St James police seek Dane Watson after American-Jamaican woman dies in hospital; fatal Granville shooting and taxi rape sentence reported

The Jamaica Constabulary Force wants help finding Dane Watson, whom detectives have classified as a person of interest after Melissa Samnath, 35, who holds Jamaican and United States nationality, died following her admission to Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James.

Investigators believe Samnath flew in to mark her birthday with Watson, whom they understand she married in December 2025. On Wednesday, April 29, 2026, Watson is said to have brought her to the hospital and then departed soon after helping her out of a car. Medics later pronounced her dead and alerted the police. Officers later searched an address in Norwood, St James, and collected material they tie to the probe. A post-mortem on May 6 found she had suffered several blows to the head.

Relatives in New York told reporters they first heard what had happened from Watson’s mother, who said her son had called to say he had killed Samnath and had left her outside the facility in a wheelchair without taking her inside. A niece, who asked not to be named, spoke of her anger at that detail. Family members also pointed to a WhatsApp note Samnath sent shortly before 11 p.m. on the night she landed from Queens Village, New York, asking someone to alert the police, share her location, and describing a pink house—sent a little more than an hour before her birthday and described as her last message home.

Police are asking Watson to present himself at Freeport Police Station in St James or at any police station. Anyone who knows where he is can call Freeport police at 876-953-6191, Crime Stop at 311, or the emergency line at 119.

In Granville, St James, on the Sunday morning of this bulletin, a man died from gunshot wounds during a police operation while officers were in the district looking for fugitives and speaking with residents. The force says the man confronted personnel and was shot during that encounter; enquiries continue. The episode follows an earlier fatal security-force contact in the same community on January 1, 2026, when three people, among them four-year-old Roma Bowman, died during an operation there; that file also remains active.

At the St Catherine Circuit Court on Friday, 65-year-old Yubert Fletcher of Central Village, St Catherine, learned he will serve 24 years and nine months in prison—the longest of several penalties imposed together—for raping and otherwise sexually assaulting a 19-year-old student passenger after she boarded his Toyota ProBox taxi on the Port Morant route on October 13, 2021. The court heard he pressed an object to her side, detoured to a stretch of Port Henderson Road in Portmore known locally as the “back road,” and attacked her. CISOCA investigators later arrested and charged him on counts including rape, forcible abduction, indecent assault, and grievous sexual assault; concurrent terms were set for the other counts, and he must serve at least ten years before parole can be considered.

The Ministry of Justice also highlights child-diversion routes for 12- to 17-year-olds sent by police or courts, confidential victim counselling that sometimes uses play-based sessions, specialist support for abused girls, and restorative-justice training delivered in schools—officials say more than 12,000 people have taken part in two-day restorative workshops across the island since 2022 under an arrangement linking justice with education authorities.