IN JAMAICA:Hundreds mourn cruel murder of Manchester businessman Bennett’s murder a great loss to society

BY KARYL WALKER Editor — Crime/Court Desk walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com  Friday, August 15, 2014    

FOURTEEN years ago Birkley Bennett was sleeping inside his Christiana, Manchester home with his wife and three children when gunmen barged in and fired two shots.

The gunmen demanded that Bennett hand over his licensed handgun and a shotgun he used for bird shooting.

Mourners inside Bryce United Church shed
 tears for murdered businessman Brinkley
Bennett during a thanksgiving service in
 Coleyville, Manchester yesterday.
(PHOTO: GREGORY BENNETT)

They herded his wife and children into a back room and eventually found his handgun under his pillow and escaped without harming any member of the family.

The incident shook up his wife, Rose, badly and she convinced her husband that the family should migrate in order to escape the escalating crime wave that was sweeping the country.

The family moved to Florida, USA where he eventually opened a dry cleaning business.

But life in America was not enjoyable to Bennett, who, while he was in Jamaica, operated a grain store and enjoyed tilling the soil and animal husbandry.

So, homesick, he returned to the land of his birth and restarted his business.

Soon he was joined by his family and life seemed to return to normal.

But in a cruel twist of fate Bennett fell victim to gunmen's bullets on July 24 as he waited for friends who had just arrived from the United States to join him at a house he had prepared for them in Christiana.

His daughter had gone to pick up the foreigners at the airport and when they arrived at the premises they were held up by gunmen who ordered them inside.

The gunmen called Bennett by name and before he could pull his weapon, they shot him multiple times in front of his child and friends before taking his gun and proceeding to rob those who were still alive.

Yesterday, Bennett was laid to rest after a heart-rending thanksgiving service at Bryce United Church in Coleyville, Manchester.

Anger, sorrow, and despair were etched on the faces of the hundreds who packed the church, an additional hall, a tent, and the grounds of the church. more