News

Supermarket manager on manslaughter charges gets bail

By MICHAEL MCLEAN, STAR Writer

santa cruz, st. elizabeth

JOHN LEWIS, A 34-year-old supermarket manager, who is facing two counts of manslaughter following the death of two St. Elizabeth Technical High School male students last month, was offered bail last week.

Lewis, of Knockpatrick district, Manchester, had been denied bail when he appeared in court in March.

When he appeared in the Mandeville RM Court on Wednesday April 13, he was offered bail which was set at $1.4 million, and he was ordered to surrender his travel documents as well.

According to court records, on March 11, 2005, at about 7:30 a.m. the students, 16-year-old Roberta Foster and Reneto Thomas, 14, both of Montpelier District, St. Elizabeth were standing on the side of the road waiting on a taxi to go to school.

There they were hit by a speeding red Honda motor car which was driven by Lewis. Both Foster and Thomas who fell over a hundred feet from where they were standing, died on the spot.

Lewis reportedly fled the scene of the accident, but later handed himself in to the Nain police where he was taken into custody and arrested by Sergeant Ian Lawrence of the Santa Cruz Traffic Department.

He is scheduled to return to the Mandeville Court on July 21.