- Junior DowiePastor of the Faith Chapel United Pentecostal Church, Bishop M. D. Kelly, right, prays for relatives of Marlene 'Doreen' James and her two daughters, Tenisha Wilson and Shakira Malcolm, who were killed in the 100 Lane massacre on January 3. Orville Malcolm, centre, father of Tenisha, weeps on his daughter's casket during the proceedings.
Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
THERE were lots of tears at the funeral service of 33-year-old Marlene "Doreen" James and her two daughters, six-year-old Shakira Malcolm and 11-year-old Tenisha Wilson who were killed during the 100 Lane Massacre on January 3rd.
Yesterday, scores of family members, friends and sympathisers including Earl A. Fearon, acting Commissioner of Corrections and Dr. George Leveridge, psychiatrist with the Department of Corrections along with former classmates of the two schoolgirls, turned up at the Faith Chapel United Pente-costal Church along Ren-field Avenue, Kingston 20, to say their final farewell.
Delroy Wilson and Orville Malcolm, the fathers of the two girls, even before Bishop M. D. Kelly, pastor of Faith Chapel, advised them to "weep if you have to," had already bared their grief before the church. Orville Malcolm, father of six-year-old Shakira, wept openly as he hugged his daughter's casket then threw himself to the floor.
One of Ms. James' two sons, who narrowly escaped death in the massacre, cried silently with his brother.
The tributes to the dead were heart-wrenching. Stu-dents of the Swallowfield All-Age where little Shakira attended school could not hold back their tears despite the words of their song, "fly, fly, do not fear, don't waste your breathe don't shed a tear."
Vera Buckley, principal of the St. Richard's Primary School, who read Shakira's eulogy told the grieving relatives that revenge was not the way to heal and the only way to heal was to look to God and end the bloodshed. The Acting Commissioner of Corrections, tried also to appease the relatives of the slain females and pledged that the Department of Corrections was going to do everything its power to curb criminality in the island.
Pastor M. D. Kelly in his bid to put some closure on the grief of the family preached a message that "sometimes God doesn't make sense," expounding on the unfortunate deaths of the females.
