When they arrived at the house and looked under the cellar or the small space below the veranda the police and members of the Child Development Agency couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Under the veranda in a space no more than three feet high was a woman crouched and making unintelligible sounds. She seemed small in frame and wouldn’t come out inspite of all the appeals for her to do so and assurances that she would not be harmed.Members of the St Ann Police and the Child Development Agency (CDA) say they had never seen anything like this. Finally the young woman was lifted out. As she is a victim of apparent abuse she will not be named. While police were at the house, the woman’s step mother remained toward the back of the unfinished house and was later made to accompany the police to the nearby station. The young woman’s father was, later that same day, taken in, before the matter was taken to the night court.
On Sunday the couple was charged for negligence. They are Melody Murphy, 42 shop keeper and Gerald Campbell, construction worker.
Sources tell the North Coast Times that police agonized over how to handle the case after it was found that the victim was not a minor and therefore several charges that would have applied had she been under 16 could not be brought.An investigation has been launched by the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences & Child Abuse (CISOCA) and the St Ann police into what happened and how long the young woman was being held there. The area was unpaved, had several pieces of plastic and cans in which it appeared food had been served over time. There was a small bed frame remaining up to Monday but the Times was told a mattresses was there earlier. A sheet of zinc had been nailed to the area to make it difficult to see under the cellar from the outside. On the other side there was tarpaulin hung that would give full cover to the hole where the young woman was kept. The Times can confirm that the young woman had been living with her father, Campbell, after her mother died some five years ago. Later Murphy reportedly joined the household. The two had been extending a house that was unfinished, the original portion at the back made of board. The house itself was surrounded by others some as close as ten feet away in the gritty informal settlement of Windsor Heights.
The victim has had speech defects and was at one time a special education student for years in Brown’s Town.
However, it is reported that her mother’s death seems to have affected her badly and she became involved in behavours that seem to be a throwback to earlier years. She often reportedly wiped faeces on the floor and walls and threw her food about the house.It appears she was put out under the cellar for some time.It seems that for much of last week the girl was animated and became the subject of discussions in the St Ann’s Bay Market, where people telling tales were told to go to CDAOn Thursday, a couple who had heard about the victims and reported the matter to the CDA. On Thursday police walked up the hilly terrain over a narrow track, pass several houses to the unfinished house.The girl was seen tied under the house. She had apparently been in a squatting or stooping position for so long that one officer said the young woman appeared to be deformed. It could not be determined if she had a physical disability.The woman’s discovery on Thursday sparked outrage by residents of the community who claimed they had no idea the woman was living in such horrid conditions. The father and step-mother reportedly have another child, a six-year-old son together and two other older children by the mother. Checks by the North Coast Times revealed that up to Sunday, the victim was still at hospital undergoing several examinations.
