Protesters gathered outside Police Headquarters. Photo by Samantha Simon

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Island Press Box

“We don’t want life in prison. We want the death penalty,” a crowd of protestors shouted as they struggled to accept the news that a Five Islands Primary School student had been murdered.

A 20-year-old woman is in police custody and has reportedly confessed to killing 9-year-old Chantelle Crump. Authorities are expected to press charges later today, according to Acting Commissioner of Police, Everton Jeffers. “The person responsible for this crime, they are going to be arrested,” he told a group of protestors who gathered outside the Police Headquarters.

The child’s lifeless body was discovered in a remote area of Weatherills after an extensive search across multiple locations. It was found miles away from where she had been abducted in Grays Farm.

Dr. Jacqui Quinn, Head of the Concerned Citizens Group, announced that the police have agreed to implement a ‘Chantel Alert,’ akin to an AMBER alert system. “So anytime a little child goes missing there will be a Chantel Alert on all the electronic billboards, on all cellphone companies and right away it will mobilise the whole country to look for that child.”

Residents are urging the government to reinstate the death penalty, arguing that life sentences, which typically amount to around 30 years, are insufficient for such heinous crimes.

“It doesn’t end here. We have to petition judges, and the courts, and our politicians, that we need the death penalty back on the books because this particular case is the worst of the worst,” said Quinn. “Thirty years is a slap on the wrist, so we don’t want life in prison, we want the death penalty.”

Such an incident has not taken place in Antigua & Barbuda since June 29, 2006, when Jemuel Samuel, a 10-year-old female of the ‘T.N. Kirnon Primary School was killed.