Mother: I was convinced ‘DJ’ was hiding something

Even before her son’s body was found, Stephanie Miller was convinced that McCarthy “DJ” Patterson knew something about her son’s disappearance.

On Friday, November 4, the day the remains of her son Dwayne Stephon Miller were found, with the assistance of Patterson, in the Layou Mountains, the Layou mother of eight told SEARCHLIGHT that she had dreamt that Patterson was hiding something from her, concerning her 12-year-old child.

She said that in her dream, she visualized that Patterson had had some interaction with her son. However, when questioned, the accused refused to admit any knowledge of Dwayne’s whereabouts.

“I vision that I went by the river and I meet DJ on top the stone sit down… and it come to me that he have Stephon somewhere, and just as I see it is so.”

Miller last saw her son on the day he disappeared, Thursday, September 29. She said she left him at home with a cousin planting a lettuce bed, while she went to the river to wash.

Dwayne, a first form student of the Central Leeward Secondary School, was at home serving out the last days of a suspension.

She said when she returned home and did not see him, she assumed that he was at the home of his father, Theodore Jack, and thought nothing of it until the next day, when Jack said he did not know where Dwayne was.

The matter was reported to police the following day, October 1, and searches on the beach were carried out by the local Coast Guard and concerned villagers, but to no avail.

“The same Saturday when me left the station, I meet ‘DJ’ and I ask DJ if he see Stephon; he tell me ‘nobody ask me nothing.’,”

Patterson, 28, also of Layou, led police to Dwayne’s remains after another young man, 19-year-old Joemoro Phillips, reported to them the day before (Thursday, November 3) that Patterson attempted to choke him to death, after luring him to the Hunt Hole region of the hills, under the guise of needing assistance to cut posts for a villager.

Phillips alleges that Patterson accused him of linking him to the little boy’s disappearance and was going to silence him.

“Me and him was friends, so I didn’t know he had intentions, so I go with him.”

“We pass some posts and I ask him why he not cutting them; he say he have a big poling (tarpaulin) up dey to fold up and carry down, so come leh we go fo it by the shanty… I end up and tell him I ain’t going by the shanty, so he could go for it and I will fold it up….”

“He bring back down the polin; he throw it down and tell me fold it….”

When I bend down to fold the polin, he come and grab me behind me neck and start to squeeze me….”

“He tell me relax, and say I calling up he name and say he kill my cousin…. and he ask me if I war dead….”

So as I there, I gather me strength and push him off in some vine and then I end up and run.”

Phillips said his trek down the mountain was harder than the climb up. At one point, he ran into some thorns from “macca” trees which are found in abundance in the area, and even ran out of his shorts; ending up on the Happy Hill main road in only his boxers and shirt.

He said he received assistance from two cyclists who took him to the Rapid Response Unit outpost in Layou, and after a brief search for Patterson, they then took him to Layou Police Station, where he once again encountered his attacker.

“He reach round dey before me and tell the police that two mask man come and start to pelt chop after him, and I go pon them side and he had to run.”

The police opted to believe the story told by Phillips, and upon further interrogation of Patterson, they were led to the area where Miller’s remains were found.

Phillips said that he was grateful to be have survived the ordeal, and believes that had he not, he may have ended up meeting the same fate as his little cousin, and no one would have discovered the truth.

As for Dwayne’s mother Stephanie, she said that her heart is burdened for her son, and she is seeking justice for him.

“That is a wicked youth man; he real wicked. If he did tell me when I ask him, we coulda done have Stephon,” she moaned.

McCarthy “DJ” Patterson has been charged with intent to commit the offence of murder on Joemoro Phillips. When he appeared at the Serious Offences Court on Tuesday, November 8, he was denied bail and remanded in custody.

Court prosecutor Adolphus Delplesche objected to bail on the grounds that police were currently conducting investigations into another matter in which the accused is of interest.

The preliminary inquiry on the attempted murder charge is set for February 29, 2012.