St Thomas in mourning over London bloodbath

The murder of 64-year-old Jamaican Dolet Hill and three other family members in London, England, has left a trail of tears and devastation in her home town of Lyssons, St Thomas.

Dolet and her partner, 58-year-old Denton Burke, were stabbed to death at their home on Delaford Road, Bermondsey, on Monday. Dolet’s daughter, 45-year-old Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, also known as Racquel, and Tanysha’s daughter, 27-year-old Samantha Drummonds, were also killed in the incident.

Dolet’s brother, Errol Thompson, is struggling to come to grips with the gruesome quadruple murder.

The 74-year-old told The Gleaner that he was crushed when he got a call on Monday from his wife, who lives in England.

“All now I can’t believe if it’s real … . Mi know it happen, but it’s hard for me to believe,” he said from his small veranda in Dumfries, St Thomas.

Sharing sweet memories of their closely knit relationship, Thompson spoke of the jest the siblings once enjoyed.

“Me and her have a thing with PG Tips, a tea bag in England. I used to live in England, too, and she know I love that tea bag, so if anybody at all come, she always send a lot of it for me,” he said.

“I don’t remember how the joke came about, but she always send them. When I heard [of her death], the first thing I said was, ‘Boy, mi nah go get any tea bag again’,” he quipped, adding that she treated him well.

Thompson said he last saw his sister two years ago when she visited the island to get married and to celebrate her birthday.

Dolet, Thompson said, was known throughout Morant Bay, the St Thomas capital, for her sunny smile.

“From you say ‘Dolet’, anybody who know her will say, ‘If you’re sad, she makes you laugh … . She’s that type of girl,” he said.

Elaine Maine, a cousin of Dolet, said she was still in shock. She reminisced about Christmas merriment at the Lyssons home of Dolet, whom she described as a “very nice person”.

“All of us grow up together here in Lyssons. I was also living in England for 19 years. I used to visit Dolet’s house Christmastime to have dinner and sleep over,” Maine said in a Gleaner interview on Tuesday.

“We attended the same church and everything. Yesterday when I heard, I started to cry. I couldn’t believe that Dolet just gone so.”

Dolet’s older sister, Fay Cole, who resides in Johns Town just outside Lyssons, said they were from a big family.

“My mother have 13 of us and we scatter all about, but we lived together in Lyssons before she left to England,” she shared.

Cole said that although she and her sister were not very close, she summoned strength not to faint when she learnt of her passing.

The Guardian newspaper reported that a 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody. He was reportedly being treated in hospital and is in stable condition.

Officers had reportedly forced their way into the home about 1:40 Monday morning, following a call from neighbours about a disturbance.

A Taser was deployed in the man’s detention.