Gareth Manning, Freelance Writer
Father Michael Lewis in a pensive mood at the Stella Maris Church where Vilma Mais was slain last week. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
THE CHURCH grounds were
eerily silent when we arrived there yesterday with only three women stopping by with items for the rector.
They asked questions about the tragic event that had taken place just days before.
"Where was it?" one of the three women asked the security guard as they walked to the rector's residence just behind the church.
"Were you on duty at the time?" she asked him. He said no.
"Boy what a horrible thing though eeh," another commented.
The day after the murder, children playing at the school next door to the Stella Maris church belied the tragedy that took place there.
BLEAK ATMOSPHERE
As we walked to the convent, away from the chattering and playful laughs of the children, the atmosphere became bleaker as we came closer to a place where police were meticulously searching for clues.
Vilma Mais, a 62-year-old housewife, mother of three and wife of prominent Jamaican attorney, Peter Mais, was murdered here just a day before. She was attacked, robbed and stabbed several times after completing her daily prayers at the convent.
"Mrs. Mais was a very faithful woman, a very good parishioner," says the church's rector, Father Michael Lewis. He was among church members who ran to Mrs. Mais' rescue, solaced her, and applied pressure to her wounds until police arrived on the scene.
The rector was smiling when we visited the church recently, but his obvious limp as he walked over to greet us and the sigh he gave as he sat and prepared to re-tell the story, were evidence of his underlying grief and hurt.
"She was head of one of the prison ministries that we have in the parish, and every Friday, faithfully, she would be going to St. Catherine District Prison (St. Catherine Adult Correctional Institution) and Tamarind Farm to visit prisoners. So for something like this to happen to her is just crazy," he said with obvious grief on his face.
Chairman of the church's
advisory committee, Mr. Herb Lewis, expressed similar feelings at the loss of Mrs. Mais. He too remembered her as faithful Catholic woman.
"This lady was a dedicated
member of this church; not only she, but her whole family," he said.
Friday there was no usual trip to the prisons or feeding of the poor as the grief-stricken church sealed its doors.
"The people are really in shock, because for something like this to happen; this is one of the last places that you would expect something like this to happen. You would think that church ground is consecrated ground, that this is safe," Father Lewis told The Sunday Gleaner.
CRIES OF OUTRAGE
The incident led to cries of
outrage in the wider church community this past week, as Mrs. Mais became the third church member to be murdered within a three-day period last week.
On Sunday, March 5, 15-year-old Jordano Flemming was robbed and fatally stabbed on his way home from church in Mona, St. Andrew, while in Bog Walk St. Catherine, Durraine Giddeon was shot and killed on the premises of the Gospel Faith Ministry.
Archbishop of Kingston, the Most Reverend Lawrence Burke, denounced the killing and the murder of eight others in the last two weeks. He called on the country
to take a stand against crime and
violence.
Director of communications in the West Indies Union of Seventh-day Adventists, Nigel Coke, said the incident was indicative of bolder and hardened criminals plaguing the society today.
"Crime has reached a portion where it respects no man, regardless of religion. They are no longer afraid to go into the church and that is sad," he said.
