CASE NOT CLOSED: Mum not same after murder

As Kathleen Lashley lay hovering between life and death in 2008, she appeared to have found a peace that had eluded her for the prior 20 years.Moments before death angels transported her from this life, Kathleen revealed her final earthly thoughts – and not surprisingly, they had to do with the brutal and unsolved death of her daughter Marlene Beckles. “On her dying bed she said she going to meet Marlene. She said she was about to see her and find out what happened that day,” said her nephew George Beckles. Consumed with despair over the mysterious murder of 25-year-old Marlene on September 8, 1988, Kathleen had never fully recovered from the shock. Her blood pressure skyrocketed and for the next two decades she struggled to control it with medication.“She took it hard. Even when she was dying she still talked about Marlene,” said George.Marlene – pretty, shapely and full of personality – had moved back into the family home in Upper Goodland, St Michael, seeking reprieve from a not so happy domestic life. Kathleen was only too glad to provide refuge for her daughter, who at the time was in rehab.But the respite was fleeting. Soon after Marlene returned to the family home she went missing. For five anxious days no one knew where she was – that is, except for her killer.When the mother of three finally turned up, it would forever change the lives of those in that chattel house next to the mango tree in Goodland. Relatives had not fully got over a previous tragedy when one of George’s sisters was killed by a man. He was eventually charged with the crime.But the small measure of closure realised in that case was not to be repeated in Marlene’s.George recalled that his mother aged considerably after the death. Likewise, in the case of Kathleen, the death, compounded by a state of torment of not knowing, took an even greater toll on his aunt. Emotionally and physically Kathleen never fully recovered from the death. Marlene’s body was discovered in a bushy area behind the then Warrens Polyclinic. It had started to decompose. But it was sufficiently intact for authorities to determine that the stab wounds on her body had caused her death.But investigations were getting nowhere, and on October 18 police made an appeal for information on Marlene’s killing. Reports suggested that Marlene was in the area of the roundabout disrupting traffic.In its appeal, the police issued a Press release, which said in part: “We are asking the driver of a red Mini motor car, who was passing that area around that time, to get in touch with the Criminal Investigation Department.”The stab wounds and ripped clothing were the telltale signs that it was a brutal attack. The family had their suspicions and so did the police.“The police felt that a particular man had something to do with it . . . . A man was picked up, questioned and released. They said they know who did it, who she was with at the time,” said George.Despite that declaration, the investigations apparently came to naught as did attempts by relatives to find out what happened the day Marlene died.“She was close to us, and had three small children at the time. Our grandmother remembers and still speaks about it,” lamented George.The death continues to haunt the family, and the passage of time has not erased the effects of the trauma the family has endured.“She had three children – and to be found like that. We all took it hard – it was traumatic. They say time heals wounds, but that isn’t always the case when someone is killed and no one is apprehended,” he reasoned.By now, he said, the case should have been closed.“I am sad because the police should have acted at the time, and I definitely feel that they should still be able to solve it now,” George stated.But for now the mystery of who killed Marlene continues – at least here on earth, among the living.