78-y-o St Andrew woman’s murder rattles family

St Andrew senior citizen Barbara Archer was looking forward to today’s visit from her only daughter and gifting her pineapple, which she specially picked for her.

But the reunion was dashed by Archer’s gruesome murder.

The partially nude body of the 78-year-old woman was found with her throat slashed, lying in a pool of blood in her house on Monday morning in the quiet rural community of King Wesson in Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew.

Francine Wedderburn, whose face was a picture of pain and anguish as she spoke with The Gleaner, said she last saw her aunt on Saturday, when she stopped by her shop in the community and collected bread, six eggs, some crackers and a ginger biscuit.

“Me never in all my dream imagine this, fi know say a somebody who raise me from primary school,” Wedderburn said of the woman affectionately called ‘Miss Babs’.

According to her, Archer, who lived alone and could still care for herself and others, was upbeat about a visit from her daughter, Sharon, who lives in Kingston.

“She was so excited, say she even have a pine. She just broke the pine. She tell everybody that she find the pine and put it dung fi Sharon because she a bring food fi har. She tell her say fi bring food and no figet the pig’s tail,” Wedderburn shared.

The distraught woman told The Gleaner that she was at her job on Monday morning when she received news that her aunt was found unresponsive.

Before rushing out to check on her aunt, Wedderburn said she stopped at the police station to make a report. While there, she was informed about her aunt’s death and believed she had died from a natural cause.

However, she said that it was after the police had finished processing the scene and Archer’s body was removed that she was informed of the state in which she was found.

“Me cry, y’know, because she a 78 and she have high blood pressure ... . Yuh see when the police tell me say dem cut har throat and see har in a panty, God, man! Me can see it,” she shared.

“When I go back to the house later and see the blood, me not even lock back the door. Me just nuh want that remembrance. If the house could a just tek up and move,” she added. “The way it hurting me, I wish when the hurricane comes, it blow weh.”

Wedderburn said that when she went inside the one-bedroom structure, all the food items that her aunt had brought home, except for the ginger biscuit, were untouched.

PARTICULARS DISCARDED

Additionally, she said her aunt’s clothes for the church were already also taken out and her bras with broken straps were seen discarded on the floor along with a belt.

Archer’s niece said she suspects that her aunt may have been raped, but the police have not confirmed that and would not be able to do so without a post mortem.

Meanwhile, she said it was her aunt’s best friend, Miss Loveline, who after noticing that she had failed to turn up at church and had not answered any of her three calls on Sunday, sent a friend to check on Archer and was greeted with the terrible news.

“Miss Babs nuh talk fi say she and somebody would a have something. Just from church to shop. She would a go a de shop if she feel too [bored] and sidung and talk with other old people weh she pass or she has another old friend across the road,” Wedderburn said.

Wedderburn said her aunt’s murder has left the entire community in shock, sorrow and fear and she is hoping that her killer will be brought to justice.

Meanwhile, a resident in a neighbouring community, who described Archer’s death as a “very wicked act”, said some persons are of the view that the woman’s death may be connected to a murder that was committed in the community on Sunday near a spot the elderly woman is always sitting. The resident said the killer may have felt that she had seen something.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com