(Jamaica Gleaner) After the alleged brutal slaying of her two sons 10 years ago during the so-called Tivoli incursion, Marjorie Williams is struggling to erase from her thoughts nightmarish flashbacks that remind her of the horrific event. She wanted a home, one away from her current place of abode, which she shares with her blind father and two brothers.
She is living in the tainted West Kingston community on Dee Cee Avenue, next door to the spots where her sons, 21-year-old Fabian Grant and 17-year-old Fernando Grant, were reportedly killed by the security forces.
“Mi live a 25 and dem kill dem a 23 … we were traumatised after the burial. We moved to Manchester but we came back,” she told The Gleaner during a visit to the area recently.
Williams said that nothing could bring back her boys, but a home away from Tivoli would eliminate having to pass the murder house daily.
“They compensate but it was one likkle bit of money. That couldn’t even buy a house. I think they would compensate me so I coulda buy a house and leave right here cause this is my father’s house. I could leave my brothers here because I am so traumatised, all now. It’s painful, painful, painful. Money can’t carry them back. I wish I could see them,” a weeping Williams said, adding that the Government’s payout did nothing to ease the suffering.
COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY
Williams had testified at the highly publicised commission of enquiry in 2015 and would probably be remembered as she gave chilling testimonies of what she allegedly witnessed, which forced an adjournment to the proceedings.
“The feelings can’t change because they were my only two sons … nothing has changed cause I still have the feeling. Traumatised and everything, but I just keep holding on to Jesus. They were killed in a cold-blooded execution style,” Williams told The Gleaner with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Williams said that on the fateful day, she was barricaded inside while she watched as the security forces removed her two sons from their home.
She said, “I slept with the two of them the night and I explained to the officer and them still took them out and killed them next door. I heard them crying for me but I could not come out. I was barricaded inside.”
What happened next would change Williams’ life forever.
“I heard my 17-year-old son keep crying and crying. Then I heard him say mummy dem kill ‘Pucksy’ (which is his big brother). Then I hear bum, bum, bum (explosions) and they killed him. I saw when they were pulling the 21-year-old one cause the truck was across the road, suh they took him up and fling him in there but I didn’t see when they carry away the 17-year-old one,” she recounted.
She told The Gleaner that her older son was about to get a job having returned from a Caribbean territory and the younger Grant was set to graduate from Denham Town High School almost a month after his death on May 25.
Williams was also living with her 13-year-old twin daughters at the time.
One of the girls, Dian Barnes, now 23, said she still remembered the horror she experienced.
She told The Gleaner, “I am still traumatised and [even though] it coming on to 10 years now, it come in like yesterday, still fresh and can’t be forgotten. Like if me hear a gunshot right now, it would carry me back to 2010.”
Barnes said that they are organising to observe the passing of her brothers this weekend.
“We did plan say we a go keep a likkle candlelight and everybody come … so she (Williams) nah fi think about it herself,” Barnes said.
However, with the spread of COVID-19, Williams said that they are having second thoughts about a memorial for her sons.
