Family vow over Jamaica murder
THE family of a Gorton couple murdered in Jamaica say they ‘won’t rest’ until their killers are brought to justice.
An inquest into the deaths of Charlie and Gayle Anderson is due to open today, more than two years after their bodies were found in their burned-out home on the island.
No one has ever been charged with their murders.
Granddaughter Stacey Anderson fears a wall of silence is protecting the killers, the Mirror reports.
Charlie, 74, and Gayle, 71, were killed on June 22, 2018 – just over a year after leaving the UK for an eight-bedroom home they had built in Mount Pleasant, north of capital Kingston.
The couple, who had been married for 55 years, had serious face and neck injuries and the house had been petrol bombed.
Just 48 hours earlier Gayle had told police the name of a man she believed had siphoned tens of thousands of pounds from their bank.
A suspect who had worked for them as a handyman and driver was later charged with fraud and is due to stand trial next month. But their killers are still at large.
Granddaughter Stacey, 33, from Droylsden, believes the alleged fraud and the murders are linked.
She said: “I think people do know who’s done it – and I believe it was more than one person. But I think people are scared for their own safety. And I can’t blame them, the same could happen to them.
“My grandma went to the police station and was killed a short time later. I can understand they’re scared to come forward but I would of course urge them to.”
Stacey believes the killers knew the house and had visited previously.
She said: “My grandparents didn’t use the front door. It looked like it was the front door but it was boarded up inside. These people didn’t try the front, they knew to go to the side door.”
She and sister Chloe, 28, have been in regular contact with the Foreign Office but are frustrated at the lack of progress being made in Jamaica.
They are bracing themselves to hear harrowing details of their grandparents’ deaths at the inquest.
But they are praying the hearing will pave the way to a breakthrough. Stacey added: “I hope it brings more attention to the case and lets people know we will not give up. The end goal is that somebody is charged with my grandparents’ murder.
“These people are still leading their lives, doing what they would normally do. My grandma and granddad can’t live the rest of theirs. They had many years left, they were young grandparents.
“Their killers think it’s been forgotten, but we won’t rest until they’re caught.”
The family’s lawyer Shane Smith, of Slater and Gordon, said: “It’s assumed, based on the evidence, that the fraud and murder were linked but we’ve yet to have this confirmed. The family only want to find out what happened to their grandparents - why their lives were so tragically cut short.”