Suspect held in Trelawny farmer’s murder
Published:Thursday | February 3, 2022 | 12:11 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE TRELAWNY police have confirmed the arrest of one of the main suspects in the murder of an elderly farmer, whose charred remains were discovered in Clark’s Town about 1 p.m. on Monday.
“We have managed to apprehend one of the suspects, and we are now in the process of getting a confession from him in the presence of his lawyer, after which he will be charged,” a senior cop told our news team yesterday.
The identity of the suspect is being withheld until he has been officially charged with the murder of 63-year-old Winston ‘Manna’ Stewart, of MacHill district, also in Clark’s Town.
Reports are that some time after noon on Sunday, Stewart left home to tend to his cows at his farm at Walker Piece in a section of MacHill.
When he did not return home as customary, concerned relatives made a report to the Clark’s Town police.
A search effort to locate the missing farmer ended in horror on Monday afternoon when the team stumbled upon Stewart’s burnt remains at a woodland farm owned by a suspect.
Preliminary investigations led to the arrest of one of the suspects. Two other men implicated in the gruesome murder remain at large.
Stewart’s common-law wife for more than four decades, Melrose Gordon, told The Gleaner that he was a peaceful individual, expressing regret at the gruesome manner in which he died.
“Him is a quiet man, nuh make no trouble, so I don’t know what dem kill him for,” the distraught woman related.
“Him was here Sunday and him lef and say him a guh Walker Piece guh look pon him animal dem. When him a guh ‘round, wi call him phone and him answer and say him just a go inna the bush; him just a guh inna Walker Piece.
“After we know say him supposed to deh come ‘round, we call him back and him nuh answer. The phone only a ring, and it come een like somebody take the phone from him and lock it off,” she continued.
She said that the men suspected to have murdered her common-law husband were well known to him, adding that he would often give them food.
“I don’t know why dem would wah kill him. One a dem, especially, eat out a him hand, but him tell mi that them have some animal which a eat dung him ground,” she said, adding that Stewart had recently asked one of the suspects’ father to speak with him about the animals.
Stewart is the fifth person to be murdered in Trelawny since the start of the year.