Gareth Manning, Staff Reporter

ANGRY, FRUSTRATED parents of slain children want a speedy reimplementation of capital punishment to avenge the death of their children.

Capital murders are punished by hanging in Jamaica, but no murderer on death row has been hung since 1988, despite the growing number and callousness of the recent spate of murders.

In recent years, women and children have been targeted, suggesting a shift in focus of 'the rules of engagement', according to criminologists.

Abducted and slain

About 70 children have been murdered this year, many of them abducted and then murdered.

"When di police dem hold people who commit murder, dem nuh fi carry dem go a jail, because you know seh dem do the murder. When you convict dem, you either put dem to the electric chair or hang dem," says teary-eyed, 29-year-old Sophia Thompson.

Thompson's two-and-half-year-old daughter, Toni-Ann Thomas, was murdered by gunmen on York Avenue in southwest St Andrew in a fierce gun battle between rival gangs on the evening of June 20, 2005. Toni-Ann would have been six years old last Thursday.

Thompson tried to swallow the bitter grief as she continued.

"Dem nuh fi go a jail. When dem go a jail, dem stay in there 30 years, dem lie down 30 years and get fat. Who nuh come out with tattoo pon dem hand, come out with this and with that. When dem come out, dem look like a foreign dem a come from, dem face white out."

Toni-Ann's murderers were never caught. Thompson says she was told that a 17-year-old boy from Majestic Gardens, who was himself killed, was responsible for Toni-Ann's murder, but she never believed the story.

She complains of an unresponsive and slow justice system, commenting on the slow response of the police for assistance even as her daughter bled.

"When di shot dem a fire, we call the police (who seh) him naa come until him come and pick up dead body," Another station eventually responded, but only after Toni-Ann had already been taken to the Bustamante Hospital for Children.

Investigators did not call Thompson until several months later, she says. They told her the police were following a lead but she was never called in to identify anyone.

"Even if it did cost mi life, mi would a go," she says. Only the noose will bring her closure.

"When you forgive him (the killer) him de pon road a do the same thing because guess what: he's just a murderer," she says.

Miles away in the small community of Town Head in Westmoreland, Janice Tomlinson and Karlene Clarke are still struggling to come to grips with their daughters' deaths.

Perpetrators never found

The bodies of their daughters, Shaneka Shakes nine, and eight-year-old Shana-Kay Ledgister, were found in a cane field in the district in June 2005. They had been raped and murdered, and, like Toni-Ann, the perpetrators were never found.

"Mi would a like dem stop di murdering and whosoever do it, dem ketch dem. And hanging must come back," she said.

There was no forgiveness in Clarke's heart either. "If I was like the Government, as dem ketch (catch) dem, dem not even fi ask no question; just hang dem!" she exclaimed.

- gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com