By ANDREA DOWNER, Staff ReporterSEVEN-YEAR OLD Peta-Gaye Patterson was one of the three children who was hacked to death by her uncle, Caston Haase, 44, late Tuesday evening in the mountainous district of Recource, Mavis Bank in rural St. Andrew.
Hours after the little girl met her terrible death at the hand of a family member whom she trusted and no doubt loved, her aunt-in-law Shawn Spalding told THE STAR that five years ago her father was chopped to death and the toddler harboured a deep fear of dying the same way. Spalding said Peta-Gaye would often voice her fear and was afraid to venture out of her home.
Unfortunately for little Peta-Gaye, her worst fears came true. It was even more unfortunate that she was not chopped up on the road by a stranger as she had oftentimes feared but was killed right in her yard where, in her innocence, she apparently felt that she was safe and somehow immune from harm.
Based on the accounts of residents who viewed Peta-Gaye's body after she was killed, she met a horrible death.
"She get one big chop inna har head an di whole a har head back cut out. It come in like a surgery di bredda did a perform pon di pickney," one resident told THE STAR.
Face hacked
Peta-Gaye's four-month-old sister was also one of the children killed. She did not live to get a name. Relatives said the the baby was not yet registered.
A portion of the baby's face was hacked out by the machete-wielding maniac. When personnel from Madden's funeral home lifted the baby from the yard where she had fallen from her mother's arms after she was chopped to death, the entire area between her eyes and her chest was missing. The baby essentially, had no face left.
Seven year-old Brenda Dinnal, cousin to the other two girls, was the third child that the murderer claimed. Again, residents described her death as horrific. THE STAR was told that her head was split open from ear to ear by Haase's machete.
Hours after the triple murder and Haase's death at the hands of residents of Recourse including some of his family members, the badly shaken residents were picking up more than the pieces of their life. They also had the gruesome task or recovering pieces of flesh and various appendages, that had been hacked off Haase's victims, which the undertakers had overlooked in the inky black night when they recovered the bodies.
With part of the four-year-old baby's face missing, the residents had the task of recovering and disposing of that part of the baby yesterday morning. Dennis Walker also had the arduous task of burying his mother's hand, which was severed by Haase even though his mom was still alive but in critical condition at hospital.
