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Buried on Film

Mom identifies Westmoreland siblings in viral video of bodies dumped in shallow grave

Published:Monday | December 11, 2023 | 12:11 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
 Kerrick Moodie, 20, and his 22-year-old sister, Keneisha.
Kerrick Moodie, 20, and his 22-year-old sister, Keneisha.

WESTERN BUREAU:

Two Westmoreland siblings, reportedly killed over scamming money, have been identified by their mother after their lifeless bodies surfaced in a video that went viral late last week.

Keneisha Moodie, 22, and her 20-year-old brother, Kerrick Moodie, both of Top Lincoln in Grange Hill, Westmoreland, were reported missing shortly after they were last seen at a fast-food establishment in the parish where they went to leave a package of $10,000 for their mother last Friday.

Stephany Edwards, who was in Grange Hill up to last Friday, confirmed in a telephone interview that the people seen in the video being buried in a shallow dirt grave beside each other are her children.

According to her, she has not seen her children since a week ago, which is not the usual practice for them.

“Last week Sunday was the last time I saw them,” Edwards said.

In fact, this past Friday was the last time she heard from her son, who called to say she was to collect some money in Grange Hill.

She noted that when she did not hear back from them sometime after 11:00 a.m. to let her know they had got back home in St Elizabeth, she reached out to them without success.

“I called them and got no answer. It is four phones they have, and I have been calling the phones, but no answer until now,” Edwards said from her St Elizabeth home.

She said it was sometime after 2:00 p.m. on Saturday that she was alerted to a video bearing the lifeless images of her children’s bodies where they were being buried in the shallow dirt grave.

“My daughter’s foot looks like her grandmother’s. And if you look up to her leg, she has a sink on her leg and she has a scar at the side of her eye,” the distraught mother of five said in reference to the elder of her two missing children.

She lamented that she raised her children the best way she could until they were old enough to be on their own.

“Now that they have become adults they have taken their own path, they want to do their own thing,” she explained, pointing out that some of the things they did, she had no knowledge of as they kept everything secret.

However, she admitted that based on a voice note now on social media, it appears that her missing children were involved in scamming.

“Yes, the voice note says it is because they bingo food and go around the boss, so that is the problem,” Edwards theorised as the motive behind their abduction and apparent murder.

She is now asking members of the general public to assist in locating the shallow grave so that she can retrieve the remains of her children and give them a proper burial.

‘I am here pondering and wondering to see if I could get the two little pieces of bodies to bury. I have no idea where they bury them,” she said.

She said while her daughter had entangled herself in illegal activities, her son, although living with his sister both in Westmoreland and St Elizabeth, was not involved in illegal activities.

“I can’t feel good. They are my belly pain. My body is numb. I tell you it’s not anything good,” Edwards said.

She is warning those responsible for the abduction and killing of children to remember that they, too, have families.

“God is in the midst of everything, and their day is going to come because God is not asleep,” she said.

On December 8, the Black River police in St Elizabeth reported the two Moodie children missing.

Kerrick is of a dark complexion, slim build, about 163 centimetres (5 feet 4 inches) tall, while Keneisha is of a brown complexion, slim build, and about 135 centimetres (4 feet 5 inches) tall.

Reports are that about 7:15 a.m., Kerrick and Keneisha were last seen leaving the cook shop in Grange Hill in the parish.

On Sunday, Deputy Superintendent Adrian Hamilton, acting commander of the Westmoreland Police Division, said the police had not yet been able to make any determination as to the location of the siblings.

Yesterday he said there was information suggesting that they were last seen in Westmoreland but that there was nothing to actually confirm that at this time.

“We can’t make any links yet because we have not had the evidence to make any such link,” Hamilton said last night.

“No bodies were discovered, no location identified, and these persons have not returned home,” he added.

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