Hundreds of residents converge on the Morant Bay police station in St. Thomas last month, demanding that the police release into their custody, a man who was taken in as a suspect in the brutal murder of five family members in the parish on the weekend. - NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
A 39-YEAR-OLD deportee, who has been in custody since February 27, has been formally charged by detectives probing the murder of six family members in St. Thomas.
Michael Alexander McLean, of Red Hills district in St. Thomas, was charged yesterday following the conclusion of a high-level meeting between Kent Pantry, Q.C., the Director of Public Prosecutions, and a team of senior detectives led by Acting Assistant Commissioner Granville Gause.
The Gleaner has learnt that the case will be transferred from St. Thomas to the Home Circuit Court, downtown Kingston, for trial.
On February 26, the bodies of Patrice George McCool and her children Sean Chin Jr., nine and Lloyd George McCool, three, were discovered with their throats slashed. At another home in the district, the bodies of two other family members, Terry-Ann Mohammed and her son Jesse O'Gilve, nine, were found.
BODY FOUND
Four days later the body of six-year-old Jihad George McCool was found in a shallow grave in Rosemount district, St. Mary. The police believe she was killed elsewhere and taken to the location where she was buried.
The police are being assisted in their investigations by a profile of the murder accused, provided to them by law enforcement agents in the United States. Information on his file indicates that he was deported to Jamaica on September 22, 2001, after being convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison in a New Jersey Court. The document said he was eligible for parole after five years.
