‘I’ll never return to Jamaica’

Social-media backlash of unbelief hurts woman claiming held hostage by Kevin Smith

SABRINA FISHER Reece faced death threats after posting a video showing how she and her family were held hostage at the Coral Gardens, St James, home of Kevin O. Smith, the disgraced late pastor of a Montego Bay cult.

Nothing prepared the California resident, who witnessed a relative putting a gun to her grandmother’s head at age 17, for the venom and hate that she received from Jamaicans after posting the video over a year ago.

That drove her to cancel plans to sue the late pastor for locking in her and her family and friends at his premises although they said they owed no money and were leaving two days in advance.

“I got so much negativity and so many death threats from Jamaicans, saying if I stepped foot back in Jamaica, they were going to kill me. So I decided to let it go,” the owner of a California hair salon told The Gleaner on Wednesday.

Acknowledging that she met several Jamaicans who were kind to her while she vacationed on the island, nothing can convince Fisher Reece to return to the country.

According to her, authorities like the police at the Coral Gardens station, as well as the Jamaican Consulate, have failed to intervene meaningfully.

“I wrote letters to them, but nobody, nobody cared what happened to us, and the fact that so many Jamaicans were saying, “You lying! What were you doing there?”

Now that it has come back full circle, she said a lot of Jamaicans have reached out to her, many sympathetic now about her ordeal.

“But I will never go back. I will never return to Jamaica, because it felt like the police didn’t care. It felt like they didn’t give a damn about what happened,” she argued, tears streaming down her face.

Fisher Reece asked over and over again how it was that the police would not have investigated such an atrocity.

“How can you not care that this man gave the order to chain us in this property? So I didn’t feel safe in returning to try to prosecute him,” she said.

Smith was killed in a car crash on Monday while he was being transferred from Montego Bay to Kingston, where he would have stood trial on murder and firearm charges.

Two members of Smith’s Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries were killed in a bizarre sacrificial ritual during an evening-time church service on October 17. A third member, who was reportedly armed, was shot dead by the police when they breached the building.

Still hurt by the treatment she received, Fisher Reece reflected on the toxic comments to which she was subjected because of her allegations against Smith. “They were mean and evil towards me. They were telling me it was my fault. I would be a fool to go back to Jamaica,” Fisher Reece told The Gleaner.

Before coming to Jamaica, the woman who grew up in Compton, one of the roughest neighbourhoods on the West Coast of the United States, said she felt at ease lodging at the Airbnb residence, disarmed by talk of sumptuous cuisine and welcoming support personnel.

Fisher Reece said she tipped hospitality staff around US$40 per day and spent US$3,000 on souvenirs from her various excursions, including Dunn’s River Falls.

Smith initially won her over after having dinner with the group one night.

“He was really friendly. And he was very narcissistic. Make no mistake. It was all about him, but he was kind. He was charismatic,” said Fisher Reece. “His voice was really smooth while he spoke about his mother and how he was royal.”

She said that Smith, who was convicted in 2007 of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old man in Canada, had the gift of gab and controlled the boys around him.

“They would hold him by his arm and escort him around, and even when the police came, two boys on each side walked him down the driveway like he can’t walk by himself. He could easily deceive a lot of people because his personality of fraud – other than the bragging – is that he is trying to help you,” Fisher Reece said.