Loved ones seek courage to cope

James Scarlet sat in his Allman Town home in central Kingston on Monday waiting for his wife Johanna to return home just like any other day.

Sadly, this was not to be.

"I tried to call her around five o'clock because I wanted her to do something for me, but I wasn't getting her," he said yesterday.

Two hours after his call went unanswered, news broke that two women were mowed down at a bus stop opposite the Matilda's Corner Police Station, and for Scarlet, something hit home.

"When I heard the seven o'clock news, especially when they said it was at the bus stop coming down, something clicked. I didn't like how I feel," Scarlet told The Gleaner.

News reports that the accident involved a car travelling towards Liguanea gave him a glimmer of hope that his wife of 27 years was safe.

Hope quickly turned to despair for Scarlet and the couple's three adult children when they got a telephone call to verify the clothes she had worn to her housekeeping job with former government minister Colin Campbell on Monday.

Genuine and caring

He described his wife as a very genuine and caring woman, but struck a philosophical tone as he pondered his future without her.

"One of my motto is 'In this world we shall have trial and tribulation, be of good courage'. It reach me now, so I have to try and cope," he said.

Johanna Scarlet, 51, and Esmerelda Evans, 60, who was blind, were killed when a Toyota Avalon motor car ploughed into the crowded bus stop on Old Hope Road in St Andrew.

Three other visually impaired persons from the nearby offices of the Jamaica Society for the Blind were among those who sustained serious injuries in the 5:45 p.m. accident.

Yesterday, scores of police investigators re-examined the accident scene, inspected the Toyota motor car, and collected numerous statements from eyewitnesses.

By late afternoon, a source close to the investigations told The Gleaner that the female driver of the motor car was likely to face criminal charges.

The Jamaica Society for the Blind remembered Evans as a long-standing advocate for the visually impaired and a no-nonsense person who had a kind heart.

At the time of her death, Evans was the manager of Superior Craft and More, an independent entity located at the Society's Hope Road offices.

One of her employees, Camille Welham, was among the last persons to see her alive, less than an hour before the tragic accident.

Welham said that on her way out of the office, she saw Evans among a group of three colleagues.

She said Evans told her that she was waiting for her visually-impaired adult son, who sometimes stopped by her office, so they could travel home together to New Lincoln Avenue in south St Andrew.

"The last thing she said to me was 'Tell the girl (Welham's one-year-old daughter) to write a message on a piece of paper and give me'," Evan's employee recalled.

"I said, 'Okay, Miss Evans. I will tell her, but I don't know when you going to get it', and she laughed," Welham added.

- L.B.