20 years ago, he stripped me naked in the market place •••

Dear Taiwo,
Help me out. I have been humiliated. I have gone through the worst 20 years and over of my years, and now, I am expected to forget everything and forgive.

The fact, however, is that, I have forgiven a long time ago, but forgetting is not easy and I wish everyone concerned in this issue would leave me alone and also leave God out of this.

I want your readers to advise me on what to do. As far as I am concerned, I have lost everything, so I don’t know what they all want from me again.

In September, I will be 73 years old. I had only one child, a daughter who I lost 20 years ago.

She was everything to me, because her father, my husband who would have stood by me during my trying period died when she was just seven. It was not that I did not desire to remarry, but one way or the other every other, relationship I tried after my husband’s demise did not work.

So you can imagine my joy when my daughter got married and started having children.

She was a lucky child, who got things right at a very early stage. She passed through school without much ado and after her university education she got a good job. When she told me she wanted to get married, though, still very young, I had no cause to stop her.

My only concern was the man she wanted to marry, he was a lot older than she was and I also didn’t like his tribe. I eventually had to let go, when my daughter assured me that all would be well. I also prayed about it and I was assured that with prayers all would be well.

If I had known, I would have followed my instinct. I would have stopped her from marrying him. I would not want to mention his name and tribe because I don’t want to be tagged a tribalist. This is because, I have come to realise that sometimes it is not about the tribe, but about the person.

On the long run my daughter was blessed with a baby girl barely a year into her marriage. My joy had no bounds. Like every proud mother, I stayed in her home to help with the baby care.

Not that I didn’t have a job, I had a thriving business, but I had to leave everything in the hands of a trusted aid to help with the baby care.

I went back to my place when I was sure she could cope. I still wasn’t comfortable with her husband; but I had no choice but to get used to him and I kept praying. I couldn’t place my hands on the real reason I wasn’t comfortable with him, but the feeling just wouldn’t go away.

She was fast in conceiving again. This was why I had to go to her place when she delivered another baby, this time a boy when her first child was barely one.

I noticed that things were a little strained between the couple and my daughter was edgy.

When I asked her she said all was well. How I wished she had confided in me.

Two weeks after she delivered her second baby, she became ill. Very ill that she was hospitalised. You could imagine my state of mind. She was asked to stop breastfeeding her baby because her PCV kept falling. She was in the hospital for over a month. After she was discharged from the hospital, she started another session of sickness.

We resorted to prayers; added to the medical treatment. A friend of mine took me to a spiritual church where my daughter was advised to leave her husband if she wanted to live.

Initially she refused, but later she consented, but this man would not release her. His excuse was that she could not take his children away from his house. I pleaded with him to allow me take them – my daughter and her kids away to take care of her and when she’s better they would return, but he refused.

Eventually, when her little baby was seven months, she died. Before her death, she screamed from her sleep that fateful night. She said she was beaten on her right thigh by a dog in a dream.

Unfortunately, the sign was shown clearly on her thigh when she woke up. We began another spiritual battle; until I lost her.

I was however confused, sad and devastated when her husband and his family members pointed accusing fingers at me, that I killed my daughter. As a result of this, they took my grandchildren who would have been my source of joy away from me.

Some of my friends and family members too also deserted me. I however, held on to God and my faith in him never for one day shook. I was not even allowed to see my grandchildren, not for one day. Thereafter, I was disgraced out of my son-in-laws house. To make it worse, I was not even allowed to know where my daughter was buried. Despite these I had no choice than to pray for my grandchildren and wish them well.

Surprisingly, two months ago, my shepherd called me on the phone and asked to see me. I attend a spiritual church. He told me that a young man and lady visited him – my grandchildren and they requested him to facilitate a meeting with me.

I was curious and I consented to the meeting. They are my blood and I have nothing against them. When we met, their mission was to meet and plead with me on their father’s behalf.

