(Jamaica Gleaner) On a normal day, residents of Kiora, George’s Valley, would have awakened to the cool Manchester breeze and the coos of native birds. But yesterday was not ordinary.
The rural district woke instead to blood-curdling screams for help about 5 a.m. from a neighbour, who was shoved outside her house by her 29-year-old son, Jayon Leon.
It is alleged that he then bolted the door behind her and proceeded to murder her husband and his 75-year-old father, Roy Leon, otherwise known as ‘Barry’ or ‘Sparrow’, a tradesman.
His throat was slit and his body dragged to the front steps of the family home, where the suspect partially severed the head.
Leon would have celebrated his 76th birthday in February.
It appears that the alleged killer showered before changing his clothes, managing to escape the wrath of the community and the custody of the police.
The horrific news has left relatives and residents in shock.
Yesterday, many declined to speak, and those who did were grief-stricken in the numbing aftermath of what some called the community’s most gruesome incident in living memory.
“My sister-in law is distraught. She is just trembling. She is completely horrified. How could a quiet youth just turn and slaughter his own father like this?” said Rowan Dewar, who is married to the wife’s sister, gushing tears.
He said that the incident has left him in unbelief.
“Tell me say a crash him go crash and dead and I wouldn’t think otherwise, because him drive hard, but this? This is something else. Never cross my mind could this ever happen,” said Dewar, who recently returned from a six-month stint working in the United States.
He told The Gleaner that the younger Leon was at his house, about a five-minute walk across a slope, from around six in the afternoon on Sunday until approximately 1 o’clock Monday morning, noticing nothing that would have given a clue of the heinous end to Roy’s life that would unfold.
Dewar’s aunt, who gave her name only as Miss Cherry, said the younger Leon had an argument with his father and wondered whether the discord carried through to the grisly death.
“Even so, we never see any sign that could inform us that this was going to happen. But we noticed sometimes he would just space out; but is so him stay all along. I didn’t know it could have meant something more serious,” she said.
For residents, the shocking event belied the humble persona of Jayon Leon. They said, however, that the brutal murder had now left a stain on their community.
“Long time me know the youth, you know, and never saw this coming. He was such a humble youth. He was acting strange lately. He must be under drugs, man. The way him kill him daddy nuh normal,” one neighbour said.
Jayon Leon, who is reportedly in custody, was to have gone for a second job interview in Kingston yesterday morning, having had an initial assessment at a well-known call centre on Friday.
He previously held a job at another call centre in Mandeville before he resigned, family members said.
Manchester has recorded a 35 per cent increase in murder, according to the Jamaica Constabulary Force Periodic Crime Statistics Review. The parish has recorded 42 murders for the year, as at December 28. That is 11 more than were tallied over the corresponding period last year when 31 persons were killed.
Shootings and rapes are also showing worrying increases, of 34.1 per cent and 39.1 per cent, respectively.
