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Dad grieves as slain girls, grandma laid to rest

Published:Monday | December 21, 2020 | 12:16 AM
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A boy looks on as the coffins bearing the bodies of Michayne Akeelah McFarlane and Christina Natalia McFarlane lie in a coach at Perry's Funeral Home Chapel in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on Sunday. The sisters and their grandmother, Icyline McFarlane, wer
Ian Allen/Photographer
A boy looks on as the coffins bearing the bodies of Michayne Akeelah McFarlane and Christina Natalia McFarlane lie in a coach at Perry's Funeral Home Chapel in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on Sunday. The sisters and their grandmother, Icyline McFarlane, were shot and killed by gunmen who invaded their home on November 22.
Christopher McFarlane is overcome with grief at the convergence point of three coffins bearing the bodies of his daughters, Christina and Michayne, and their grandmother, Icyline McFarlane, on Sunday. The three were the victims of gun violence in Tryall He
Photo by Rasbert Turner
Christopher McFarlane is overcome with grief at the convergence point of three coffins bearing the bodies of his daughters, Christina and Michayne, and their grandmother, Icyline McFarlane, on Sunday. The three were the victims of gun violence in Tryall Heights on November 22. The funeral was held at Perry's Funeral Home in Spanish Town, St Catherine.
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Relatives and friends watched helplessly the heart-rending display of grief by Christopher McFarlane on Sunday as he lay face down between the coffins of his two murdered children, with his own mother to his left.

As the family bade their final goodbyes to 81-year-old Icyline McFarlane and her two granddaughters, Christina, 10, and Michayne, six, Mr McFarlane remained prostrate at the flower-laden cream-coloured coffins, almost appearing to will them from death into the land of the living.

The pain was palpable, with a local government official using the funeral to charge the Jamaican society to hunt down the killers and bring them to justice.

“I am not pleased with what I see here today, as there are two children and a grandmother here in their caskets,” said Councillor Keisha Lewis, who represents the Lauriston division.

“... This can’t be the work of one person.”

The three were attacked in a home invasion in Tryall Heights on Sunday, November 22. Sources report that the senior citizen was made to kneel and was shot dead before the killers trained their weapons on Christina and Michayne.

Sunday’s ceremony at Perry’s Funeral Home in Spanish Town, St Catherine, was awash with grief as mourners recalled the triple tragedy.

A representative of Spanish Town Primary, where the children were enrolled, decried the targeting of the sisters, adding that Mishane, who was said to be feisty, had all the hallmarks of leadership.

The bodies were later interred at Meadowrest Memorial Gardens in St Catherine.

The brutality of the attack is unusual in Tryall Heights, invoking wrath and sorrow in its aftermath for seasoned crime-fighters like Assistant Commissioner of Police Gary Griffiths.

The head of the police Area Five and himself a father, Griffiths said he was personally devastated by the Tryall Heights bloodbath.

“It is really gruesome. I have been to many scenes, but this one touches me to the core,” he had said the day after the killing.

– Rasbert Turner