Apparently, the issue that was covered over 20 years ago was exposed by God. He had told them a lot of lies about me, hence, they were not interested in looking for me. The youngest of the two, however went to a spiritual church with a friend and a lot of things were revealed to him. He was advised to carry out some spiritual exercises and also pray. At the end of the exersise, their father lost, money, wealth and even his health.

When the chips were down, he came home to meet his kids and whoever cared to listen that he wanted my forgiveness. He confessed to using their mother for money rituals while passing the buck to me.

He did not only stop there, he became insane. The solution, however, is that he should seek my forgiveness.

Forgiveness; I have done so a long time before now, but the claim is that if he does not see me and I pray for him he would remain in this state till he dies. This I am not ready to do. My grandchildren have sent almost everyone to beg me.

What am I expected to do?

Please, somebody tell me. He stripped me naked in the market place. He denied me the joy of motherhood and gave me everlasting heartache. Now, he wants me to bless him.

I have forgiven him for the sake of my grandchildren, but I think he is asking for too much.

Please, advise me
Sarah

Correction..Ricardo Fuller got married on Saturday …The bride is stunning..I love the dress!

A FEW MONTHS AGO I WAS PRESENTED WITH A SITUATION TO HELP SOMEONE IN NEED, SOMEONE I LOVE. BUT I WAS SOOoo AFRAID OF BEING “OUTED” THAT I DIDN’T HELP THEM. LET ME TELL U, ONE OF THE WORSE FEELING IS BEING ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. IT AFFECTED ME DEEP … BECAUSE ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME, KNOWS I NEVER MISS A CHANCE TO HELP, ESPECIALLY SOMEONE CLOSE. AND SO BY NOT HELPING I WAS BEING UNTRUE TO MYSELF. WHAT CAN I SAY FB. I’M NOT EXPLAINING, JUS THINKING AND SHARING AS USUAL #HeartOnMySleeve #BornThisWay

Renford Solomon: A serial killer with a heart of stone
Crimes that rocked the nation
Sybil E Hibbert

Sunday, April 01, 2012

CAN a mother’s tender care cease towards the child she bears?
This was the question posed to me, shortly before 30-year-old Renford Solomon, part-time gardener of a Spanish Town Road address in Kingston, was to answer to five counts of murder in the No 1 Home Circuit Court.

