Christ church residents discover deceased neighbour

Three days after she was last seen by neighbours, June King’s badly decomposed body was found on her Kendal Hill, Christ Church bed.

On Wednesday residents told Barbados TODAY they last saw her at the community shop, Coreen’s Bar, on Christmas Eve and on Monday they started to smell a strong odour.

“We picked up an odour on Monday. We thought it was a cat or rat that had died. We didn’t know what it was not thinking that she [had died] out there,” said next door neighbour Cynthia Jones.

She said that in addition to the stench, the appearance of flies prompted her to alert the authorities on Tuesday afternoon.

When contacted, King’s elder brother Orson Cummins, said she was in her 50’s, did not have any children and was deaf.

He said she was a very quiet individual, liked arts and craft and was a God-fearing person.

Although he did not want to go into detail, he said she had “ailments and used to go to the doctor for checkups”.

He said Jones called him and informed him about his sister’s passing.

When asked how he was coping, Cummins said “I’m good”, noting that over the past few years he had to deal with the passing of a number of relatives and had to find a way to deal with death.

Repeated efforts to reach Police communications and public affairs officer Inspector Rodney Inniss for details about the death were futile.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb