A happy Jovayn Miller, hugging his parents, Selvin and Jennifer Miller, outside the Montego Bay police station. - Noel ThompsonWESTERN BUREAU:
SEVEN-YEAR-OLD JOVAYN Miller who was kidnapped on Friday, was reunited with his parents yesterday morning.
The happy ending came three days after he was abducted by a group of men who demanded a $10-million ransom for his safe return.
Following intensive investigation by the police the little boy was found unharmed in the Somerton community, St. James about 2.30 a.m.
The police said the boy who was left by the kidnappers in an unfinished church building, made his way to nearby premises. Residents who had heard about the kidnapping immediately called the police.
Det. Supt. Neville Salmon, Crime Chief for Police Area One, told The Gleaner yesterday that the police were fine-tuning certain aspects of their investigations and the five men in custody were still being interrogated.
"We are still searching for other persons involved in the matter, but some people who we believe can assist us in our investigations have moved from their places of residence. We have completed the most successful part of the investigations and that was to recover the boy. We will now move to put the men in custody, before the courts. We are also trying to determine whether or not these men were involved in any other crime," Det. Supt. Salmon said.
A 16-year-old boy who was held with a .380 calibre semi-automatic pistol at Jovayn's parents' restaurant in Lilliput on Friday, has been charged with illegal possession of firearm and ammunition.
The police say that after Jovayn's abduction from Faith Temple Preparatory School, Montego Bay, on Friday, the 16- year-old went to Mr. Miller's restaurant to solicit money. While he was there, the police arrested him after they found the gun in his possession.
The police subsequently shot dead a man in John's Hall Square and took from him a 9mm pistol and eight cartridges. Two cars which featured in Jovayn's abduction and the subsequent shootout were seized.
However, Det. Supt. Salmon said late yesterday that the dead man was still unidentified, but the police were making progress in their efforts to identify him.
Also, he said that the gun recovered from the dead man was robbed from Montego Bay businessman Kenneth Wallace in mid-October last year. Mr. Wallace, manager of the Grand Central Wholesale, Roosevelt Road ,Montego Bay, had stopped at a restaurant in Flankers with a friend, when two men attacked him. They pushed him from a stool he was sitting on and shot him five times. He survived.
Mr. Salmon said ballistic tests would be done on the firearm to determine if it had been involved in any other shootings during the period it was stolen.
