Relatives of beheaded men say they were not gangsters
About 6:30 p.m. on October 16, Kenneth Deidrick 'saw' his grandson Leonardo 'Platty' Hendricks enter his home and even heard his voice as he spoke to someone in the dwelling.
However, it was all a figment of Deidrick's imagination as the police were, at that time, processing the murder scene where the headless bodies of Hendricks and his friend Mark Wellington were found.
Hendricks, 17, and Wellington, 32, were found at a premises on Plum Lane in Whitehall Avenue. Deidrick said his grandson's head was later recovered but he is still in denial.
"Mi say mi see him pass mi and mi hear talking but when mi ask mi daughter if Platty come inside she say no. Later in the night, mi see him headless body on a phone. Somebody tell mi say a him and mi know him body when mi see it," he cried.
Investigators believe the men were killed in connection with ongoing gang violence in a section of Maxfield Avenue called Rome. It is believed that they were lured to Whitehall Avenue.
Diedrick said his grandson "give trouble and "love follow company" but he loved him.
"Him wasn't one to misbehave to mi and when mi a go work mi draw him behind mi but sometimes him leave and gone again. I cannot say him was a gunman or wasn't but what I do know that is I have never ever seen him with a gun yet," he said.
DNA result
Deidrick said he last spoke with the teenager about 3 p.m., shortly before he and Wellington left in a vehicle that had came to pick them up.
Shawn Henry, Wellington's mother, said although she is waiting on a DNA result, she said she is certain of the identity of the headless body.
"It's him, I know it. The police gave me the rings that he was wearing and he had a metal in his leg and I just know it is him. Someone set him up and kill him. Him wasn't innocent but mi never see him with a gun. Mi talk to him until mi tired and see it deh, dem gone with him head. I want to bury him with his head. The next little boy just seem like him was just killed because he was there," she said.
Henry said her son, commonly known as 'Blackie', was targeted because of the ongoing gang war.
"Him done three account fi mi fi a murder whe dem did charge him for. It wasn't him who do any murder and him buss di case but it cost mi everything mi have fi lawyer fee and fi feed him three meals a day when him deh a jail. Dem three account deh can't build back, dem empty," she said.
Police investigations are ongoing.