IN JAMAICA: A TRIPLE MURDER, ‘Man shouldn’t have reached police station’ Frustrated MP, MICHAEL PEART expresses emotions at funeral of murder victims....Cassandra Nadine Carridice, her sons Roshan Ellis, 11 and Jovan Thomas, 16, were laid to rest following Sunday’s service at the Porus Community Centre.

BY ALICIA SUTHERLAND Observer staff reporter sutherlanda@jamaicaobserver.com  Tuesday, May 27, 2014    

Cassandra Carridice and her two sons

PORUS, Manchester — Speaker of the House Michael Peart struck a controversial note when he appeared to support vigilante justice at a thanksgiving service on Sunday for the victims of a triple murder late last month.

“… Sometimes things happen in our communities and we take it too simple. That man shouldn’t have reached police station,” Peart, who is also Member of Parliament for South Manchester (PNP), declared to assenting shouts from the congregation.

However, in his turn at the podium Member of Parliament for North East Manchester Audley Shaw (JLP) disagreed with any suggestion of “jungle justice”, insisting that instead Jamaica should resume capital punishment for those found guilty of capital murder.

Mourners waiting outside the Porus
Community Centre where the
thanksgiving service for
Cassandra Carridice, her sons
Roshan Ellis, 11 and
Jovan Thomas, 16, was held on
Sunday. (PHOTOS: GREGORY BENNETT)

Shaw argued that if death by hanging was considered inhumane by the “bleeding hearts”, then Jamaicans should resort to executions by lethal injection as is being done in some parts of the United States.

There have been no State executions in Jamaica since the late-1980s though capital punishment remains on the law books. In late-2008, Jamaican parliamentarians, in a conscience vote, opted for retention of the death penalty. Cassandra Nadine Carridice, her sons Roshan Ellis, 11 and Jovan Thomas, 16, were laid to rest following Sunday’s service at the Porus Community Centre.

The three were stabbed to death at their home in Ramble, near Porus in Manchester, on April 29, allegedly by a man with whom the mother had a relationship.

The 46-year-old accused, Mark Henry of Spring Grove, is now in custody awaiting his June 25 court date to the charge of three counts of murder. more