WESTERN BUREAU:
THE WHEREABOUTS of Pastor Arnold Raphael Morgan, who failed to appear in the Hanover Circuit Court two weeks ago for his bigamy trial, remains a mystery to the Hanover police, whose investigations are now taking them overseas.
"We are looking into the possibility of him leaving the island, but so far our investigations have not gleaned anything to that effect," said Detective Sergeant Dowton Martin, parish liaison officer of the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN).
According to Sgt Martin, Pastor Morgan's travel documents were not seized which makes his chances of leaving the island a possibility.
Justice David Pitter, who presided over the two-week sitting of the Hanover Circuit ordered a warrant be issued for the arrest of the 45-year old minister of religion on February 19. The session ended last Friday.
Pastor Morgan who was arrested on a warrant on May 18, 2000, and charged with the offence after being on the run for over a month, is on $50,000 bail.
Pastor Morgan, formerly of the Mystery Lifeline Church in Dias, Hanover, and whose last known address was Four Paths, St. Elizabeth, reportedly got married three times between the early 1980s and 1998 without having the previous marriages dissolved legally.
The court heard the minister of religion first got married in the early 1980s to Barbara Carey, of Schoolfield, Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth. That union produced six sons.
On November 11, 1995, he got married to Janet Dennis, 40, a teacher of Portmore, St. Catherine; that union produced two children. Three years later, on November 25, 1998, he married for the third time to Paulette Watson, 39, a cashier of Dias.
The matter was reported to the police by Ms. Watson on April 4, last year after she was told about her husband's marriages during a conversation with a relative of one of the previous wives.
At the preliminary hearing which was concluded in January, eight months after it was first brought before the court, evidence was given by the three wives, two of the marriage officers and a photographer at one of the weddings.
