Just got a note from a good friend that shortly after Alfred was killed, a mutual friend of ours was raped by a red plate taxi driver. She is European, lives in Negril most of the year each year - a long-timer, knows her way around. I was told she flagged a red plate taxi to go up to the West End to see a friend and was taken off the road and attacked by the man who was in the front seat with the driver. Sexually assaulted and broken ribs and cuts, and thrown out of the taxi. She is okay, but very traumatized, as you can imagine.

Anyone else hear about this? This insanity has to stop! What can we do?? Letters/emails/phone calls to the Tourist Board or Chamber of Commerce seem to be like banging our heads on brick walls.

I also heard that Negril has been on lock-down for the past week. Police have been going around to all the bars and shops every night at 9:30 and making them lock up their businesses. My husband told me this. He said the police are trying to "flush out" the criminals. Good luck with that!

I'm so angry/sad/frustrated....!!!

~ Sundowner ~ wrote:

'I'm so angry/sad/frustrated....!!! '

Very terrible news. I feel awful for your friend. News like this makes me glad I'm not returning for a while.

I said this before: Each time we travel to Jamaica, it feels like we are playing Russian Roulette. How many times can we go until something REALLY bad happens.

Yes, I know bad things can happen anywhere/everywhere but the chances of them happening in JA seem to be getting higher. And to make matters worse, the criminals get away with the crime. I hope they caught her rapist.
Ugh. This makes me sick. I hope she can heal, emotionally as well as physically.

I haven't heard a word but just shot out an email to my friends in Negril to verify/clarify.

Absolutely horrible, horrible. I am so sorry to hear that your friend suffered this brutality. She will have a lot to deal with, I'm afraid. No one is ever really safe, it seems! It is not right that she be dealt this card just for being alone. Do women always have to go with a friend(s)??? Yes, Jeannie, it does feel like Russian Roulette - I don't think about this much, but it is that for sure. When I go, I walk all over Negril by myself, granted in the daylight hours. At night, you'd better believe I go "in numbers"!! Often, though, I just stay in instead. Too much can happen in the dark. The system really needs to prosecute bad, evil folks like this.

Yes, I heard of this too. What I heard was the same as you as far as her getting into the red plate taxi to go to the West End to visit a friend but they diverted at the roundabout and took her to the golf course. But from what I heard, she was not raped. They told her they were going to rape her but what I heard was that she was badly beaten and robbed but not raped, although they ripped her clothes off of her with a knife. I too heard she had broken ribs. She made her way - cold, scared and barely clothed - back to the main road and I heard that the first taxi she flagged down for a ride wouldn't give her one because she didn't have any money (because they robbed her). That made me just as sick as the men who did this to her. She finally got a ride back to the hotel where she was staying (and, I believe, is related to the owners) who took her to the hospital in Sav.

I heard about this last weekend and it made me sick to my stomach. I have thought of her a lot this week and hope and pray she is doing well and starting to mentally recover as much as physically. It is just so frightening what is becoming more common place in JA.

Yes ,and it was just as someone said "She did everything right" How much more can you do but HIRE A RED PLATE !!!!!!! It's not safe folks and that is that !!! I think that everyone should carry tazers. At night we always take a ride from the cabbie at the bar, and that's me and my friends.

How very sad! I hope she is doing OK...she will have a lot of healing to do and may still not feel as safe as before. It isn't worth it to me. It has been a few years now that we've not gone back to JA. I miss it terribly but can not risk my family to something horrible happening.

It is sickening that human beings are reducing themselves to this violence and no compassion for others!

been there done that

stay off the streets in the dark...my solid recommendation.

Prayers to this woman.

The woman was on her way to the property that I live on to visit her friend who lives here. She left her resort on the beach at around 7:30PM. From what I understand, the robber threatened rape but never attempted it. He did, however, cut off an article of her clothing and kept it.

The woman was very shook up from this traumatic event and, from what I understand, left the island a day or two ago...vowing to never return.

Someone recently started a thread on TA about riding in taxi's around Negril. In the post she recommended that one never get into a taxi that doesn't have at least one other person in it. I think I'd disregard her advice!!

FWIW: I was driving down the West End road this past Tuesday morning at about 7:30. As I passed Ocean Edge Lane...there were four or five Army type jeeps and three or four Police vehicles parked in the lane. Something BIG was going down.

Also, my friend who owns a local business told me that the police stopped in a couple of nights to tell him to shut down before 11 or 12PM. He complied for a few nights...but things seem to back to normal now!!!