Horace Fisher, Gleaner Writer

SAVANNAH CROSS, Clarendon:

CHANCES ARE if 25-year-old Andre 'Tall Man' Edwards had $20, he would be still alive, and so too would 23- year-old Damion Smith. Edwards and Smith were both killed Tuesday afternoon in Savannah Cross, May Pen, Clarendon.

According to residents of Savannah Cross, Smith and Edwards were working as labourers on a construction site in the community when Smith asked Edwards for $20. Edwards, unable to give Smith the money, was beaten with a shovel. He died while undergoing treatment at the May Pen Hospital.

An angry mob quickly captured Smith as he tried to flee the community and hacked him to death, just a couple feet from where he supposedly killed Edwards earlier.

Edwards' death has left the Savannah Cross community in shock. They described him as a kind, caring and hard-working young man.

"Tall Man a good boy, him nuh deserve to die like this. Can you imagine somebody beg you $20 and because you don't have it to give to him, him use a shovel and beat you to death, after you just cook lunch and give him," asked Fredrick Herdsman, angrily, as he gathered with a group of Edwards' friends in Savannah Cross.

Denford Williams, one of Edwards' friends and a neighbour, painted a glowing picture of the deceased.

"Me can't believe say somebody can kill you fi $20, if Tall Man did have it, him would a give him the money, I know him. He is just a kind lad," insisted Williams.

Smith's grandmother, Elvin Harris, while expressing shock at the violent turn of events, and fearing that she may be attacked, said that her grandson just came into the community two weeks ago to live with her, after residing in St Maarten and Montego Bay.

"I don't know what get in to him, him come up two weeks now, and the next thing me hear a big noise say him killed Tall Man, and them killed him back," said Harris.

"You think them a go come and kill me too, sar," she asked this reporter.

Tuesday's incident is the fourth jungle-justice killing in the last few weeks.

rural@gleanerjm.com