Ascot High Teacher Roshane Beckford Killed After Call From Home

Certificates and trophies inside Roshane Beckford’s house point to years spent guiding students, but for his family, those honours could not ease the pain of losing him violently.

The 35-year-old educator, father of three and physical education teacher, who was also called “Pancho”, was killed only hours after leaving Ascot High School, where relatives said he had spent the day working with students and helping them prepare for their future.

Police reports state that around 3:15 p.m. on Friday, Beckford got a phone call saying a relative was unwell and needed help. He reportedly went to a location on March Pen Road, where unidentified men attacked him and shot him several times.

The police were called, and Beckford was taken to Spanish Town Hospital, where he was declared dead. Investigators have not identified a reason for the murder. The Spanish Town Criminal Investigation Branch is handling the case.

When THE STAR went to the family’s home on Sunday, his grandmother Naomi Prince, grandfather Stanley Prince, sister Sachell Beckford and other relatives were deep in mourning.

Sachell, speaking while crying, said her brother had been making plans to leave Jamaica for the United States. “Pancho is on filing to go to America. Him nuh deserve this,” she said.

She said Beckford had come home from school on Friday afternoon before the call came in. “Somebody call him on his phone. I don’t know what the exact conversation on the phone was,” she said.

According to Sachell, their mother, who sells fish in Spanish Town, had already organised dinner for him that evening. “Our mother brought fish. She sells at the market in the town. She got some fish and she told me that I should cook so that Pancho can get dinner,” she said.

But Beckford never got the chance to eat. His sister said he received a call and left the house quickly. “He came here and he got a call. I don’t know who call him. I don’t know what was the conversation. He was in a rush when he left out here,” she said.

Sachell said the family cannot understand the way her brother’s life was taken. “It is just hard how dem take mi bredda life. Mi heart a bleed. It a tear out a mi chest. A mi only brother mi have. Him nuh deserve this, him nuh deserve this,” she said.

Beckford is survived by three children. “He has three children. I don’t know what I’m going to tell them,” Sachell said.

Relatives remembered him as a quiet man who centred his life on his family, his job and sport. At Ascot High School, his work as a physical education teacher brought him several awards over the years.

The family showed recognitions he had earned, among them awards marking 12 years of outstanding service and major impact, Physical Education Teacher of the Year, and acknowledgement of his role in helping to develop functional citizens through passion and hard work.

Relatives said education and sports meant the most to him. Beckford, who graduated from G.C. Foster College, used his training to coach students while also pushing them to do well in the classroom.

“Him help the pickney dem study fi dem exam. Right now exam a come up and mi nuh know how dem ago manage,” Sachell said.

His grandmother, Naomi Prince, was devastated by the killing. “Coming like mi nuh in a dis yah world because mi caah believe mi grandson dead,” she said. “He was doing so well, [a] very ambitious young man”.

Prince said she could not make sense of why anyone would want Beckford dead, adding that only God knows what was in the hearts of those who carried out the attack.