1/1
Solomon was alleged to have murdered his employers, their nine-year-old daughter, the helper, and the live-in gardener. He was defended by Millard Johnson (of the family of well-known Johnson’s Drive-Inn on Maxfield Avenue) and E K Banjoko (formerly Brown).
The soft-spoken, broad-shouldered young man, was the kind of chap one passes daily on our streets and lanes in Jamaica — quiet, unassuming, penetrating eyes that never seemed to blink, and an engaging smile.
So what in the world could have triggered such vicious, inhumane, and, at the same time, senseless behaviour? Such as would arouse Solomon to turn upon a man of years, Sidney Campbell, and his wife, operators of a bicycle shop on Harbour Street in downtown Kingston, his daughter and household employees, snuffing out their lives in one fell swoop?
Evidence in court as to how Solomon was alleged to have grabbed the nine-year-old and slashed her throat as she begged for her life, caused the jury of mostly women to sob softly in their handkerchiefs.
Understandably, the trial judge, Justice Lincoln Robinson, took a brief recess, to allow the poignant moment to pass. Earlier, the case had been put for trial before Chief Justice Kenneth Smith, but due to his reported indisposition, it was put back one week and thus came before Justice Robinson.
It was a time in Jamaica’s history — during the 1960s — when a strange type of killing was taking place all over, with special reference to Upper St Andrew. Women were especially targeted. The victims would be found with their throats slashed. It happened in different communities; sometimes, more than one incident on the same night. At each murder scene would be written in blood on the walls of the house: ” By the time this is discovered, I will be in Cuba.”
The police were clueless! An all-island alert was posted. Manhunt after manhunt was mounted, to no avail. Every clue led to a dead end. Panic, fear and a growing cry by the public for quick action on the part of Government began to spread.
And then there appeared a light at the end of the tunnel.
The police had begun to turn their attention to the missing live-in gardener because his body had not yet been found. Solomon had been interviewed and it was established that on the day of the murders, he would not have been expected to be at work, so it was assumed he was not the murderer.
Two significant things happened.
One: The gardener’s body was discovered in a yam field on the property after the Campbells’ dog started scratching frantically at the spot.
Two: Solomon’s mother, thought to be a woman of high repute, though living in what is called today the “inner city”, took a decision; a decision which, if more mothers, parents could or would have the courage so to do, Jamaica would be a better place.
There was no question that she loved her son; she loved him so much, she told the Circuit Court, that she felt she had to protect him from himself, and so, save others. She grieved for the Campbell family and the other victims. She did not want others to die at the hands of her son, Renford Solomon.
Her testimony was so moving that at the end of her evidence-in-chief that first morning, Solomon asked a policeman in the holding area at the cell blocks of the Supreme Court to call me as he wished to speak to me.
Now, I did not know Solomon before the trial. But I noticed that during his mother’s testimony he kept staring at me. A lesser mortal would probably have been terrified. I still remember his piercing eyes. He had the kind of penetrating stare that never seemed to waver.
‘I should have killed her too!’
I went down to the cell block and spoke to him through the rails. He told the policeman standing nearby, obviously as his duty demanded, that he wished some privacy. I nodded. The policeman shifted his position slightly.
Then Solomon asked me the question: “Can a mother’s tender care cease towards the child she bears?”
I was wondering why he asked me that question. He had two barristers-at-law defending him. So I posed the question that was on my mind: why ask me that question when I am not your attorney? He told me, he believed I would tell him the truth.
And right then I did. I told him quite frankly that no jury in the world, after hearing a mother testify as his mother had testified, could return any other verdict than one of guilty of murder.
Solomon stared at me, always with that penetrating stare, for what seemed like an eternity. Then he said in a slow, deliberate and deadly voice:
“Mrs Hibbert, (I didn’t even know he knew my name) I made one mistake”
“And what was that?” I asked.
He continued to stare at me and in the same tone of voice said: “I should have killed her too!”
I thought it was time for me to leave. I needed time to think. My head felt as if it was suddenly stuffed with cotton or gauze or some such light material. I totally forgot lunch.
On the resumption at two o’clock that day, Solomon’s mother was rigorously cross-examined by Johnson. She stuck to her story; if anything, the cross-examination only helped to strengthen the prosecution’s case.
Solomon elected to give an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock, as was his right. In that statement, he denied knowledge of all the accusations. He said his mother and brother, a soldier in the Jamaica Defence Force, had concocted the murder story in an effort to frame him.
The prosecution argued that Solomon, the part-time gardener, only visited the Campbells’ home three days per week; and he was very kind, especially to the nine-year-old, Campbell’s only child.
The picture painted by neighbours, family members of the Campbells and others was such that no one, including the police, suspected the quiet, unassuming Solomon. He had been routinely checked and seemed to have passed the test.
