Four die in fiery crash
Published:Sunday | June 13, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Damion Mitchell, Assistant News Editor
Mandeville, Manchester:
SHOCK AND grief wrenched through the Manchester capital yesterday as residents woke up to news that four people - all in their 20s - died in an early-morning traffic crash.
The four died about 4 a.m. after the Mazda Rx motor car in which they were travelling crashed into a perimeter wall of the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville immediately bursting into flames.
Firefighters who were quick on the scene managed to extinguish the blaze, but it would take several hours to remove the charred remains of Simone Ford, 22; Roberta Milton, 21; Rushay Young, 21, and Richard Suckie, 23.
By morning, there was a pall of gloom at the Lyn's Funeral Home in Mandeville where relatives and friends of the deceased had gathered to identify the victims.
"I was hoping that it was not them, I was really, really hoping," said Suen Williams, a friend of the four.
"I think right now, I'm still in denial," she later told The Sunday Gleaner by telephone.
For Karlene Brown, Ford's elder sister, the news has left her in shock.
"It is sad when you know that your smaller sister is about to graduate from University (of the West Indies) and had got all the grades she wanted and all of that is just gone.
"She brightened up my life and brightened up everybody's life and she's just gone now," she said, her voice waning.
Brown said Ford's mother, who is in Trinidad, has been devastated by the deaths and at one point had to be sedated at a medical institution.
Milton was also a student at the University of the West Indies while Young was a student at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.
Meanwhile, friends and well-wishers started a memorial group on the social-networking site, Facebook, which up until yesterday afternoon had more than 700 members and was gaining at least a hundred each hour.
Approximately 62 photographs posted by friends showed the deceased during their school days and at gatherings with friends.
The police theorise that Suckie, who was driving, was speeding.
The four were leaving a party in Mandeville when the crash happened.