Joseph Darius Burrows This is Me

Education

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1. 1. National News

   www.thenassauguardian.com/nati - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/15/2004   Last Visited: 11/15/2004

   Twenty-two year old Joseph Darius Burrows, the Bahamian student who was killed and dumped alongside a highway in Jamaica last week, is scheduled to be flown to his native Grand Bahama on Monday.
   
   Burrows was reportedly robbed, however, police in Jamaica have not said that robbery was the motive in his killing.
   
   Reports indicated that his abductors used his ATM card and withdrew all the money from his account. The amount, believed to be in the hundreds of U.S. dollars, was not determined.
   
   Burrows was a student at Northern Caribbean University, NCU, in Mandeville where he was studying biology. Aspiring to become a doctor, he had been attending the school for four years and was scheduled to graduate in 2005.
   ...
   Burrows was taken to ghetto
   
   Details of the incident revealed that Burrows was reported missing at 10 pm on Saturday Nov.7, by his wife. She called police after she was given a tip from a friend that her husband was kidnapped by a group of men and taken to an unsavoury part of town.
   
   Burrows was reportedly abducted that night when he left his home to buy a corn on the cob from a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was able to call his wife but when he spoke to her, he talked with a Jamaican accent, saying he was going to a party.
   
   His wife knew right away that something was wrong, not only because he was talking with the accent but also because he said he was going to a party. Burrows was a devout Christian and did not attend parties.
   
   His car was discovered on last Monday about five minutes away from where he had previously lived in Mandeville.
   
   Two days later, his body was found in the Mandeville area near a highway. It was initially suspected that he was killed execution-style, but reports on Thursday said an autopsy revealed that he was killed after being hit by a blunt object to his head.
   
   A man with ambition
   
   Burrows graduated from Freeport Anglican High School and loved to play in the school's steel band.
   
   He was also a member of the Eight-Mile Rock Seventh Day Adventist Church.
   
   NCU is the largest SDA tertiary educational institution in the world with over 4,500 students. Burrows was among 45 Bahamian students who attended the university in Jamaica.
   
   He and his wife, Altemarae, had been married for three years.

2. 2. www.ttgapers.com

   www.ttgapers.com/News-topic-18 - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 3/15/2008

   Missing Bahamian student, Joseph Burrows, 22, was found murdered yesterday off the Winston Jones Highway in Manchester. He had been a biology student at Northern Caribbean University, and hoped to qualify later as a doctor.

3. 3. The Freeport News - Reward Offered

   freeport.nassauguardian.net/na - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/7/2006   Last Visited: 11/7/2006

   The body of Joseph Burrows, a medical student at the Northern Caribbean University, was discovered with a bullet wound to his head in a deserted field just outside of Mudleak, Mandeville, five days after he went missing.
   
   It was reported that Burrows had left his apartment to get food for his then two-year old daughter, Tajana. His wife, Altamarae, had reported him missing to police Saturday night after he never came home.
   ...
   "The Jamaican police were claiming that he was not shot, but it contradicted what we had seen when my family and I saw Joseph during his autopsy," Burrows revealed. "When we went to the morgue, we saw where he had been shot in the right side of his skull. He died as a result of one bullet which grazed the side of his head."
   
   Burrows believes that the Jamaican police have some alternative agenda regarding his son's murder, citing the island's extreme rate of crime.
   
   "They don't want to compromise because there is an exceedingly high increment of violence in that country and many of these crimes are not reported," he said. "The statistics about the rate of crime in Jamaica have been muted by authorities there."
   
   Burrows said he does not know if Joseph's murder was an accidental or if he was singled out.
   
   "It's very difficult to say whether or not the persons who murdered him knew him or not. It is quite possible that indeed they knew him, but we don't know if that is the case because there is just so much random crime in Jamaica. We don't know."
   
   Burrows also revealed that there is currently no death certificate for Joseph.
   
   "We do not have a death certificate for our son," he said. "The coroner wants to say that he was not shot, which is ridiculous since there were witnesses who saw the bullet wound on the side of his head. It's all apart of keeping their image in good order."
   
   Although the police seemed very interested in the case when Joseph went missing, Burrows said that the cooperation ended when it was time to search for him.
   
   "By Sunday afternoon, a few hours after I was informed by his wife, Altamarae, that he was missing, I was in Mandeville searching for him," he said.
   ...
   They say they can't find those suspects" said Burrows. "They no longer update us on Joseph's case."
   
   Burrows said he and his family have kept Bahamian authorities advised of their actions as well as submitted information to Jamaican police and the Bahamian government regarding the reward.
   
   "Our government needs to be more proactive in my son's case because Joseph was a Bahamian national," Burrows said. "He was there as a legal college student and under the protection of the Jamaican government. They need to step it up for their own citizens by demanding an explanation as to what happened to him and to at least satisfy themselves."
   
   Burrows said he hopes the reward will bring forth some answers which may lead to apprehending those persons who murdered Joseph.
   
   "All we are looking for is justice to be served because the Jamaican police need to be more vigorous in the case," Burrows said. "It's not to bash anyone, its just from what I have seen first hand. The authorities there have tried to discredit the case, saying that he may have been involved in something unsavory so they can justify themselves in not paying any attention to the case and that makes me sick to my stomach because Joseph was not that kind of a person."
   
   Burrows said his son was truly an exemplary young man.
   ...
   Noting that things have not been the same since Joseph was killed, Burrows added, "Every morning when my wife and I wake up there is an anxiety. When you realize that your son is gone you have to condition yourself just to get out of bed. I would never wish that on nobody. Never. We are supposed to be buried by our children, not the other way around, and that was the most painful thing I ever had to do in my life."
   
   Burrows said he is hopeful about the reward and hopes that someone would step forth about his son's case.
   
   "It is a wonder to me that someone like him can be brutally murdered in such a way. What makes it worse is the fact that two years after his death, there has been no word of the investigation. If we only knew who had done that and why, then there would be some resolution for us," he said.
   
   Burrows said he hopes that as a result of the reward, someone "will come forth with something about those persons because there could be many more innocent people being killed out there.
   
   "It goes way beyond the death of my son," he said.