Family broken in wake of 9-y-o’s suspected suicide

Forty-nine-year-old Judith McLean wept uncontrollably as she sat on a makeshift seat in her front yard in the Zambia area of Central Village, St Catherine, on Saturday, a day after her nine-year-old son was found hanging by his neck at their home.

The youngster, Tyreek Bennett, is suspected to have hanged himself from a post firmly affixed to a wall and attached to his childhood crib.

“We did not see this coming. I am so wounded. I am so broken. I am troubled. I don’t have words to say, God believe me. My pretty baby gone forever,” McLean managed to say as her adult children surrounded her offering support.

The mother of five sons, one of whom was killed some time ago, struggled to come to grips with the thought that her fifth son, who she had struggled to raise as a single mom, was now dead.

“Mi baby nice. Him rude. You know how boy pickney stay, so mi have to clap him sometimes pon him bottom. Mi have four others, and the one weh mi pet, him now inna Horizon detention camp, so mi a try stand up on this one, but him nuh tek no talk. Mi would never beat him to hurt him,” she said, pushing back at social media claims implying that Tyreek hanged himself because he was being punished.

“I raised him all by myself ... . Mi get him when mi a 40, so I know him was a gift from God,” she added.

McLean disclosed that Tyreek had not attended school since last Monday after having a bout of the ‘flu, but on Thursday, he reminded her that Friday would have been Jamaica Day and that he would like to go.

“I turned to him and said, ‘You know you can’t go because of the ‘flu, and I told your teacher that you not feeling well’, and I leave it at that,” she said.

The 49-year-old mother said that when they woke up on Friday morning and they both went to the food stall she operates a little distance from their house, he turned to her to say, “Today a Jamaica Day.”

“I looked at him and see him look sad, so mi tell him to go back to the house and bring mi phone charger, and him put him two hand at him ears dem like him no want to hear nothing from me and kiss him teeth,” she told The Gleaner.

McLean said that she then slapped him and he ran and shouted that he was not going to return.

About two hours later she said, her common-law spouse, Delroy Smith, went to the house and stumbled upon the tragic scene.

“Right now, mi coulda beat myself. I wonder why mi never go down to the house much quicker. Even when mi mother died, mi never feel it so,” a teary-eyed Smith told The Gleaner.

The stepfather said he did not see any signs of distress in the youngster when he was with him on Thursday, but looking back, he now regrets not pushing for him to attend the Jamaica Day celebration at Eltham Primary School, where he was enrolled.

Teacher fainted

Principal Conroy Griffiths told The Gleaner that word of Tyreek’s passing shook the entire school. His grade teacher fainted after hearing the news.

“I was dumbfounded by the call from his mother with the tragic news. He started off slowly but was just coming around and opening up to his teachers. At no point in time did we feel that he would consider something this dramatic,” Griffiths said.

The principal said that the grief counselling department in the Ministry of Education had been alerted and would be providing counselling for the students, parents, and staff at the school on Monday.

“If his teachers had seen any signs at all that he was having problems, he would have been referred to the guidance counsellor, and the necessary assistance would be provided,” said the principal, who added that he was also trying to arrange counselling for Tyreek’s family.

ruddy.mathison@gleanerjm.com