NINE-YEAR-OLD Courtney Walker was a willing, unsuspecting boy who would readily run errands for adults.

He was supposed to have been in class at the Morant Bay Primary in St Thomas yesterday, but his mother did not have enough money to send him. He stayed home; and it was the last day he lived.

Young Courtney was sexually molested and then stabbed several times in a lonely, bushy St Thomas lane.

Police say the boy was in the Bamboo River community, a mile outside Morant Bay yesterday, when an adult sent him to purchase a pack of cigarettes.

It is uncertain what happened between that time and when he was found, partially nude in a pool of blood just before noon.

He was rushed to the Princess Margaret Hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

"It is very disheartening, outrageous and troubling," superintendent of police in charge of St Thomas, Jonathan Morrison, commented yesterday.

Police said Courtney's body had in excess of twenty stab wounds.

DNA samples taken

One man has been taken into custody by the police. Investigators have already taken DNA samples from him as they attempt to solve the crime.

Residents yesterday converged on the Morant Bay Police Station demanding that the man who is said to be of unsound mind be released into their care.

Superintendent Morrison said that based on investigations by the police, it appears that the suspect may be of "unsound mind and is said to be someone who has a history of unstable behaviour".

Yesterday's incident is the second such in the parish this year.

In January, Angella Lynch and her three grandchildren, two-year-old Niasha Cousins, five-year-old Thaila Cousins and three-year-old Jawara Cousins were burnt alive in a one-room board house at Hill Top, Port Morant.

"Oh no, not again," Mary Clarke, the Children's Advocate, said yesterday when The Gleaner informed her of the tragedy.

Clarke, noting that it was the second time in recent months that a man of unsound mind has attacked a child in this way, said the community must take responsibility for ensuring mentally ill persons get proper medical care.