Mother suspects son killed over slippers sale

A Grants Pen mother of four, whose 24-year-old son was stabbed to death and his body dumped in a cane field in Caymanas, St Catherine, believes he was murdered following a dispute over a $12,000 pair of slippers.

Evelyn Callum said her son, Rojae Griffiths, a deliveryman of only two weeks, had been receiving death threats from a client because he delivered a pair of imitation slippers rather than the elite brand which she ordered through him.

Callum said that Griffiths reportedly left his workplace on East Queen Street in downtown Kingston last week Friday to make a delivery in St Catherine, but was not heard from or seen again until his body was discovered in St Catherine on Monday.

The police’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) said that the body of an unidentified man was discovered face-down in a trench.

It said a resident alerted the police after stumbling upon the body in the cane field about 10:47 a.m.

The body was clad in multicoloured underwear only.

Callum believes that Griffiths was lured to the location and killed after listening to several voice messages he is said to have received from the client.

She said that a missing person report was filed with the Grants Pen police, but felt little was done to investigate the matter.

The Gleaner contacted the Grants Pen Police Station, but was directed to CCU “for any information on the case”.

The CCU said that a missing person alert was put out on Christmas Eve.

“You can believe that after we file the report from Friday and the Grants Pen police nuh do nothing, today mi a get call from the [police] commissioner office a ask if mi find mi son? Mi son weh dem find him body stab up from Monday,” Callum fumed in a Gleaner interview on Thursday.

“From a ghetto you come from, you nuh have nuh justice fi get. Nothing fi get from the system because you nuh uptown,” she added.

Callum, who asserted that Griffiths and his siblings were raised to avoid the customary trappings of the inner city, told The Gleaner that the family is still struggling to process how murder arrived at her doorsteps.

“It rough. You know when you see something and read ‘bout it every day inna the paper and you see it pon TV and now it come a your doorstep? Now you know exactly what other families a go through because you a go through the same thing.

“It rough bad. That death him nuh deserve. Mi never look fi see this happen to mi pickney,” Callum said of her youngest child, who she described as thoughtful and generous.

She told The Gleaner that her son had delivered to the client twice before the dispute developed.

She said on December 16, Griffiths was asked to purchase the slippers from a store, but noted that the store had closed by the time he arrived.

He reportedly purchased the pair of slippers from a friend, who had recently cleared a shipment at the wharf.

Griffiths is said to have delivered the slippers, but the client’s boyfriend later indicated that they were fake, Callum told The Gleaner.

The slippers were returned to Griffiths, who subsequently returned them to the friend and requested a refund, she said.

“The friend nuh give back the money. So, she now keep on a call him and a tell him seh give her her money, but because him know a nuh store him buy it from, him not telling her the name. Him eventually give her back the money, but them had confrontation from the 16th and her boyfriend get involved,” said the mother.

“Them a seh what them going do him and him a tell them anything them do him, him can do back, but him never did a take them serious. She tell him she going call and order and when him deliver, a she him a go buck up inna and him not going know, and him a go see seh she a bad gyal a road. So, from him go Caymanas Estate, which him nuh go St Catherine, that was it. Same way it play out,” Callum theorised based on the voice notes.

The Gleaner could not independently corroborate her story.

When contacted on Thursday, head of the St Andrew North Police Division, Superintendent Sherika Service, said that she would get a briefing on the case. Up to press time on Friday, she had not provided an update. Several calls to her phone went unanswered.

“All of those information I give them (police) and nothing,” Callum said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com