By ANDREA DOWNER, Staff Reporter "JESUS CHRIST, WAKE dem up!"
The voice of Veneica Deans echoed in the packed church and persons swivelled in their seats as they tried to catch glimpse of the grieving aunt, who had just viewed the bodies of her three nieces.
"No! No!" she screamed as she tried to grasp the horrible reality that her three nieces, five-month-old Tinna Christie, and Petagay Patterson and Brendalee Dinnal, both seven, who had been chopped to death by their uncle Caston Haase three weeks ago before he was himself chopped to death, were in fact, dead.
"Mi want some water," she entreated as persons tried to restrain her. She broke away and ran from the church and mourners pursued her frantically as she launched into another tirade. "Show mi Browning," she pleaded in reference to Brendalee.
Just minutes earlier, Hermalyne Taylor, mother of Brendalee and Tinna, had to be assisted from the church and taken back home after she, too, broke down while she looked at her two babies sharing a pink and white casket.
"This yah one yah hot," an elderly woman muttered as she wiped away tears.
The rememberance service for the three girls was held at the Hall's Delight Methodist Church in the hills of St, Andrew yesterday and everyone who attended was visibly touched by the tragedy that had claimed three lives and injured three other persons, who are still recovering from their injuries.
The little church, which stands on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley was packed and literally overflowed with persons who had come to mourn the tragic death of the young children.
The three children were in two identical pink and white caskets. Petagay and her baby sister, Tinna, were esconsced in one casket and their cousin, Brendalee, was alone in the other. While Petagay's and Brendalee's faces had bruises and still bore signs of the brutal nature in which they had died, little Tinna's face was another matter. The baby's face had to be covered with tissue paper as her uncle, in his mad rage, had chopped out a chunk of her face from below the eyes to under her chin.
Teachers, schoolmates, family members and friends tried bravely to console themselves however, as they went through the motions of putting the little girls to 'rest.'
There was heavy participation from teachers and students of Hall's Delight Primary and Junior High, the school that Petagay and Brendalee attended prior to their death. A number of persons also paid tributes through songs.
Two teachers from the school, V. Grant and Marcia Tait remembered the two girls whom they had taught for just a few months before they were killed. Brendalee was remembered as a leader who would always correct her two cousins whom she sat with in class. Grant said she always sang choruses in class and had to be reminded that she was not in church.
Tait said that Petagay attended school on the day she was murdered. A collective murmur rippled through the church when Tait disclosed that young Petagay might have had premonitions of her death years before her uncle killed her. She said that Petagay's mom had told her that the little girl would often express the fear that she would be chopped to death similarly to how her father met his death when she was just two years old. Petagay lived for five years with her fear, which persons might have considered to be irrational until her worst fears came true.
Sadly, there was not much that could be said about little Tinna Christie, she had barely lived. Tait said her mother described her as a very quiet baby whose greatest delight was sucking her finger.
The three children were all buried in one grave.
