VIDEO: Boy Buried Second Time In Days

Twelve-year-old Omarco Brown, who died in a shooting incident at his Pusey home in Point Hill, St Catherine, has been buried twice in a week.

His second burial, which was the correct one, happened at his home in Point Hill on Saturday, February 24.

In preparation for that send-off, the body was exhumed from a grave in which it was buried incorrectly a week earlier – on February 17.

Omarco ended up initially being buried in a wrong family plot at High Mountain district near Bog Walk in St Catherine.

When his body was removed from there days later, it was taken to his Point Hill community where he, inadvertently, got a second thanksgiving service and burial.

Though sad, the people of his community were happy that they were able to give him a proper burial at his home.

A relatively large crowd attended.

The pulsating music of a marching band disrupted the pall of gloom.

Pall bearers, including the bereaved father, brought Omarco’s casket through the central part of Pusey district to the family plot.

At the grave-side, the boy’s parents deliberated on whether a piece of fabric placed over the glass-top casket should have been removed to facilitate viewing of the body.

The father, in a respectful tone, eventually announced the decision not to show the face of the deceased.

Burial progressed with lowering of the body and sealing of the grave.

Omarco was born to Jeffisha Douglas and Marlon Brown on February 9, 2011.

He attended the House of Praise Kindergarten in Lluidas Vale district as well as Friendship Primary School in Spanish Town. At the time he died, he was in grade seven at the Spanish Town-based Jonathan Grant High School, where he was a prefect.

“He wore his badges with pride and dignity and was a very very very principled young man,” said R. Walters who did the eulogy.

A number of Omarco’s teachers and schoolmates – some in tears – attended his thanksgiving service at Mount Calvary Church of God in Christ United in Pusey district.

The atmosphere there had a mixture of cordiality and grief.

“It is very difficult for all of us because Omarco has made a tremendous impact on all our lives. For the short period that we have known him, trust me, it has been extraordinary… He was a leader among his peers,” Jonathan Grant High said in its tribute.

No one openly mentioned the controversy that caused Omarco to be buried twice – and they similarly steered clear of the mystery surrounding his death.

Reports are that his relatives found him dead inside his house shortly after hearing a gunshot.

His body, with a gunshot wound to the head, was seen near a gun, which belongs to his maternal aunt who is a police officer.

It is said that the aunt, while visiting the home where Omarco lived, left her handbag in a section of the house; her gun was inside it.

Neither the bereaved family nor the Jamaica Constabulary Force has not stated publicly how the child ended up being shot.

“In his 12 years on this earth, Omarco Brown filled our hearts with joy, laughter and boundless energy. He approached each day with a contagious enthusiasm that lit up the room and warmed our hearts,” his aunt Heather Willis said in the remembrance. “Though his time with us was far too short, the impact he made will be everlasting.”

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