QUADRUPLE MURDER UPDATE: A St Elizabeth community grappling with the stain of blood... Claremont yearns return to ‘normal’ life,,,, the saga began when one of the men believed to be involved in the killing showed up at his father's birthday get-together at the shop on the weekend. "A youth come, and him and that youth not friend, because that youth pass him every day and don't deal with him. He turned to the youth and said, you must not eat my food or drink my soup, because unu don't like me," Wright recalled.

 BY ALPHEA SAUNDERS Senior staff reporter saundersa@jamaicaobserver.com  Sunday, May 31, 2015    

DEATH pounced, around 8:00 pm, taking out three men, two of them elderly, at a little yellow and white shop in the tiny community of Claremont, St Elizabeth, just below Ginger Hill, where the mainstay of the residents is pineapple farming.

(L) Ezra Wright, aged 73 (R) Archibald Brown did not stand
a chance against the gunmen’s bullets.

A fourth man, 57-year-old George Brown, was slain further along the community's one entry road as he fled. His sister, Marlene Brown, said her older brother's throat was slashed by the marauding gunmen, even after they had riddled the other brother, Archibald Brown, 60, with bullets at the shop.

The sweet smell of pineapples permeates the air all the way up the hills of North West St Elizabeth, but at the shop, which was up until Wednesday run by Ezra Wright, 73, there is nothing remotely pleasant about the grief stricken expressions of the family memebers who have been left behind.

The murder of Wright, said to be a hardworking farmer by all, along with the Brown brothers, and 41-year-old Maurice Sanderson, who was a resident of Ginger Hill, has left the community terrified but also angry.

They are angry because since last year, Claremont has been terrorised by criminal elements, some of whom are known to the residents, and who the police believe are the same ones responsible for the cold-blooded, quadruple murder of the farmers.

(L) Conroy Wright, son of slain farmer Ezra Wright, remembers
 the grisly scene he found at his father’s shop. (R) Earnel Wright
 is in disbelief over his brother’s killing.

Corporal Andrew Patterson, who heads up a four-member team now posted in the community, told the Jamaica Observer that, "since the last nine or so months, this is the seventh murder now in this community, coupled with a few robberies and so on. So far we believe it's the same set of suspects. Before that, the area was very quiet. Apart from the odd domestic cases of wounding, we never used to have anything much that would attract so much police attention," he said.

The killings moved the number of murders in the parish since the start of this year to nine.

Patterson said that the police is working on a number of leads, and would continue to maintain a presence in the community. "It's very tense... people are in fear. They are very happy at seeing the police provide that level of reassurance," Patterson said.

Police presence

Conroy Wright, the youngest son of Ezra Wright, clearly shaken by the murders, and particularly the loss of his father, said that the saga began when one of the men believed to be involved in the killing showed up at his father's birthday get-together at the shop on the weekend. "A youth come, and him and that youth not friend, because that youth pass him every day and don't deal with him. He turned to the youth and said, you must not eat my food or drink my soup, because unu don't like me," Wright recalled.

He said that he pulled his father aside and advised him to let the argument die. But it was already too late.

"Right there so it trigger from... they never have any dispute, but them just don't talk to each other," he said. more