Double homicide at Old Montrose

The double murder of retired nurse Avis Israel and her son Ronald Israel has sent shockwaves through the small community of Old Montrose and according to a relative, the family is shaken to the core.

Yesterday morning, a friend of Avis, 75 and Ronald, 47, discovered Ronald’s body on the porch of their Old Montrose home and alerted the police, who then discovered Avis in the house dead, apparently from head injuries, as appeared to be the case with her son.

Speaking to members of the media on the porch where Ronald’s body was found, Avis’ great nephew Patrick McIntosh told reporters that this was the first time that the family has had to deal with something of this nature and magnitude.{{more}}

McIntosh was the only member of the family in a frame of mind to speak to the media. He described the murders as a complete shock.

“Everybody in the family is peaceful people other than the little quarrels, but Tanty was one of the kindest set of persons in the older family. She don’t trouble nobody,” stressed McIntosh who revealed that his great aunt’s life was a simple one which saw her going to church and running occasional errands in Kingstown.

He said that his aunt, who served as a mental health nurse before retirement had no known enemies.

“I don’t know why anybody would want to do this,” stressed McIntosh who noted that the family is a close knit family and his mother would call his great aunt almost every day.

“It’s a family that stays together,” he noted.

McIntosh said that his great aunt’s death is extremely hard to deal with as he lost his grandmother last year and his father this year and Avis was like a grandmother to him.

“There is no motive. I could understand if you doing somebody something,” said McIntosh who seemed confused by the situation.

Earlier, as numerous persons gathered in the public road outside the Israel home and police worked the crime scene, McIntosh and a few other family members became involved in a heated exchange with some police officers at the scene.

Roxanne Israel (Miss SVG and Miss Carival 1987), the daughter of the dead woman, was journeying to mainland St Vincent from Mustique after learning of her mother’s murder and had requested that family members ask the police not to move her mother’s body before she arrived.

The police were reluctant to accede to the request and after finishing their investigations said that they were ready to remove the bodies.

Explaining the outburst, McIntosh said, “they (the police) did not want to wait, for me they not very understanding. We were telling them to wait for five minutes so that Roxanne could see the body. She wanted to get closure.”

On arrival at the scene, Roxanne was allowed to see her mother’s body but collapsed after viewing the gruesome and bloody crime scene.

“It was a matter for her; she wanted to see…closure is the most important thing when it comes to death in a family. It’s like you telling the family that you can’t wait, you finished with the crime scene and you can’t wait five minutes?

“It does not matter how the scene looks, that is not their choice, the choice is the family member that has the choice to see what happen. It’s their choice. It’s her choice you can’t be mad with somebody for their choice, it’s closure,” stressed McIntosh.

Police have detained 18-year-old Sandy Bay resident Joroni Baptiste in relation to the double murder which is believed to have taken place around 1 am on Monday.

Baptiste is also a suspect in two other murders, that of Edinboro resident Nicholas Layne, who was attacked in the public road at Cocoa, Campden Park, at around 11 Sunday night and Pamela Williams of Kingstown Park, 50 who was attacked in her home at around 2 Monday morning. (LC)