A Man of the Cloth in the Dock

Robby-Ann Jeremiah had far too little joy in her 15 years of life.

Soon after she was born, her mother left her with her paternal grandmother, whose hut, though modest, was better than her mother could offer.

Then, when Robby-Ann was 10 or so, the abuse began, allegedly at the hands of a man she should have been able to trust. There were regular beatings and molestations, she would tell her teachers and social workers years later.

On Feb. 1, Robby-Ann Jeremiah was found dead--strangled and dumped in the bushes above the white sand beaches of True Blue Bay.

Although her death shocked this gentle Caribbean nation, what has riveted Grenada’s devoutly religious people is that a prominent churchman has been jailed and charged with her murder.

Edmund Gilbert couldn’t have appeared more upstanding. He was the archbishop of the Spiritual Baptist Faith Church, which claims more than a million members in the Caribbean and New York City. He was a trusted government tax collector and a ruling party member.

But there was another Edmund Gilbert, Robby-Ann told people before she died--a man who had loved her and tormented her for years.

By all accounts, Gilbert was no simple country preacher. Most Grenadians believe that his alleged abuse went unchecked because of his political clout.

His defense attorney, Anslem Clouden, argues that Gilbert is innocent of murder and that his exalted position should be seen as a sign of his good character.

“Pastor Gilbert was exceedingly prominent,” Clouden said. “He was the spiritual father and healer of the prime minister.”

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, who is a Roman Catholic, flatly denied that he has such close ties to Gilbert.

The soft-spoken and powerfully built Gilbert, Clouden said, is a man of humble roots who started out as a Sunday school teacher in Grenada’s Roman Catholic Church.

It’s unclear when Gilbert left that faith. But Clouden, who also converted to the Spiritual Baptist faith years ago, said that many among the Caribbean’s descendants of African slaves are drawn to the religion, which combines African legends, drums and bells and moans and groans with biblical teachings.

Gilbert ultimately became a charismatic master. In the mid-1990s, he established his simple yellow-and-brown concrete Holy Temple of the Unicorn, with rusted folding chairs and unfinished pine pews, on the outskirts of St. George’s.

He won back an old job as tax collector and became so effective that, one local businessman commented, “he made some big men cry.”

But Gilbert was equally effective at politics. “He made himself powerful because of who he was friends with and what he did,” said Linda Straker, a reporter for the weekly Grenadian Voice who knows Gilbert and has covered the murder case from the start.

“He said he started the Church of the Unicorn because he had a vision to help people,” she said. “And apparently he did help a lot.”

But critics have suggested that Gilbert’s flock may have been troubled.

An editorial in the Grenadian Voice charged, “Reports suggest that even more evidence exists to prove that the molestation and sexual, as well as physical, abuse of young girls has been a longtime practice of this despicable character masquerading as a man of God.”

Beverly Reece, one of Robby-Ann’s teachers, who had frequent dealings with the pastor, said, “I remember when I was girl, my mother wouldn’t let me ride in this man’s car alone.”

She added: “In his church, he’s like Jim Jones of Jonestown. He takes control of people’s lives.”

Reece described the pastor’s attitude toward Robby-Ann as an obsession: He told the teachers precisely the measurements of her school uniform, touching her thigh as he did so. He once beat her on the beach next to the school when he caught her talking to a boy, Reece said.

Now Gilbert awaits trial. If convicted, he could face death by hanging. Attorney Clouden confirmed that the pastor has joined two of his sons in jail--both serving prison terms for rape.

Clouden declined comment on Gilbert’s dealings with the girl, saying only that his client is not guilty of her murder. Gilbert does not face charges connected to the abuse allegations.

The lawyer said the popular outrage sparked by Robby-Ann’s death has made it impossible for the archbishop to get a fair trial.

“The court of public opinion has pronounced sentence,” he said, adding, “It’s like the O. J. Simpson thing . . . and Simpson walked free.”

Clouden asserted that he will counter what he called “the trump card” of evidence in the case--telephone calls tipping off police to the location of Robby-Ann’s body that were traced to Gilbert’s cellular phone. Clouden said the phone had been stolen hours before.

Social workers, teachers and others who spent time with Robby-Ann before her slaying say they have provided more evidence to police than traced calls--a mosaic that shows even more than a scandalous, Lolita-like affair between the powerful and the powerless.

