder of eight-year-old Galen Buchanan, whose body was recovered from the Kingston Harbour Thursday afternoon.

Philip Rose, the ex-lover of the boy’s mother, Tamara Lewis, was held during a police dragnet in Daniel Town, Trelawny, yesterday.

“The police acted upon information received and carried out a snap raid along a section of the Daniel Town main road, where the person of interest was held,” Superintendent of Police Kirk Ricketts, commanding officer for Trelawny, told The Sunday Gleaner.

Lewis had ended her common-law relationship with Rose last week, after she said she found out about his violent past. She and other residents of her Richie Lane community, near Spanish Town Road, believe Rose killed her son in an act of revenge.

According to residents, Rose went to the home on Tuesday, the day after the break-up, and lured Galen away with the promise of ice cream. The two had appeared to have a good relationship, regularly “reasoning like big men”.

The boy was reported missing Tuesday afternoon and a search was launched. But when that search ended around 3:15 p.m. Thursday afternoon, it was Galen’s body that was found near the Manley Meadows housing scheme in the eastern end of the city.

Lewis on Friday afternoon told The Gleaner that Rose, who was the last person seen with Galen, called her earlier in the day offering to offset funeral expenses while protesting his innocence in the boy’s death. She doesn’t believe him.

Hopeton Bucknor