A post mortem examination is to be conducted on the bodies of a man and his son who died following a meal involving ackee.
Dead are Leslie Parkes, 57, farmer and painter and his 24- year-old son, Warren Parkes, both of Mount Zion, St Ann.The two lived together ina one room concrete and board dwelling in the deep rural farming community, near Mines, about six miles from the crossing at Llandovery, on the North Coast Highway.
On Thursday morning, March 5, about 7 o’clock a relative went in search of the elder Parkes who was to go on a job the previous day but hadn’t been in contact. He discovered the bodies in the house. Warren Parkes was on the bed stretched out and his father appeared to have fallen from a chair next to a bath pan.
Reports are that the Parkes were last seen together on Monday, March 2. Derrick Parkes, Leslie’s brother, said he had chatted to his brother Monday evening, March 2, and they were expected to speak on Wednesday.
DUMPLIN, BANANAS
He said after the bodies were found he went to the house and saw that they had consumed a meal including ackee, dumplins and boiled bananas. The ackees were from a tree right there in the yard.
People in the area had begun considering that the two had been poisoned after another man with whom the two had shared the ackees became ill. The Times was unable to determine the identity of the man but he is not from the area and was released from hospital Friday. Derrick Parkes said the man had not eaten from that pot.
He said his brother was a calm, hardworking man and that his nephew had some disability. “My brother don’t trouble a soul. Is just a good man,” he told The Times.
Police on the scene on the day told North Coast Times there was no sign of violence or of foulplay.
