Rasbert Turner, Gleaner Writer

Spanish Town, St. Catherine:

Two children were left without parents yesterday after their mother was taken into custody on suspicion of murdering their father, whose decom-posing body was pulled from a pit latrine in St. Catherine.

The gruesome discovery was made along Peters Lane, Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine, when the body of Charles Patterson, a 29-year-old employee of Jamaica Broilers and resident of Old Harbour Bay, was found by relatives who had been searching for him since Thursday.

Frequent fights

According to the Old Harbour Bay police, about 10:00 a.m. yesterday, a report was received about the body of a man in a pit latrine where Patterson and his common-law wife resided.

On the arrival of the police, the body was found to be in a state of decomposition and extensively burnt.

Several persons on the scene claimed the two had been having frequent fights and that, on the most recent occasion, he was cut by the common-law wife and was to return to court on December 8, when the case would have been mentioned.

Patterson's co-worker, Mark Bogle, told The Gleaner that they went to the bank to cash their salary cheques on Thursday morning, and that he had not seen him since. He said Patterson's other co-workers at Jamaica Broilers, where he worked as a chicken catcher, were saddened by his death.

Meanwhile, the residents claimed that on Thursday evening when thick smoke was seen coming from the yard, it was believed that members of the household were cooking chickens that were being reared there.

Due to its advanced state of decomposition the body, which was bound with rope, had to be placed in a box on the site for a post-mortem to be conducted.