“A book of sadness and pain.”
That is how author Kim Ramsay described her newest book Murders That Shocked Barbados during its launch at the Supreme Court last night.
Ramsay, a veteran criminologist and senior research officer at the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit, also confessed that writing her second book was extremely difficult. The author of Barbados Most Wanted said she thought of quitting on several occasions due to the sensitive nature of having to speak to the relatives of victims mentioned in the book.
Kim Ramsay signing a copy of her latest book ‘Murders That Shocked Barbados’ for Jo-Ann Jordan.
“This has been quite a journey. A journey of ups and downs and highs and lows characterized by many trepidations, anxiety, sadness and excitement. Writing this book was difficult… because I had to deal with reliving sad experiences, difficult experiences. I had to deal with murders and look at murder files which were not pretty and my biggest trepidation obviously, was how is this going to affect families, having to open a book and see your loved one in the book who is now dead and being labelled as one of the most shocking murders of Barbados,” Ramsay explained. “I constantly thought of quitting.”
Ramsay said she took a year off from writing the book, but was eventually encouraged by family and friends to finish it. She said during that time she also suffered from paranoia.
She disclosed that initially she had planned to write the book solely about the Campus Trendz tragedy which claimed the lives of six young women. Ramsay said after deciding to include other murders, she was satisfied with the finished product, as while it was about sadness and pain, the incidents highlighted needed to be documented in Barbados’ history.
“Here I am a year later, the book is finished and I am still fearful. I don’t know how the Barbadian public will relate to it. Barbados Most Wanted was much easier because it was about offenders, a lot of it was funny… but this is a different kind of book, this is a book of sadness, this is a book reliving pain,” Ramsay noted.
“But most importantly, it is part of our history and even though it is a dark part of our history, it is history. And that is what researchers do, we capture history and we document history… but I am glad that I did it because I wanted to show the dark side of humanity and of human behaviour, specifically the taking of another person’s life through historical lens.”
Ramsay said having done much research on the different murders featured in the book, she was satisfied that the Royal Barbados Police Force had made tremendous advancements throughout the years.
She also used the occasion to comment on the current state of crime on the island, with 41 murders so far recorded for the year. Ramsay said she had gone as far back as the 1960s but had been unable to find a year where more murders were recorded in Barbados. She contended that the main reason for the record number of murders was the inability of young men to resolve issues peacefully.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb
