The man killed in a collision on the Boscobel Main Road, Friday night loved driving more than anything else, his common-law wife says. Dead is 48 year-old Maurice Anthony Bennett, also called Spragga, driver and farmer of Hamilton Mountain, St Mary. Bennett was heading home after 10 p.m. Friday when the Toyota Hiace Bus he was driving collided with a small truck, spun and slammed into a wall on the north or sea side of the road, across from Boscobel Primary School. Bennett suffered horrific injuries, including a broken arm and the upper part of his head was smashed off.
A young man who worked with him and who was seen by many as Bennett’s son, was covered in his blood but was not injured. The youth, Cornwall Williams, also called Richard, was so frightened it is reported he left the bus after seeing that Spragga died instantly and ran all the way, more than 12 kilometres to Hamilton Mountain, where he was a neighbour to Bennett. People, who reportedly saw him running covered in blood, said he was simply repeating “Spragga dead.” The common-law wife of Mr Bennett said she spoke with him minutes before his death when he assured her he was coming home to take her out. Pauline Robinson, also called Miss P, said she had last seem him in the early afternoon when Bennett went on the streets. She said they communicated as they usually did just after 7 p.m., as they often reminded each other to watch TVJ news. She said they spoke after 9 p.m. and spragga said he was coming home to take her out. An hour later he still had not reached home at 10:03 he called and asked if she had taken out his clothes for them to go out. She said she told him yes but by then she had doubted they were going anywhere. She called him about 10:30 and 11:00 and there was no answer. She went to bed.
GOING NOWHERE
In the end there was to be no going out. She said the next thing she knew was that a young man from the community came knocking at her door, about 11:30. Someone had called another community member in the square giving them in formation that Bennett or Spragga was dead. And the youth had run down to the house to find out if Ms P had heard. “For a while it come like me out of myself. Mi say mi haffi go see that if Spragga really dead,” Miss P said. She then said she got ready and went out because she couldn’t believe the man she was with for the last nine years was dead. He was indeed dead. She sucked in air through her teeth and looked away as she remembered the scene, near Boscobel Miss P described Spragga as a hard working, loving man who was jovial in nature. “Is a man who up to a baby can ride him back,” she said he worked hard as a driver and on the farm, Rent Land Property, which he supervised. He often delivered jelly coconuts to various customers and on Friday one of his last deliveries was to a customer in Retreat Content, also in the parish.He also drove a bus on the Oracabessa to Ocho Rios and sometime es onto Brown’s Town route. She said his dream was to make a home for his family. “Every day him think of making house for him children,” she said. He has left three children to mourn Dana and Shoyan Bennett and Jerome McBean.“Although Spragga gone with a part of my heart, we will be okay….I lean on Jesus every time,” she said.
