Despair on being told couple had been killed
GRANDAUGHTER TELLS OF PHONE CALL WHICH SAID THAT RETIREES HAD BEEN MURDERED IN JAMAICA
A WOMAN has told of the devastating moment she took the call to say that her grandparents had been murdered.
Charlie and Gayle Anderson had recently retired to Jamaica when they were found dead near their home in Portland in June.
It is alleged the couple had been the victims of an $8m Jamaican dollar (£46,000) fraud shortly before their deaths.
A man has since been charged with seven counts of fraud and will appear in court this week, but the murder investigation remains ongoing.
A month on, their grandaughter Stacey Anderson, 30, has told the M.E.N. of her familiy’s despair as they continue to fight for answers.
The marketing executive said of the moment she took the call: “It just didn’t seem real - it’s heartbreaking and devastating, I can’t even put it into words. “We were a really close family. “It has been five weeks now and I know things take time but we still don’t have any answers.
“Whoever did this could still be running around now.”
The bodies of Charlie and Gayle Anderson were flown back to the UK last week, where second postmortems were ordered by the Home Office.
The grandparents, who had been married for more than half a century, retired to the country around a year ago after decades living in Manchester.
The couple returned to the UK in May. Miss Anderson said her grandma had told her their entire life-savings were ‘gone.’
A month after their return to their home in Mount Pleasant, on June 22, their bodies were found and their house set on fire.
Charlie Anderson, a member of the Windrush generation, came to Manchester in 1958 where he began making a name for himself in the local community, running a DIY business.
His wife, Gayle Anderson worked at the ASDA superstore in Gorton where the pair settled for the majority of their working life.
Stacey’s father Mark and brother Glen previously paid tribute to their parents, saying they were ‘pillars of the community.’
Now, family and friends of the cherished couple have set up a Crowdfunding page to give Charlie and Gayle the “best possible sendoff.” The page has already raised over £8,000.
Stacey added: “We are expecting a large gathering. People have already arrived over from Jamaica for it.
“We also have relatives in the States who want to come over and people from all over the UK.
“Even though we are devastated, it has been so comforting that people have shared their memories of my grandma and grandad, including people we don’t even know.
“I can’t say how much it means to us and I know my grandparents would be completely overwhelmed to know how much they meant to everyone.”
The Guardian recently reported that Jamaican expats who retire there after decades in the UK faced an “extreme risk” of murder.
A former police chief revealed that at least 85 Britons, Americans and Canadians had been killed in the country since 2012.