Loud screams of ‘Latty’ and ‘Latty gone’ echoed across the community center in Marlborough, near Richmond in St. Mary where family, friends and colleagues gathered to pay their final respects to a young dynamo whose life was cut down by gunshots fired by her husband. “Latty! Latty! Latty! look how dem kill me pickney, a me belly pain that enuh,” wailed Rohan Campbell as he looked at the lifeless body of his only daughter, Latoya Campbell Thompson, inside the lavender and white-draped casket. Latty, as she was affectionately called was murdered by her husband, Davian Thompson, a police constable who was attached to the St. Catherine police, but who was on suspension at the time of the murder. Thompson reportedly attacked his wife and shot her just outside her Oakland Apartment in Constant Spring, St. Andrew. The incident happened sometime after 11 p.m. on April 12, mere minutes before Latoya would have celebrated her 28th birthday on April 13. Constable Thompson’s body with a gunshot wound and a firearm beside it was found in the Grants Pen Gully, a few meters away from the Oakland Apartments. On Saturday, May 10, people turned out in their numbers for the thanksgiving service which was held on the grounds of the Marlborough Community Centre. A decision had long been taken that the church nearby would not be big enough for the crowd. There were no empty chairs under the two tents pitched to accommodate mourners.
Tears flowed freely as people viewed the body of a young woman who relatives and colleagues said had a very bright future. Her parents Rohan and Minett wept uncontrollably. So too did her brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives, school friends and co workers. The ceremony was too painful for many and some had to be ushered away. (blurb)
Many hugged the casket, others cringed in pain, while some just simply stood and cried as persons paid tribute through music, poems or spoken words, to the former head girl of St. Mary’s High School. One of her two godmothers, Doris Williams remembered how ‘Latty’ took her first step inside her house and how she grew up to be a well mannered and well loved girl who excelled in all aspects of her life. Mrs. Williams also spoke about different stages of Latoya’s life including her pregnancy, birth of her son Dijorn, marriage and that fateful morning when she learnt that a man who she had warned at the wedding to take care of her daughter had ended her life.
