BY KELESHIA POWELL Observer staff reporter keleshiap@jamaicaobserver.com Sunday, February 14, 2016
ASH Wednesday was no ordinary holiday for friends and relatives of Lansil Gregory, 71, and his 74-year-old wife Corita, who had gathered to clean the couple’s rural Manchester home.
While lively music of an old-time church song blared from a car parked in the yard, the atmosphere was redolent with gloom and the tragedy that had struck could be felt.
The couple, described as devoted Christians, was chopped to death late Sunday evening after returning from church. Their burgundy Toyota Camry motorcar was stolen along with other valuables from their home.
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| Lansil and Corita Gregory |
When the Jamaica Observer visited on Wednesday, the strong scent of detergent filled the air as it masked the blood odour that was being washed from the walls and floors. The small traces of blood that could be seen at the time were soon washed away as people busied themselves, trying to restore the home to its former glory. Lansil’s cousin Alwyn Gregory told the Sunday Observer that it had become a daily routine for their daughter Nadine Gregory, who resides in Boston, to check in with her parents due to a robbery at the house two years ago. When calls to their phones between Sunday evening and Monday went unanswered, she grew worried and initiated a search.
Alwyn, a former officer in the Jamaica Defence Force, said that upon visiting the house Monday evening, he saw droplets of blood on the veranda and summoned the police. They along with help from neighbours cut the veranda grille to enter the house and were greeted with the raw smell of blood before stumbling on Corita’s body in the living room.
Just around the corner Lansil’s lifeless body lay in the passage leading to their bedroom. His blood had seeped through the wooden-floor bedroom he shared with Corita and into the garage down below. They were both still dressed in church attire when their lives were snuffed out.
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The couple’s apartment building which was a source
of income after they retired. |
Alwyn found it strange that Lansil’s walking cane, which he needed for support, was found in the living room, a good distance from where his body was. “After he got a stroke in 1986, we nursed him back to the point where he could walk, but he lost the use of his left arm and walked with a limp,” the couple’s only son, Patrick Gregory, revealed to the Sunday Observer.
The wicked nature of the assault on Lansil, a limp, elderly man, caused Alwyn to surmise that their killers were familiar to them. He theorised that the attackers waylaid his cousins as they arrived. “The brutality of the attack tells me that at least one of the murderers was someone known to them and probably didn’t want any witnesses” he said. The police reported that Lansil’s and Corita’s bodies had several chop and stab wounds.
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