By Charmaine Austin,
Staff Reporter
EVERY DAY that he spends in his six-man cell at the General Penitentiary waiting to be released, is one more day in hell for accomplished Special Olympic athlete, Gary Stair.
While his team-mates were in Anchorage, Alaska, winning medals, he was at Tower Street marking off the days until his release. March 15 was especially difficult for him. It was his birthday.
Stair, 26, represented Jamaica in swimming (captain) and football at the Special Olympics World Summer Games held in North Carolina in 1999. He returned home with two medals a silver and a bronze.
He, along with four other men, were tried and sentenced on November 16 last year, and imprisoned at the penal institution after they were found guilty on charges of illegal possession of a firearm and robbery.
Stair recounted that on March 3, 2000, he was "kidnapped" by individuals alleged to be his cohorts in committing the offences.
Sources dismiss this claim, stating that the mentally challenged man was part of a community-based gang, and that the same people with whom he was caught, picked him up at work occasionally.
Stair was, up to the time of his incarceration, employed to Costco (now Bashco Trading Company) store in Montego Bay. His former employers described him as a "hard worker who caused no trouble."
A former co-worker of the inmate told The Gleaner that on the afternoon that Stair last reported to work, he collected his weekly pay in cash, then went to a nearby jewellery where he purchased a watch and a chain for himself.
He left the store, then boarded a bus to Lucea, Hanover where, upon arriving some time after 8:00 p.m., went inside the local games shop and entertained himself playing video games. Stair said himself that he left the games shop for a few minutes and ran across the road to purchase a music cassette from a sidewalk vendor.
He recalled that he left the shop at about 10:30 p.m., walked by the Lucea police station where he hailed woman Constable Marva Cunningham, then passed a hardware store and greeted some dreadlocked friends of his seated outside.
Grinning throughout the interview, the former Rusea's High School student, who was assessed by the Abilities Foundation and passed as a high-functioning retard, continued his tale. "I passed Mr. Gashier('s) and Jean Buck's house and ah notice a white car (later identified as a Toyota, Corolla), but ah never tink anyting funny bout it."
"I walk past the car an a man pull a gun on me and make me get into the car". He seems at this point, afraid to continue with the conversation, but added that he was told to hold his head down, not to look at them, not to try and signal the police and not to try and run or they would shoot him.
He said the jewellery that he had purchased was
taken from him at this point, but he did not attempt to argue.
"Dem ask who a live wid and a tell dem mi father, step mother and bredda then dem ask if mi father woulda pay $20,000 fi save mi life. I was frightened and a start cry," Stair said.
Stair, who says he is familiar with places in and around Hanover, recounted that he was driven to Dias, a remote part of the parish. He said three of the kidnappers got out and "went up the road".
He recounted that three of the "kidnappers" got out of the car and "went up di road", then returned to the car and drove off. The vehicle fell into a ditch, Stair said, and they all ran out leaving him behind. He says he does not know any of them.
"I get out of the car and fall down inna di hole then slide pon mi belly. Ah hear gunshots (said he didn't know who was firing) and then a get up and run for help."
Pleasant-looking Stair, who does not readily admit to being mentally challenged, said he knocked on doors of houses asking for direction to the main road to Lucea. He somehow ended up at the crime scene, where the residents, on seeing an unfamiliar face and "assuming" that he was one of the robbers, held and beat him until the police arrived.
"Ah tell dem seh mi neva do it but dem neva believe me. Even in the court mi try to talk up and defend misfelf but dem neva believe me neither."
While he spends what to him seems like an eternity in "hell", his immediate desire is to be free to see his ailing father again.
"Unoo hold tight and keep di faith mi come out," is the message he sends to his family.
