Following weeks of intensive investigations, detectives attached to the Montego Bay CIB have formally charged a man with the murder of a woman with whom he had a close relationship.

He is Brian Taylor, a 51-year-old labourer who pushes handcart at the Charles Gordon Market in Montego Bay. Two weeks ago, investigators said they were confident that they had sufficient evidence to charge Taylor after Merleen Gayle's mutilated body was found in a shallow grave a short distance from his house in Fern, Cambridge, St James.

Gayle, 40, who was from Dumfries in the parish, left her home about 6:30 a.m. on May 23 to meet a friend in downtown Montego Bay. On their return, Gayle told her friend she was going to Cambridge to see a friend. When she did not return home, a missing person report was filed at the Adelphi Police Station.

*lo**stains

On May 25, residents told the Cambridge police they heard a woman repeatedly crying for murder a few days earlier. The sound came from the direction of Taylor's house. Eyewitnesses say they also saw someone burning items at the back of Taylor's house.

Acting on information received, the police visited Taylor and found *lo**stains inside his house and burnt residue at the back of the two-room board house. Taylor denies having murdered anyone.

Investigators subsequently uncovered Gayle's nude body in a freshly dug grave in a gully located close to Taylor's house. Her bra**iere was also found near the grave.

Gayle, a mother of three, had separated from her husband several years ago. Taylor is married. Detective Corporal Horace Bond of the Montego Bay CIB is leading the investigation.

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