The brutal stabbing of a woman in the morning rush hour near the centre of Ocho Rios on Wednesday lead to outrage and then set tongues wagging about relationships between older men and younger women.
Dead is 22-year-old Kyria Nelson, loan clerk of Pimento Walk, near Ocho Rios, St Ann
The man charged for stabbing the woman and slashing her throat, Wednesday, June 29, is 58-year-old Norman Thompson, also called Ned, vendor, of James Avenue, Ocho Rios, St Ann.
A long running relationship between the two had gone sour. Reports are that Thompson was trying to get from Nelson money made at his fish fry days earlier, on which he still owed bills. She was not taking his calls.
Reports are that shortly after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, after an attempt a few minutes earlier to get Nelson’s attention, Thompson walked up to her at her office. She had arrived early and was alone having just opened the office. They exchanged a few words and he started stabbing her. Loud screams pierced the morning air at Torpedo loan company, Brown’s Plaza. The screaming continued as he repeatedly plunged a ratchet knife into her body and then slashed her throat.
GUSHING BLOOD
Screaming and bloodied, she ran into a salon next door, as he chased her and continued stabbing her. In the salon, she fell onto a chair and called out for help. Then she collapsed, falling backward, with blood gushing from her throat.
She was pronounced dead at hospital.
That murder brought the parish’s homicide figure to 30 so far this year.
Dozens of people on their way to work in Ocho Rios heard the news and converged on the plaza, some claiming they should kill the man. One youth who sent pictures to the North Coast Times said “Mi did wah done him but other people dem fraid.”
The accused murderer was alleged to have walked away from the scene, sat under an Almond tree across the road and said, “Police can come fi mi now.”
A police foot patrol team in Ocho Rios rushed to the scene and apprehended Ned who had allegedly flashed his ratchet knife closed as he walked toward the police station that is no more than 400 metres from the scene.
A crowd later converged at the station where the accused was photographed by many as he sat on a stool waiting to be processed.
Many have asked what led to this brutal, broad-daylight attack in a public place between two people who had been in a relationship.
And people have been telling a story of what happened before the morning of the brutal murder.
