Teen in custody after grandfather found in shallow grave

(Jamaica Observer) Three years ago when Delene Seabourne reunited with her father, her expectation was that the relationship would be long-lasting. However, little did she know that death, allegedly at the hands of a family member, would have snatched him from her.

Delene’s 73-year-old father, Errol, was found in a shallow grave Sunday night after his relatives filed a missing person’s report. He was last seen on Friday morning.

The relatives who had been preparing for another family member’s funeral when they last saw him, said it was unlike him to not show up at the “set-up” that evening and the funeral on Saturday.

On Sunday, when one of his nieces went to his house to make checks, she was told by the deceased man’s step-grandson, who was living with him, that he had not seen him since Tuesday.

The niece detected a foul odour and raised an alarm. The residents conducted a further search that led them to an area where they saw fresh soil and the dead man’s hand protruding from the dirt.

“Mi just getting to know the man and him gone,” Delene said as she stood at a shop in the community of Pondside in Red Hills, St Andrew, yesterday.

“Mi nuh used to him yet. I met him when I was five [years old]. Mi nuh see him back until when mi a 20. Mi nuh see him back again until just the other day,” the woman told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Spending her 47th birthday with her father in June reassured her that the man she only knew of really wanted to be in her life.

Even though losing him was not on her mind, Delene said when she spoke with her father on Wednesday, he told her that the grandson who had allegedly threatened to kill him had returned to the area.