Deane’s mom savours justice, eyes foundation

WESTERN BUREAU:

More than a decade after her son, Mario Deane, was brutally beaten in a jail cell over a ganja spliff, Mercia Fraser is still haunted by the loss – but now, she is finding purpose in her pain.

Just days after a Westmoreland jury convicted three police officers for their roles in Mario’s death, Fraser shared that she plans to launch a foundation in her son’s name – a lasting legacy for a life cut short.

“I plan to do a foundation, and I think I should have registered it long ago, but I did not. But I am still going to do it, and when I register it, I will launch it,” Fraser told The Sunday Gleaner. “I want to do it in my son’s memory, and I am thinking especially to help boys who are falling out of school because of a lack of support.”

The verdict, delivered last Thursday, found Corporal Elaine Stewart and constables Juliana Clevon and Marlon Grant guilty of manslaughter and misconduct in public office. Fraser called the moment “bittersweet”. Justice was finally served – but it could never bring Mario back.

“I am never going to forget him, because he always tried to visit me on Mother’s Day,” said Fraser. “Even if he did not have anything for me, he would still come. I remember one Mother’s Day when he came and he cooked my dinner, and when I came home from church, my dinner was ready.”

That memory, one of warmth and love, now fuels her resolve.

Fraser wants her son’s foundation to support young boys who, like Mario, may be vulnerable – to poverty, to neglect, to systems that fail them. She envisions outreach for those pushed to the edges of society before they find themselves behind bars.

“We need to make a system right now where we find a way to reach these young men on the streetside before they get embedded into gangs and cruelty. These little things help when they find out that people love them, because sometimes they do not get any love from home, because the father is gone and the mother does not have time for them,” Fraser reasoned.

RESOLVE

“If you want to save the youth, keep the lockups at a minimal capacity. The fewer men you have inside there, the better your work is, and if you can motivate some of them, especially those who are not ‘bruk into badness’ yet, then motivate them,” Fraser continued.

Fraser’s dream is personal. It’s shaped by struggle – her own and her son’s. A working mother, she always tried to make sure her children had a hot meal before they left home. Now, she wants to make sure other mothers don’t have to bury their sons for something as minor as a spliff.

Her sister, Patrice Brown, said she would support such a foundation, citing how the Government quickly sought to review the law on possession of small quantities of ganja following her nephew’s death. She noted that the rest of her family remains deeply affected by Deane’s death more than a decade later.

“Having a foundation for Mario would be a good idea, because while it is bad that they killed him, ever since his death, the law was passed where people were allowed to have two ounces of ganja. It is because of his death, why that law was sped up,” said Brown.

Brown says Mario’s father, devastated by the loss, can’t bear to hear his son’s name.

“He starts to scream out and behave like he is getting off his head, and the family has to deal with that part of it,” she said.

The emotional weight of the case has lingered through the years. On August 6, 2014, Mario, a 31-year-old construction worker, died at the Cornwall Regional Hospital – three days after he was thrown into a jail cell where he was beaten into a vegetative state. Officers Stewart, Clevon, and Grant were on duty. One of them, Stewart, was later accused of trying to cover up the crime by ordering the cell cleaned before investigators arrived.

Their trial, which lasted from March to May 2025, heard testimonies from 15 prosecution witnesses. The officers chose to remain silent, giving only unsworn statements. Now convicted, they await sentencing in July. They could face life imprisonment for manslaughter.

Fraser, who testified as the trial’s first witness, says no sentence will erase her loss. But if her foundation can save even one boy from ending up like Mario – alone, vulnerable, forgotten in a cell – then her son’s death won’t have been in vain.

“Mario is gone,” she said quietly, “but now I can move on and live.”

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com