Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Writer

A SOLDIER in the making, eleven-year-old Christopher Suckra often thought about the shiny pair of boots he would wear, and how he would be able to protect his mother and older sister.

"Many times when he and I would go out, guys in particular always try to come on to me and he never liked that," his sister Syretta Suckra recalls.

To ensure her safety and keep her close, Christopher would carry her on his bicycle every morning from the family house, which was some metres away from the main road, to the nearest point so she could access public transport to go to school in Montego Bay.

Cold-hearted murderer

But, unfortunately, the young boy was not able to protect himself from a predator on the afternoon of November 12, 2008. A cold-hearted murderer mutilated his body and left it in a cane field in Blue Castles, Westmoreland. Initial reports suggested that Christopher was also sexually molested by his killer.

"First I didn't believe it was him," a soft-spoken Syretta relates. She had to identify her brother's body after the police took him to the hospital from the cane fields in which he was found at 2:00 in the morning.

"The body was dark and he was brown. The face was swollen," she continues. "How I identified him was, a couple weeks before, he was cutting a coconut and cut off the head of his big finger.

Patient and dedicated

"They are still not sure who killed Christopher and they are still waiting on results from the Government forensic lab," she says. Christopher was not the brightest pupil, Syretta admits, but he was patient and dedicated, the kind of temperament that made him enjoy farming.

"He liked to plant things, nurture them," watch them grow and then reap them, the 20 year-old recounts. "He always said I was 'stoosh' because I did not want to put my hand in dirt," she continues.

The loss of Christopher has put a serious strain on the small family. It was the second loss in just months. They had recently lost an adopted daughter to lupus earlier that year.

Unemployed now

Mom, Ketura Bennett - now unemployed due to Government's attempts to divest the sugar company - stays at home where she can't help but reflect on her only son.

"She just visualises him there," says Syretta, who is no longer living at home.

"I couldn't live there any more because it was hard. Walking that road every morning was going to remind me of him," she adds.

The ordeal has also left the family with a lingering sense of fear.

"I'm terrified; I'm still scared. It's just like the same thing when he died. It doesn't go away," she says sadly.

But as Syretta struggles to be at peace she has accepted that Christopher's murder might have been God's will.

"Maybe this is what God wanted for him, to take him at this stage. They killed him - murdered him, but it was God who took him, basically. Nobody understands why God does these things from time to time, but you just know it is for the best," she says philosophically.

Now the only child, Syretta has resolved to be strong for her mother.

"I just have to get up and brush myself off. I am the only one now and I have to make sure that whatever I do, I become somebody that can help my family," Syretta declares.