Suspected suicide at psychiatric hospital

A MAN CONVICTED 17 years ago of killing his two children is dead – the victim of a suspected suicide.Wayne Devonish, who was convicted in 1993 for the 1992 double killing of Antonio and Kimberley Gilkes, died at the Psychiatric Hospital in the wee hours of last Sunday morning.Police confirmed that Devonish, 45, who was incarcerated in the secure wing, was found hanging from a rafter shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday.“Something seemed to have upset him during the previous day, something involving a female patient or a nurse,” a hospital source said of the former Shop Hill, St Thomas resident. On July 14 and 21, 1992, Antonio, 11, and Kimberley, ten, disappeared. Both were supposed to be spending part of their vacation with their father.After weeks of not seeing the children relatives declared them missing on September 16.A nationwide hunt led to a bushy area in Shop Hill on September 21 when the grisly remains of two small skeletons were found – one headless. Another set of remains, those of Antonio, were discovered in a canefield in nearby Apple Grove.Both children had apparently been strangled, but forensic pathologists were unable to determine how they died since the bodies were too badly decomposed.Devonish was arrested the following day and convicted at the 1993 October Assizes. (RJ)