These people say they first learned of Robby-Ann’s allegations in December, two months before her killing.

Robby-Ann had run away from her grandmother’s home. Her teachers found her walking the streets of this capital city, and, for the first time, she told them about the abuse. She named Gilbert as her tormentor, they later recalled, adding that she said she feared for her life.

The teachers referred her to social workers, who placed her in the private Bel Air Home for troubled girls. But the archbishop allegedly persisted. A Dec. 18 letter from Sharon Davis, who runs the home, to the governmental Child Welfare Authority alleged abuse and stated that “Pastor Gilbert” had “overwhelmed” the home with calls and visits.

He even called Davis at home, pressing her on why Robby-Ann was at Bel Air, demanding to know whom the girl had spoken to, what she had said and whom she had named, Davis recalled.

“It is imperative,” Davis’ letter concluded, “that an emergency protection order is sought by the Child Welfare Authority immediately to safeguard Robby-Ann’s welfare and, may I even go so far as to say, save her life.”

No such order was issued. Two days before Christmas, Robby-Ann returned to her grandmother’s care. Six weeks later, she was dead.

Ann Peters, whose nonprofit Legal Aid and Consulting Service referred Robby-Ann to the Bel Air Home, declined to discuss the girl’s case. Like many others, including police and prosecutors, she cited Grenadian laws against divulging details of criminal cases before trial.

Inspector Frank Filbert of the Royal Grenada Police Force refused comment on the case beyond insisting that his department had no knowledge of Davis’ letter seeking to bar Gilbert from seeing the child.

But sources readily agreed that the girl’s case underscored the deficiencies of the social support system.

“The system broke down,” Filbert said, shaking his head. “It’s a rude awakening. Something has to change. People have to play their roles.”

In a letter to the editor of the Grenadian Voice published in February, Davis called for a judicial inquiry into the girl’s case “to provide answers to the many questions that surround this poor child’s death, so that the failings that occurred this time will not be repeated.”

“Second, there must be a change in attitude within Grenadian society with regard to so-called ‘big men’ that have unlawful sex with female children,” she wrote. “It is public knowledge in many villages and towns who these men are, yet no one seems to be prepared to speak up and begin to eradicate this cancer from our society.”

Since the killing, Prime Minister Mitchell has stressed that no one in Grenada is above the law, and he addressed child abuse in a speech broadcast to the nation last month.

“The protection of our children crosses many dimensions of our society,” Mitchell declared, unveiling a new task force to address “the social challenges” facing Grenada.

“We must all agree that abuse, whether it is emotional, physical, psychological or sexual, cannot be tolerated,” he said. “Nor can the silence that pervades our society with respect to abuse.”

Reece, Robby-Ann’s teacher, has been trying to change the status quo.

“Robby-Ann had been in a regular school, and she was doing pretty well. But Gilbert’s daughter wasn’t, so he transferred both girls here together,” recalled Reece, who delivered the eulogy at the girl’s funeral.

“From the very first day, I knew the relationship he had with her was not normal,” Reece said. “It was something about the way she moved whenever Gilbert touched her, like when we measured her for her uniform.”

Describing the girl as “brilliant,” the top student in her class, with an “infectious laugh,” Reece said that Robby-Ann sometimes showed her deep bruises from beatings she attributed to the archbishop.

“She called them ‘my trademarks,’ ” Reece recalled.

But until December, Robby-Ann never alleged sexual abuse, so Reece never reported the case to child welfare authorities. Even if she had, “very little or nothing would have changed,” Reece said.

She added that she was dumbfounded by the reaction of Robby-Ann’s grandmother the day the girl’s body was discovered.

“I asked her if she had heard that police had found Robby-Ann’s body,” Reece said. Then, re-creating the accent of the grandmother, who social workers say was Gilbert’s laundress and a devout member of his congregation, she added: “Her grandmother replied: ‘Oh, yes. I glad. God make peace with her soul. She stopped running now.’ ”

Reece also has written an open letter to Robby-Ann’s killer that she hopes the local papers will publish.

The letter doesn’t name Gilbert, but it beseeches: “Dear Sir, both you and I know that you committed the crime. . . . Please confess.”