Norman Grindley-Earl Pratt talks on the phone after being released after 30 years in prison.

Ian Allen-Mary Lynch being released

Yesterday two of Jamaica's most popular inmates were released by authorities and walked free from the correctional centres where they had served sentences for several years.

Earl Pratt, 48, was released from the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre in Spanish Town while 66-year-old Mary Doyley Lynch, a former upper St. Andrew housewife, walked through the gates of the Fort Augusta Adult Correctional Centre. Both persons served sentences for murder.

Sporting dark glasses, the clean shaven Pratt openly apologised to the family of Everton 'Junior' Missick, for whose death he and Ivan Morgan were convicted in December 1977. Morgan died in prison of natural causes in 1996.

apology

"I want to say sorry to the family of the deceased for what happened 30 years ago. If it was not for them, I would not have been free today," Pratt told journalists outside the gate of the prison.

He intends to now give motivational talks to young people, particularly those at the primary school level.

The Privy Council in the United Kingdom recommended in 1994, in a landmark ruling that became applicable in other Caribbean territories, that Pratt and Morgan, who were on death row for more than five years after their conviction, should not be hanged and commuted their sentence to life. The Privy Council cited a breach of their constitutional right.

Pratt applied for parole in February 2005 and the process was finally completed yesterday. He will celebrate his 48th birthday on July 15.

In the case of Lynch, she had spent 14 years behind bars for the 1992 murder of her husband Leary, a former bank executive.

She, yesterday, emerged with raised hands and said tearfully: "Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus. It has been 14 long years, but the Lord has kept me."

Lynch cried as she hugged her two sisters and brother who had been waiting for over three hours for her release. The brief, tearful moment ended in front of the prison gates as she was quickly ushered into the waiting family car.

Mary Lynch was charged on May 29, 1992, with murdering her 54-year-old Barbadian-born husband Leary. The National Commercial Bank's divisional general manager for credit, went missing on May 23, 1992, and three weeks later, his remains were found in Smokey Vale, upper St. Andrew, chopped to death. Lynch was chopped to death at the couple's home in Cherry Gardens, St. Andrew. The body had 25 chop wounds, some of which were inflicted after death. The body was identified by the dental records.

Lynch had told several witnesses that her husband had gone abroad. However, in court, she testified to killing her husband in self-defence.

She was convicted and originally sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, after several appeals, her sentence was reconfigured as she was deemed not a danger to society.