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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Repulsive murders</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Gunmen kill children in their home</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>VAUGHN DAVIS, Observer staff reporter
Friday, March 16, 2007
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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=330 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Six year-old Tajae Smith (left) and his 16 year-old sister Tavia.</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Had Neville Smith not gone to an open lot about five metres from his house at Portmore Lane to wash his truck, he probably would have been the third victim of the three heartless gunmen who went into his house and murdered his six year-old son, Tajae, and 16 year-old daughter, Tavia, on Wednesday night.<P class=StoryText align=justify>According to Smith, after leaving the truck at the open lot, he got home at about 7:50 pm and told his children that he would return soon.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I was out by the truck, out there, standing there. I don't even know for what reason I was still standing there," Smith, still in a daze, told the Observer yesterday morning while sitting on a block in a corner of the front yard of his home, surrounded by neighbours and other residents of the community.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=364 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Claudia Lowe-Smith, mother of murdered children, is a picture of grief as she is being taken away from the murder scene in a motor car yesterday morning. (Photos: Lionel Rookwood)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"I heard three shots. so I said to myself 'What happen?' because shot a fire up in the lane. We're not used to these sorts of things. Anyway, I didn't move because I didn't know what was going on. When I looked I saw three guys came out on the road and a car drive up, a white Corolla, and they got into the car," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"The place was kinda dark. I couldn't see their faces."
He said that after the car drove away, someone rushed out to the road and told him that something had happened at his house. He ran to the house where he found his son's body in a large pool of blood at the front door with a gunshot hole in the head.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The sight jolted Smith into a panicked search for his daughter.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I rushed into the house, and rushed into the room 'cause my daughter was here too and I was calling out to my daughter 'Tavia, Tavia where are you?' but I'm not getting a sound. So I rushed out back, I ran to the bathroom, ran round the back and I tried everywhere and I still didn't see her. So I came back out and rushed outside and asked, 'Anybody see my daughter, where she is? I don't see her anywhere'."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Smith said he ran back inside the house and resumed looking until he eventually found Tavia in a corner by his bed.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"When I saw her laying down, and I rushed and grabbed her up and I see pure blood. She was dead," he said.
Yesterday, National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips described the murders as "repulsive, shocking, sinister and deeply disturbing".<P class=StoryText align=justify>"The killings hold serious implications not only for the nation's children, but also the country's future," said Phillips, adding that it was troubling to see children being used as pawns in the vicious circle of violence and reprisals.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He called on the police to relentlessly work towards tracking down
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Gunmen kill children in their home</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>VAUGHN DAVIS, Observer staff reporter
Friday, March 16, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=330 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Six year-old Tajae Smith (left) and his 16 year-old sister Tavia.</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Had Neville Smith not gone to an open lot about five metres from his house at Portmore Lane to wash his truck, he probably would have been the third victim of the three heartless gunmen who went into his house and murdered his six year-old son, Tajae, and 16 year-old daughter, Tavia, on Wednesday night.<P class=StoryText align=justify>According to Smith, after leaving the truck at the open lot, he got home at about 7:50 pm and told his children that he would return soon.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I was out by the truck, out there, standing there. I don't even know for what reason I was still standing there," Smith, still in a daze, told the Observer yesterday morning while sitting on a block in a corner of the front yard of his home, surrounded by neighbours and other residents of the community.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=364 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Claudia Lowe-Smith, mother of murdered children, is a picture of grief as she is being taken away from the murder scene in a motor car yesterday morning. (Photos: Lionel Rookwood)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"I heard three shots. so I said to myself 'What happen?' because shot a fire up in the lane. We're not used to these sorts of things. Anyway, I didn't move because I didn't know what was going on. When I looked I saw three guys came out on the road and a car drive up, a white Corolla, and they got into the car," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"The place was kinda dark. I couldn't see their faces."He said that after the car drove away, someone rushed out to the road and told him that something had happened at his house. He ran to the house where he found his son's body in a large pool of blood at the front door with a gunshot hole in the head.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The sight jolted Smith into a panicked search for his daughter.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I rushed into the house, and rushed into the room 'cause my daughter was here too and I was calling out to my daughter 'Tavia, Tavia where are you?' but I'm not getting a sound. So I rushed out back, I ran to the bathroom, ran round the back and I tried everywhere and I still didn't see her. So I came back out and rushed outside and asked, 'Anybody see my daughter, where she is? I don't see her anywhere'."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Smith said he ran back inside the house and resumed looking until he eventually found Tavia in a corner by his bed.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"When I saw her laying down, and I rushed and grabbed her up and I see pure blood. She was dead," he said.
Yesterday, National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips described the murders as "repulsive, shocking, sinister and deeply disturbing".<P class=StoryText align=justify>"The killings hold serious implications not only for the nation's children, but also the country's future," said Phillips, adding that it was troubling to see children being used as pawns in the vicious circle of violence and reprisals.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He called on the police to relentlessly work towards tracking down
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