Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials

[MdmeX]

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Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials
published: Friday | January 5, 2007 <DIV class=KonaBody Ar6jv="true">



AN ARGUMENT over ganja has left the son of Supreme Court judge Lennox Campbell dead and the son of principal of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, facing a charge of murder.

Rodney Beckles, 21, whose father, Professor Hilary Beckles, was en route to Jamaica from Barbados yesterday, is now in police custody after stabbing to death Khalil Campbell, 28, of Daisy Avenue, St. Andrew.

The accused Beckles, a student at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, allegedly stabbed Campbell 21 times after an argument over the illegal substance.

Police sources say Beckles is alleged to have denied Campbell the opportunity to smoke his chillum pipe, claiming Campbell was not mentally capable of 'handling the weed'. An altercation developed during which Beckles allegedly stabbed Campbell several times despite attempts by two other persons to restrain him.

To be charged today

Campbell died while undergoing treatment at the nearby University Hospital of the West Indies while Beckles was arrested by the Papine police. He is expected to be charged today.

The Constabulary Communication Network yesterday named Professor Beckles' son as Rodney McDonald of Bagatelle, St. James. However, UWI, Mona, sources confirmed the man arrested for the murder of Mr. Campbell was Rodney McDonald Beckles, a social sciences student at that institution.

Meanwhile, another source said Professor Beckles was experiencing difficulty getting a flight out of Barbados to Jamaica and hence opted to travel to the island via Miami. He was expected to arrive in Jamaica last night.

A table tennis player, Beckles, whose mother is believed to be a Jamaican, is a Barbadian citizen but has represented Jamaica at the junior level. </DIV></DIV>

[Karl]

RE: Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>'I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy'</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>One family's struggle with mental illness and drug abuse</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY OLIVIA LEIGH CAMPBELL Sunday Observer staff reporter
Sunday, January 07, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>IN August, Lennox Campbell warned his youngest son, Khalil, who struggled for years with mental illness, that if he returned to Jamaica from Miami he would be dead in six months. Tragically, in the realisation every parent's worst nightmare, his predictions became true.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Last Wednesday, Khalil died after being stabbed several times in an incident that has left not just his family but also the family of the alleged stabber, 21-year-old Rodney McDonald Beccles, son of University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus Vice Chancellor Hillarie Beccles, in mourning.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=360 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Khalil Campbell in the days before he got sick, and after his illness started affecting his grooming. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>But as painful as it will be for them to bury their son, Lennox and Joy Campbell say they are happy his suffering is over, having watched him deteriorate progressively into a shadow of the son they knew, as he struggled with mental illness and drug abuse.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Right now, my pain is for the parents of that boy, Beccles, because their pain lives on," said Lennox Campbell. "I'm not trying to sound noble, but I am a parent, and I know what I've been through with Khalil. I am sad, and my heart goes out to his family."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Khalil had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and was prescribed medication to regulate his condition. But he refused to take his medicine, and just months before being killed had been released from the University Hospital Psychiatric Ward, just one of the many stints he had spent in medical care for his psychiatric condition.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It wasn't always that way, however.
In his teens, Khalil was athletic and charming, popular among his friends and attractive to girls, a regular guy who loved playing football and hanging out with friends in the Kingston 6 neighbourhood of Mona. He started high school at Wolmer's, but later went on to Jamaica College, was average in the classroom, but outstanding on the football field.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Khalil's life was football. In school, he played Pepsi Manning Cup, he was on the Jamaica Under 17 squad, and every Saturday it was football, football, football," remembered his cousin Micas Campbell, who was born only two days before Khalil.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"He was a very well-rounded person, the most caring and sensitive of his siblings, and he had lots of friends, girlfriends, he used to go to church, had a normal life," said his mother, Joy, who eventually quit her job at the Ministry of Agriculture to care for Khalil in Miami.
Somewhere along the way, however, things changed. His parents track the point they noticed something was wrong to his first year of university, when he returned for holidays from the University of Guyana.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"When he was in Guyana, we were in constant contact with him via telephone, but when he came back there were indications that something had changed," his father said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Khalil began wearing sandals only, refusing to cut his hair and habitually smoked ganja, anathema to his parents, who were regular worshippers at Swallowfield Chapel and had raised all four of their children in the c

[Gamma]

RE: Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials

in the words of buju banton..."it hard, it hard, it hard". it reminds me that our children are fromus but they are not us, they dwell in the house of tommorow where we can never go. you can aught but do your best by them to prepare them for the world and then hope that they make a positive contibution.

[MdmeX]

RE: Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials

The pain associated with this story reminds me so much of Hugh Crosskill's demise.

[Gamma]

RE: Killed over ganja - Feuding sons of high-society officials

too true.