Palisadoes crash victims were going to collect suitcase

About 5 a.m. on Sunday, Rosemarie Roberts-Banton cut her sleep short to go to the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston to pick up a suitcase that her older son, who lives in the US, sent with someone.

She decided to charter a cab, operated by a neighbour in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew, before embarking on the 30-minute journey with her other son Zachery Heslop, the last of her seven children. But the 57-year-old chef, who worked in a cookshop inside the 'Country Bus Park' on Pechon Street in downtown Kingston, missed the person who left the airport for Clarendon five minutes before they arrived.

Disappointed, Roberts-Banton and Zachery decided to head back home. They were travelling in a Toyota Succeed motor car that was being driven by 53-year-old cabbie, Delroy Grant, who was accompanied by his wife Camille. They were motoring along smoothly until the vehicle collided with a Toyota Prado Land Cruiser along the Palisadoes roadway about 5:45 a.m., the police say. All four passengers of the Toyota Succeed were pronounced dead at hospital, while the two occupants of the other vehicle were treated and released.

Solomon Roberts, who is Roberts-Banton's brother and Zachery's uncle, is still in shock.

"A just Saturday mi talk to her, enuh, about 1 p.m. when she say she a wait pon Zachery fi go pon di road fi fix him laptop," he added. Roberts said that he got the disturbing news about 8 a.m. when he was just about to open his shop.

"I couldn't believe. Mi freeze fi bout a minute when a bredrin come and tell me. A go she go fi collect something at the airport, but dem never get it because the person had to leave and didn't want to leave it with anyone. A five minutes before dem reach deh the person gone, enuh," said Roberts.

As he stared helplessly at a picture of his sister and nephew, Roberts, a 62-year-old pastry chef, said Roberts-Banton was considering a new life.

"I am a true man of God and mi always saying to her that she need to give back her life to God because nothing is out there. She was really thinking about it but now it is too late. It hurts to the core because my sister was a very good person. I am finding it hard to accept that my sister and nephew is dead," a dejected Roberts said on Monday at his home in Seaview Gardens, St Andrew.

Roberts struggled to hold back his tears as he remembered his sister, one of his 17 siblings, who was also a chef.

"She is a very good cook. She worked in a restaurant and people loved her hands. She is a very nice mother, she had seven children, but two are dead. As a mother, she did everything for her children and everyone would agree about her as a person. She is a lovely person who didn't deserve to die like that," added the grieving sibling.

Roberts said that he shared a special bond with his nephew, who he described as motivated.

"Him recently finished Distinction College. Is a bright and humble boy mi a tell yuh. Him do well a Calabar and say a engineering him wah do. Yuh see, him father live a country so yuh can say me was like a father figure to him. We did very close because a him teach me certain things about computer, phone and dem something deh," he said.

A staggering 454 persons have been killed on the nation's roads as at Sunday. A record 487 road fatalities were recorded last year.