A 'loving flower' mourned

Lennox Aldred, Staff Reporter

Family and friends of University of Technology student, Julie Anne Maxwell, were joined by politicians, academics and other dignitaries on Friday to pay their final respects to the slain young woman.

The Belair High School Auditorium in Mandeville was just about half-full and politicians Audley Shaw, Bruce Golding, Dean Peart, John Junor, Pearnel Charles and Hyacinth Bennett could easily be spotted in the congregation.

A tearful Kaye Maxwell, sister of the deceased read a eulogy entitled the "Pathway", while mother Nain Maxwell paid tribute to her "loving flower" in song.

Tributes poured in from representatives of Knox Community College, Northern Caribbean University and the Faculty of the Built Environment, UTech, where Julie had completed her three-year structural engineering diploma course and at the time of her tragedy was enrolled in the BSc degree programme.

Family and friends remembered Julie as a person who left an endearingly positive and indelible impression on those whom she touched whether by her pleasing appearance and personality or through her many songs. She was tough and confident and she knew no fear -- gone too soon.

Her death sent shock waves throughout the entire UTech community -- the student body, teachers and staff alike. Julie Anne Maxwell went missing on September 18 after leaving classes at UTech. Her mutilated body was found six days later in the Dallas gully in the hills overlooking Papine, St Andrew. A post-mortem revealed that Julie's death was caused by strangulation.

Last week, 26-year-old Marvin Anthony Edwards, also called Pete, a resident of Lyndhurst Gap, Constitution Hill, St Andrew, was taken into police custody in relation to the killing.

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