Clergymen condemn murder of woman in church

Popular clergyman Rev Al Miller says that the reverence Jamaicans have for God continues to wane, following the murder of a woman during a church service yesterday.

Andrea Lowe-Garwood, 50, was shot while attending church at the Agape Christian Fellowship Church on Market Street in Falmouth, Trelawny. Last night, head of the Trelawny police, Superintendent Carlos Russell, said three persons of interest have been taken into custody. Miller said that the brazen attack speaks to a deterioration of the values Jamaicans once held sacred.

"The reverence that people have for God is waning and it has been for a while," he said. "People just have a scant regard for life and that is what we continue to see based on their actions. A murder should not be happening in a place that is holy and sacred."

Miller, who is senior pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle in St Andrew told THE STAR that the callous act speaks much of society and what it is that we are teaching our children.

"It says something about our education system and the issue of family and the fundamental values and how effectively we transmit them to the next generation," he said. Miller is calling on the society to pool its resources together to quell the plague of crime.

"This issue of crime is something we have to knock our heads together and find answers to because it has to deal with. We can't continue to run away, it may not be easy but answers have to found with urgency," he told THE STAR.

Meanwhile, Father Sean Major-Campbell, pastor of the Christ Church in Vineyard Town, Kingston, says the incident should be a reminder to persons that the enemy can attack anywhere.

"This is a reminder that the adversary, and the unclean spirit, often sit in the place of worship. It is a reminder that faith is not a guarantee against such attacks," he said. "May this sad time, painful period in our history, be an opportunity for healing and the deeper process of becoming a more caring people," he said.

According to police reports, a man posing as a member of the congregation walked over to Lowe-Garwood and shot her several times before escaping in a white motor car. Lowe-Garwood was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Lowe-Garwood was a resident of Stonebrook Manor in Trelawny and an employee of National Commercial Bank as a regional credit card officer in Montego Bay.

Sergeant Wayne Wallace, the community relations officer, said she was an active community person.

"When she lived at Florence Hall she was a key member of the neighbourhood watch. It was only Friday that she and I discussed the formation of a neighbourhood watch in Stonebrook Manor where she resided," Wallace said.