"ME CHARGE fi rape but I don't like no rapist," 42-year-oldKeifer Kelly said. He is an inmate at one of the island's maximum-security prisons where he is serving 10 years on two convictions of five years each, running concurrently.
Keifer has more than his fair share of looks and charisma and, before he was convicted of rape, he was a taxi driver who found it easy to lure unsuspecting women into his car and eventually have sex with them. The fact that his car was always clean and air-conditioned made him a 'striker' (a playboy), Keifer said.
There is another reason too ... money. It provided a means of luring his victims.
"Sometimes a man blunder in life... make mistake," he started. "My mistake was a bad mistake and every night I pray and beg forgiveness."
However, there is nothing in his background to suggest that he had the makings of a rapist he was not abused as a child and was raised by his mother as well as four sisters. So what prompted this former resident of one of Kingston's inner-city communities to commit rape?
"Is like a weakness, what mi never have any control over. Mi just love woman too much," he declared.
Keifer, who lived with one of his five "baby-mothers", denies that his idea of love might be distorted.
"Never, I will never hate a woman," he said, in protesting the notion that perhaps he hated women. He is the father of seven children, four girls and three boys. At times he is reluctant to acknowledge that he raped someone and at frequent intervals during the interview, he mentally scurried for means of justifying what he did.
"Normally I don't know the consequences because is the first time I ever be in trouble like this."
Even so, the date is clearly etched in his mind and he recalled it quickly January 10, 1998. "My thing was not like a man woulda si a woman and forcibly rape her ... Mi a run taxi. Mi pick up a lady, have a conversation wid her, have a drink and etc..." he said, at first reluctant to go into details about the offence that he committed.
"What really did mek it happen is that one time mi meet dis lady and have a conversation, carry her go have a drink and mi easily get through," he explained.
This practice soon blossomed into a full-scale scam and later on he started offering the women money in exchange for sex. But he never made good on his promises to these women and he would have sex with them, give them a $100 to go into a bar and buy drinks then drive away leaving them stranded.
"When it happened the first time, mi sey, wait ... a so dis thing ya easy," he said, as to why he became a serial rapist. He said he raped four women. However, he does not like to be seen as a horrible person.
He was not always lucky though. "One a di a woman report mi," he said, while he reflects on the four-and-a-half years he has spent in prison so far.
He has never used force on any of his victims, he said. "I am a lover... not a violent person," he told The Sunday Gleaner.
"More time you nuh enjoy yuself and yu might have all yu likkle one money," he said as to why he sexually abused the women.
In the meantime, Keifer sees the time he is spending in jail as both good and bad. "The bad way is that in here you can just lose your life anytime. The good way is that when yu come inside here... yu learn a lot about how mankind stay and all those things," he said, adding that he is well-rehabilitated.
"The things what me use to do and think about ... before mi think about it right now, for example, the woman thing, if me fi ever live over my life again, then mi could never dare dream of doing what mi do," he said. "Me a look on myself as a role model right now fi some youth what out inna di society," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "Cause nuff a dem nah realise what dem a do just like how me never did a realise what me did a do."
NOT HIS REAL NAME
Tamara King