But at Spanish Town Road, things were quite different!
Solomon’s mother said she had no radio; she never heard of the murders until some time after. She had noticed that her son was not going to work and when she enquired of him what had happened, he told her his employers were travelling.
Days later, she noticed some “bloody” clothes in a pan of water outside in the yard. She said nothing. She did a search inside their one-room dwelling and found some foreign-looking coins and other items, which she suspected did not belong to her son. Then he came upon her looking at one of the coins and her life changed dramatically thereafter.
She told the court that her son threatened to kill her if she told anyone in the tenement yard where they lived — about what she had seen. He ordered her to wash the bloody clothes; she was not allowed to leave the room, and if Solomon was going out — which was rare — he would lock her in.
Then one day, her younger son, a soldier, visited. Solomon acted as if everything was normal and advised her to do likewise. She appeared to co-operate. However, Solomon made the mistake of stepping outside briefly. That was her cue. She hastily wrote three words on a piece of paper — CALL THE POLICE — and squeezed the paper into the palm of her younger son’s hand, as if she had been shaking his hand in farewell.
She told the court that her younger son seemed to have sensed that all was not well and he bade a hasty farewell. Mercifully, Solomon, it seemed at the time, was unaware that anything had gone awry.
Obeah, D’Lawrence and Satanic rituals
Within minutes, a squad of police and soldiers descended on the Spanish Town Road residence and the very surprised Renford Solomon was taken into custody, the court heard.
The premises were searched. Some personal effects belonging to Sydney Campbell were found — among them some rare foreign coins, of which he was known to be a collector.
Also taken from the premises were Solomon’s clothes, some of them still showing traces of blood; a knife resembling a dagger (which forensic evidence proved was the murder weapon); and some literature on “Obeah” and “D’Lawrence”, which the court was told had to do with certain Satanic rituals. All these items were exhibited in court.
Forensic and handwriting experts gave evidence to prove the writings in blood on the walls, both at the residence of the Campbells and at other murder scenes, were done by one person — Renford Solomon.
After his conviction for murder in relation to Millicent Campbell, the wife of Sydney Campbell, and the sentence of death was pronounced, Solomon had nothing to say. I went down to the cell block to witness him being fingerprinted.
He appeared as cool as a cucumber. When he put his right hand out for his fingerprints to be taken, it was steady as a rock! Same thing with the left hand. That told me he was as cold as ice!
He turned and stared at me as I entered, and said quite matter-of-factly: “You know I’m going to appeal?”
I managed a faint smile.
I have seen some convicted persons who, prior to conviction, appeared as large as life, but when crunch time came, both their legs and their tongues seem to have migrated and left them. Others fall into a coma and have to be lifted downstairs to the cell blocks, and there have been worse cases. But Renford Solomon is one of the rare ones. In over 40 years, I have seen fewer than 12 persons convicted for murder react like him.
Having exhausted all avenues of appeal, the date with the hangman was finally set.
I was in the No 1 Home Circuit Court on the morning preceding the scheduled hanging at Spanish Town when Millard Johnson, Solomon’s lead attorney, asked the court sergeant to call me. I went outside.
Johnson told me that he had been to the St Catherine District Prison to see Solomon that morning and that Solomon had asked him to get me to come to see him. He wanted to speak with me.
I was tempted. I thought about what a great story that would be. My interviewing a prisoner who was about to take that final walk to meet his maker! And he knew beforehand that he would be doing so in hours, then minutes, then seconds, then… It was mind-boggling! What if Solomon confessed? How would I handle it?
I was standing there for what seemed like an eternity, my mind racing in respect of the endless possibilities therein, when Johnson brought me back to earth: “We have to go now! Time is of the utmost!”
Then it hit me. I suddenly recalled a story I had heard about a man on Death Row who had been granted a last wish before his execution. He wished to see his mother. She was taken to the prison. The prisoner asked his mother to come closer so he could give her one final hug. She stepped forward and as she did so, the prisoner leaned forward and bit off her ear. The prisoner reportedly said that had she corrected him as a child, he would not have ended up where he was.
I decided to second-guess myself and telephoned my husband, Isadore Hibbert, who at that time was stationed at the Half-Way-Tree Police Station. I told him what I had planned to do — to visit Renford Solomon on Death Row, to interview him.
His sharp retort was: “You must be crazy!”
That put paid to that! The following morning, it was the first item on the news. Renford Solomon had cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell the previous night. He had used his undershirt to hang himself.
It has been a long time now but I still wonder just what he had wanted to tell me.
Sybil E Hibbert is a veteran journalist and retired court reporting specialist; send comments to [email protected]
Next week: The Mary Lynch murder trial

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/NEWS/Renford-Solomon–A-serial-killer-with-a-heart-of-stone_10958700#ixzz1zidUH9o3