(Jamaica Gleaner) The Bogue Heights community on the outskirts of Montego Bay, St James, was plunged into mourning on Wednesday afternoon when a popular accountant was shot and killed by armed men when he made a valiant attempt to stop them from abducting his daughter.
The dead man has been identified as 57-year-old Steven McPherson, of the upscale Bogue Heights community, which offers an elevated view of the western city.
According to reports, shortly after 4:30 p.m, McPherson’s 23-year-old daughter exited a taxi in the community and was walking home when men travelling in a Voxy bus and a Toyota motor car pulled up alongside her. The men began making sexual advances at her but she ignored them and kept on walking.
However, as she was approaching her house, the men used both vehicles to block her path. They alighted from their vehicles with guns and demanded that she enter one of the vehicles or she would be killed.
As he approached his home, the accountant realised that his daughter was being harassed and was crying. He drove his vehicle towards the men in an apparent bid to rescue his daughter. However, before he was able to exit his vehicle, one of the men opened gunfire, hitting him in the face.
McPherson lost control of the vehicle, which crashed through his neighbour’s fence. During the commotion, his daughter managed to escape while her attackers jumped back into their vehicles and sped away. When the police arrived at the location, they found McPherson slumped over the steering wheel of the crashed motor car with multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to the Cornwall Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
When The Gleaner visited the Bogue Heights community yesterday, angry residents condemned the killing, saying McPherson was a good man who did not deserve to die in that manner.
“Mr Mack was a quiet man, a good man, yu neva hear anything out of di ordinary at his yard because he was a disciplined man,” a resident told The Gleaner. “It is hard fi know seh dem a try fi rape de man daughter and tru him try fi rescue har, dem kill him.”
McPherson was one three persons shot and killed by gunmen in St James between Wednesday and Thursday. An unidentified male was shot and killed along Love Lane in downtown Montego Bay shortly after the Bogue Heights shooting while 37-year-old Jermaine Samuels, a mason of Lilliput, was shot and killed in the Content community, near Adelphi, on Thursday afternoon.
The latest murders bring to 68 the number of persons killed in St James since the start of the year. Over the comparative period last year, 72 persons were killed.
