By Adrian Frater, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
BERNARD CHANG, who has the distinction of being the first person to be convicted locally through the use of DNA evidence, and the eighth prisoner to be murdered at the St. Catherine District Prison this year, will be buried at the Pye River Ceme-tery, in Montego Bay this Sunday afternoon.
Chang came to prominence as a 17-year-old when he was arrested, charged and convicted in connection with the brutal murder of 38-year-old banker Vivienne Griffiths. Griffiths' badly mutilated body was found ablaze in a secluded section of the Rose Mount Gardens Housing Scheme on the morning of September 13, 1995.
Residents of the housing scheme were alert to the burning body by a dog, which was observed pulling a badly mangled hand from a bush, where they observed smoke coming from. Griffiths, who resided in the West Gate Hill area and was the manager of the Billy Craig Merchant Bank, apparently had her hand chopped off by her killer.
In sentencing Chang to life imprisonment after DNA evidence placed him at the murder scene, Justice Neville Clarke, the presiding judge, described the murder as both brutal and senseless. He said that the harsh sentencing was based on those factors.
After his sentence, Chang was among a group of prisoners who escaped from the Barrett Street lock-up in a bizarre jailbreak. He was arrested again, eight months later in Kingston after he was allegedly caught breaking into a car. Chang, who stole Griffiths' car after the murder, had four previous convictions, which included the larceny of a motor car.
Earlier this year, Chang was granted permission by the prison authorities to attend the funeral of his father, Bernard Chang Sr., the renown PNP activist, who was murdered gangland style on the UDC Fishing Beach, in Montego Bay, by an unknown gunman. The funeral was held in Montego Bay.
At the time of his death, the 22-year old Chang was actively appealing his sentence before the Court of Appeal.
