HORROR STORY OF A MOM WHO COULDN’T GET HELP TO DEAL WITH WAYWARD DAUGHTER
Mother said she tried everything to save daughter who was repeatedly sexually and physically abused
By Alesia Edwards
The mother of 18-year-old Jessica McCarty, of Buckfield in Ocho Rios St Ann, whose decomposed remains were found buried in a shallow grave at Great Pond, near Ocho Rios, on October 6, said she had appealed to police in Area 2 to help her save her “uncontrollable” daughter.
McCarty’s remains were found after her 35-year-old boyfriend, who has since been charged with her murder, reportedly took police to a location in Great Pond where the teen’s decomposed remains were found in a shallow grave.
Last Friday, Okieff Davey, of Buckfield in Ocho Rios was charged for his baby’s mother’s murder, almost a week after he was taken into custody for questioning in relation to her disappearance. He had reported the woman missing to the police, in April.
However, Joan Hibbert, said the very same policemen who swore to serve and protect were themselves sexually abusing her uncontrollable daughter and turned a blind eye and ear even when she begged them to help her deal with the underage child.
“They say if you have a child and you can’t manage the child and you need help you are to seek help, but they (the police) didn’t help me because they too were sexually abusing my teenage daughter,” the woman told North Coast Times. She said that she had problems controlling her daughter shortly after Jessica came to live with her about 2010., when the girl was only 14
SEXUALLY ABUSED
Ms Hibbert said her daughter was a troubled child who had been raped and who became too exposed to sex at a very young age. She claimed the girl was also neglected by her father and his relatives with whom she lived in Kingston before she ran away to St. Mary.
“She was very, very sexually active,” the distraught mother who said she fought to save the child, told The Times. She explained that Jessica only came to live with her in Tower Isle, St. Mary at age 14 and within two years she left to live with a much older man at New Buckfield in Ocho Rios.
The mother said the circumstances which led her to taking control of the child were troubling and she had a mammoth task of trying to groom the girl, who at age 14, was already too exposed and was a very defiant teen.
“She was raped in Kingston and then she ran away to Devon Pen ( Mary),” Ms Hibbert said. The broken mother explained that the child had been living with her father and his relatives in Kingston ever since she was small. She said the child was taken away from her by the father when she was a little girl.
BACK TO SCHOOL
However, Ms Hibbert claim the child was neglected by her father and his relatives. She said this neglect led to Jessica becoming very promiscuous. At age 14, the mother said Jessica was not afraid to tell people “how many men she had.”
The mother explained that after the rape, Jessica ran away from Kingston to her relatives in Devon Pen in St. Mary. Ms Hibbert said she took her daughter and enrolled her in school. She was placed at Tacky High through the Grade Nine Achievement Test.
However, she said the child had serious behavioral problems and ended up in problems at Tacky. She said she tried to get help for her daughter and that she would often take Jessica for counselling in Port Maria. Also, she visited the Child Development Agency office in Highgate, St. Mary with Jessica, seeking help.
The mother said her problems with Jessica worsened one evening while the child was inside the small grocery shop she operates in Tower Isle. Ms Hibbert said a man visited the shop and soon after he became involved with Jessica.
“Him tell har fi hide har clothes inna bush and she go weh wid him.” Ms Hibbert said Jessica stopped attending school and started living with the boyfriend at age 15. (This meant the police and state agencies, such as CDA had good reason and the law to intervene). She said she tried to get the police to intervene but they refused.
Ms Hibbert said her daughter was involved in a very abusive relationship with Davey who impregnated her. Jessica’s son is one year old. The mother said she became pregnant again shortly after but had a miscarriage.
Ms Hibbert said Jessica’s boyfriend would constantly “throw her out” in the middle of the night and repeatedly threatened to kill her. However, she said no matter how she begged her daughter to leave her lover and return home she refused.
THREATS
“Him threaten har a lot of times sey him ago kill har, him sey har life belonged to him and anyhow she go back to my house him ago kill har,” Ms Hibbert claimed. She said that each time the boyfriend put Jessica out, he would come back for her within two days or earlier.
She told The Times of several occasions when Jessica and the baby were thrown out by the boyfriend and how she, Ms Hibbert, had to rescue her. But, she said no matter how she begged Jessica not to leave, she refused saying she wanted to work things out with her boyfriend. (blurb)
Ms Hibbert said the boyfriend would constantly call her, Ms Hibbert and curse her to leave his girlfriend’s business alone. She said he even threatened her. Ms Hibbert said the child remained in the abusive relationship despite her best effort to have her leave.
She said Jessica visited her earlier this year after she discovered that she was not well. She said the girl was bleeding heavily. She went to the hospital and discovered that she had a miscarriage. She said one day Jessica called but she was not at home. She didn’t hear from Jessica again and this prompted her to file a missing persons report at the Ocho Rios police.
LEAVE IT TO US
Ms Hibbert said at the same time she was filing the report, the boyfriend was also at the station filing a missing person report for his teen baby’s mother. She said she immediately knew something was wrong and that she begged the police to help her search for her child.
Ms Hibbert said she told the police about a property in Great Pond which is owned by the boyfriend’s stepfather and she said she begged the police to accompany her to the location to search for Jessica. But she said police told her to allow them to do their job.
“If they had listened to me, we probably would have find her earlier,” the mother lamented. She said she even told the police that Jessica had called a friend and told him that the boyfriend was taking her away in the trunk of a car to kill her. She said the police did not act on that information either.
Ms Hibbert said it was not until a police friend, from outside the parish, began showing interest in Jessica’s disappearance about a month ago, that the police in St. Ann took it seriously and questioned the boyfriend. She said she even went to the police one day with information that her daughter was killed and buried in a shallow grave but again the police refuse to act.
“Nobody didn’t listen to me or help me, neither Area 2, Prospect or Ocho Rios (police),” she said. Ms Hibbert claimed the police stayed away because often time when she reported the child to the police, they would take Jessica’s number and call her about sex. (blurb)
“When me go to the guardroom they don’t allow me to see any superintendent,” she said. “I could have saved my daughter if I had just gotten some help from the police when she use to misbehave and me go to them or when she runaway to live with her boyfriend while she was underage.”
THE BABY
She said on one occasion when she reported to the police that her underage daughter had run away to live with her boyfriend, she said police told her to go home and pray.
Ms Hibbert told the North Coast Times that she doesn’t know how she is going to bury what is left of her daughter. She said she probably could give her a decent burial if the police had acted swiftly in helping to find her when she urged them to visit that property in Great Pond.
She said the girl was found in a very shallow grave which was sealed with cement and then covered with dirt. She is convinced that the boyfriend who reportedly confessed to police and took them to the shallow grave, did not act alone.
Ms Hibbert said Jessica was a troubled child and that men took advantage of her.
“When Jessica just come live with me she no fraid fi talk bout how many man she have,” Ms Hibbert said on one occasion when she tried to reprimand Jessica about her boyfriend the child picked up stones to hit her.
Ms Hibbert said she also blames the stepfather of Jessica’s baby’s father, to whom she said she reached out many times, because Jessica and her boyfriend lived at the same house, but she said the man refused to help.
Ms Hibbert who has two other younger children said she has since taken Jessica’s one-year-old son.
