For­mer prime min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son says the bru­tal mur­der of vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Bar­bara Gayle is a “wake-up call” for the coun­try, and it un­der­scores the ur­gent need for the na­tion to re­ex­am­ine its val­ues and “pri­ori­tise those that are life-sus­tain­ing”.

In a state­ment on Mon­day, the el­der states­man re­mem­bered Gayle as “gen­tle, mod­est and con­sci­en­tious” and not­ed that “as a le­gal scribe, she un­der­stood the essence of the ev­i­dence and com­plex points of law that even­tu­al­ly made her a re­porter of the high­est or­der.”

He called for a “de­ci­sive change in the cul­ture”, ar­gu­ing that “any­thing less will be like re­cur­ring dec­i­mals which per­pet­u­ate our own in­di­vid­ual vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to crim­i­nal ex­tinc­tion.”

“Anger and greed must give way to car­ing and tol­er­ance at every lev­el,” Pat­ter­son said, adding “The so­lu­tion to the na­tion­al dilem­ma has to be­gin with ac­knowl­edg­ing the sa­cred­ness of life – the be­lief that one’s own life is of in­trin­sic val­ue. That ne­ces­si­tates valu­ing and treat­ing oth­ers with re­spect.”

Pat­ter­son sug­gest­ed that overem­pha­sis on ma­te­ri­al­ism is lead­ing Ja­maicans to a ne­glect of their so­cial and moral fab­ric.

“It is past time for Ja­maica to re­claim its val­ues and pro­mote the at­ti­tu­di­nal changes which em­pha­size the im­por­tance of re­spect for hu­man life, em­pa­thy, ci­vil­i­ty and kind­ness,” Pat­ter­son said, not­ing that “The bru­tal mur­der of Bar­bara Gayle is a wake-up call for Ja­maica to take ac­tion and pro­mote a cul­ture of love, com­pas­sion, and shared hu­man­i­ty.”

Gayle’s body was found at her Cay­manas Coun­try Club Es­tate home in St Cather­ine last Tues­day. She was stabbed mul­ti­ple times.

A man who was the main sus­pect in the killing re­mains in po­lice cus­tody.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Dec. 24, CMC –

CMC/jm/kb/2025