WESTERN BUREAU:
GRIEF-STRICKEN residents of Montpelier in St. James are still struggling to come to terms with the drowning of three young men from the community in the Great River in Lethe, Hanover, on Sunday afternoon.
Divers fished Omar Reid, 19; Danny Anderson, 21; and Lenneil Parkinson, 24; from a dreaded section of the river known as 'Dada Hole'.
When The Gleaner visited the men's homes yesterday, relatives, apparently in shock, were at a loss for words. Omar's sister, Naleeca Reid, spoke on behalf of the family. She was present at the river when the young men lost their lives.
"Six of us and my two-year-old baby went around there. Danny went under first and then Omar. I was in a van sitting down when I heard Shane (another man) call out to Lenneil and say that Omar a drown," she explained. "Lenneil jump off and try save him but him end up drowning too."
She spoke of her close relationship with her brother, describing him as a "humble and easy going person."
When the news team went to Danny's house, his younger sister Marsha, was seen on the verandah, gazing as she cuddled her baby, oblivious of two other little boys huddled at her feet. She said her mother was sleeping and that her father was somewhere at the back of the house.
The 72-year-old man later appeared to talk in between checking on a meal he was cooking. "Mi feel out a space, all different type of feeling a tek mi," Stanford Anderson said. "Mi lef him a sleep and go a Montpelier bush, and when me a come back mi hear that him dead."
ONLY SON
Pauline Baker, Lenneil's mother, searched hard for words to express her feelings. "He was my only son ... bwoy mi caan find words to explain how mi feel," she told The Gleaner.
She said her last conversation with her son, who worked as a mechanic, was Thursday over the phone. Ms. Baker said her son was family-oriented and obedient. He died leaving two children, three-year-old Shanneil and 15-month-old Denneil.
"I was coming up Long Hill and I see him drive pass mi and I called him on his phone to ask if he was the one who pass mi and that he couldn't be driving like that and he said okay," she recalled, shaking her head.
However, Elvis 'Jah B' Jackson, a shop operator near to where the men drowned, believes there is a darker force behind the deaths. "Three one time and there wasn't any strong current?" he asked repeatedly. "Mi nuh believe inna science but a science."
