Montego Bay house fire kills 87-year-old; Elliott death, INDECOM trial and TADA road-law push

An 87-year-old man died after fire destroyed his home in Top Hill, Melbourne, Montego Bay in the early hours of Wednesday, July 15, 2026. The victim was identified as Cassina Anglin, known as Cassie.

Residents saw the house in flames shortly after 2:00 a.m. and called the Jamaica Fire Brigade. Two units from the Montego Bay Fire Station fought the blaze. During cooling-down work, firefighters found Anglin’s remains among the debris. Police were summoned and the body was taken for a post-mortem. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Music producer Trevor Elliott, who scored chart hits in the early 1980s with singer Eddie Fitzroy, died in Florida on July 5 at age 74. His family confirmed the death on social media. Elliott worked at the Jamaica Information Service in the late 1970s before launching his Music Ambassador label, where he linked with Fitzroy, then an accountant at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Their collaboration yielded Fitzroy hits including The Gun, Check for You Want and The Princess Black. After settling in North Florida, Elliott kept producing, working with singers Marcia Griffiths, Ball and Vernon Buckley of the Mighty Diamonds. Ball, who appeared on the 2017 Sugar Minott tribute album Sweet Like Sugar, called him a humble, legendary producer-artist. A thanksgiving service is set for July 18 at New Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida.

In Kingston’s Home Circuit Court, an Independent Commission of Investigations officer told a seven-member jury he was wrong on Monday when he suggested two alleged eyewitnesses may have said in INDECOM statements that a fourth man was present when Matthew Lee, Ucliff Dyer and Mark Allen were killed by police on Acadia Drive, St. Andrew, in 2013. Under cross-examination Tuesday by defence attorney Hugh Wildman, the officer said the detail he put in his statement came from a Constant Spring Police Station crime diary that cannot now be found. A superintendent has already told the court that searches for the station records failed. Photographs of the purported diary and entry exist but have not been admitted into evidence.

On trial for murder are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton and Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Oral Randy Rose and Richard Lynch. Fullerton also faces a charge of making a false statement to INDECOM. The Crown alleges the three men were in a blue Mitsubishi Outlander; when stopped, they left the vehicle and exchanged gunfire with officers on an operation, a fourth man fled, and two illegal firearms were seized. Other defence counsel are John Jacobs and Arthur Grant. Justice Sonya Bertram-Linton is hearing the case. Lead prosecutor is Kathy Ann Pike, with Sanele Phenang as her junior from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Separately, the Transport Operators Development and Sustainable Service (TADA) on Wednesday urged an immediate review of the Road Traffic Act and the Transport Authority Act, saying dual legislation and demerit-point use unfairly hurt public-transport operators and more than 40,000 sector workers. TADA asked operators to skip planned ticket-payment days and clear tickets in court until reforms are made, arguing most operator tickets are for non-moving offences such as stopping in the wrong place in the Kingston metropolitan area, where official stop space is limited. It warned that if the system is unchanged by October 1, 2026, more than 8,000 workers could leave the sector within three months.