KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite be­ing warned that some­thing eerie was afoot, it was 14-year-old’s fond­ness for the Chap­man fam­i­ly that led her to their La Brea home on the night they were all bru­tal­ly mur­dered.

Speak­ing at Ma­son’s fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, Ever­ton Charles, the fa­ther of Abi­gail Jones-Chap­man, one of the oth­er vic­tims, said he ini­tial­ly took Michaela away from his daugh­ter’s home be­cause he knew some­thing was about to hap­pen.

Speak­ing of the mur­ders last week, Charles said: “The last time I spoke with her when I went in­to the home, I said to her ‘Michaela, you need to go home be­cause things are hap­pen­ing here. I would not want you to be around.’ And some­thing hap­pened and I dropped her right home there. I said ‘Michaela, I don’t mind you com­ing back, but I’m afraid’ be­cause I knew what was hap­pen­ing and it so hap­pened that on the day of the sports meet­ing, she was sup­posed to go to school and I don’t know how she end­ed up with my grand­daugh­ter.

“A lot of peo­ple said all kinds of things but they were home in Scott’s house safe. Some­body for­got some­thing down in the apart­ment and then was when the bac­cha­nal start­ed.”

Charles’ in­sight in­to the mur­ders that rocked the Sobo com­mu­ni­ty brought haunt­ing screams and tears from rel­a­tives and the scores of young­sters who packed to the Sobo Vil­lage Bas­ket­ball Court for the fu­ner­al.

Charles’ mes­sage to the young­sters, many of them school­mates of Ma­son, at Point Fortin East Sec­ondary School and her for­mer Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary School, was that of dis­cern­ment and re­spect. He told the young ladies to be care­ful with the men they meet and said men need to check them­selves on their treat­ment of women.

Ma­son wore num­ber 9 as a strik­er for her school’s foot­ball team and her team­mates came out in their T-shirts to have one last time of to­geth­er­ness. But they could bare­ly stand through the fu­ner­al, hav­ing to em­brace each oth­er through the or­deal of say­ing good­bye.

In his ser­mon, Bish­op Christo­pher Hen­ry stressed there was a need to bring back the les­son of re­spect in the home, as it was where nur­tur­ing took place. He said it was im­por­tant for hus­bands to seek di­a­logue with their wives in­stead of leav­ing when­ev­er is­sues arise. For neigh­bours who see a fam­i­ly in dis­tress, he said it was not good enough to car­ry a mes­sage, but it was bet­ter to pro­vide a so­lu­tion.

School prin­ci­pal Ains­ley Gopaul called on mourn­ers to join their an­nu­al walkathon on May 3, as they will seek to raise aware­ness of the so­ci­etal is­sues that led to Ma­son’s demise.

Ma­son, who was called up to train with the na­tion­al un­der-15 girls’ foot­ball team, was killed last Tues­day along with her best friend Olivia Chap­man, 15, Olivia’s moth­er Jones-Chap­man and their land­lord Michael Scott. Ma­son was vis­it­ing Olivia on Tues­day when it was al­leged some­one from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship with Jones-Chap­man went to the home and car­ried out the acts. On Sun­day, po­lice held the 38-year-old sus­pect in Va­len­cia. Jones-Chap­man and Olivia’s fu­ner­al will be held to­day.