Sadness struck the community of Pineapple, Ocho Rios, after a resident was murdered before day break on Wednesday, February 22.
The deceased man has been identified as 44-year-old Leslie Burgher otherwise called Burgher.
Reports from the Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) are that at about 3 am on Wednesday, residents heard explosions and called the police.
The body of Burgher was then found, with several gunshot woundsin his gray Toyota Corolla motorcar. The police information arm, the CCU also stated that Burgher was originally from David Lane in Portland.
Reports to The Times indicate that Burgher recently started operating a taxi and that he continued to do odd jobs including gardening, running errands and construction work. There are reports that he was building a house on a section of nearby capture land but often slept in his car at a yard on Main Street in Pineapple. That’s where he was killed.
Nothing is known of the motive for his death but sources told the North Coast Times that he had recently come into some money from an insurance claim and that may have been the cause of his death.
GOOD MAN
A close female friend of Burgher, who wished not be identified, in an interview with the North Coast Times, recalled the last moments she spent with him last Saturday evening, February 18.
She said she made a habit of jeering him whenever she saw him, but it was never “his way” to respond.
She said she had been friends with Burgher for several years after he came in the area to live. She remembers him as a humble and helpful person. “He gets along with everyone, he was the gardener for the whole community,” she said.
It is understood that Burgher was a taxi driver who plied the Steer Town to St Ann’s Bay route and also the Ocho Rios to Steer Town route.
Burgher’s female friend said he had been living at a house in the Pineapple area, close to where his body was found and that he had only left that premises in December of last year, after purchasing a motor vehicle. It is in that vehicle that his body was found.
She also says he was hardworking and that even up until the time of his death he “had work to do the morning”.
She also added that “he (Burgher) never trouble anybody things, he was honest”.
