By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 4, 2020 — Every year, February 4 has been a depressingly sad day for me since the brutal murder of my very dear friend and brother Charles “Chuck” Virgill in February of 1997. Today would have been Chuck’s 78th birthday, and I still have tremendous difficulty controlling my tear duct and usually end up crying uncontrollably when I think about the wonderful times Charles Wesley Virgill Jr. and I had growing up together from our early teenage years. Indeed, when I started writing this article, I had to top until I composed myself.
As I have noted previously on Facebook, we were members of a club called THE FRATERNITY that engaged in positive activities during our late teens and early twenties. Including myself and Chuck, other members of the FRATERNITY included Ed Bethel, who was the club’s president, Garth H.O. Nash, the late Hervis “Steeps” Bain, the late Billy “Kippy” Pinder, the late Wesley “Wes” Poitier, Jimmy Edwards and Kelsey Jennings. We had a Waters Ski Club and we regularly sponsored debates on topical issues – political and otherwise – and glamourous social events, during which our girlfriends were treated like princesses.
One such event was a five-course dinner organized by the late Vernice Moultrie, one of The Bahamas’ leading social mavens of that era, who instructed us on how to “treat a lady” and literally how to properly use our knives and forks. That dinner was held at the newly opened CHANTEL LOUNGE, owned by the late Edward “Teddy” Foster and Andrew Conliffe, who were both employed at the Bahamas Telecommunications Department at the time. The Chantel’s name was later changed to the BAHAMA BOAT, which became one of the leading nightclubs in New Providence for young people, under the ownership of Frank Minaya, in the 1960s and 1970s.
FRATERNITY meetings were held usually at Chuck’s house on West Hill Street every Sunday, and it was at these meetings that we engaged in some very enlightening debates on a broad array of issues. H.O. Nash’s family homestead was adjacent to the Virgills, and whenever we were discussing a topical issue on U.S. politics, H.O. and I thoroughly enjoyed assuming the “roles” of Everett Dirksen and Barry Goldwater, prominent Republican Party politicians at the time.
When it came to debates, however, Chuck was outstanding. His professional ambition was always to become a lawyer, which he eventually did, and during our debates back then he “performed” as if he had already been called to the bar.
One of Chuck’s favourite movies was “Judgement at Nuremberg”, the 1961 courtroom drama, whose stars included Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Maximilian Schell and Montgomery Cliff.
In that movie, Maximilian Schell was cast in the role a defense lawyer for one of the German officials accused of atrocities against the Jews, and he made a passionate closing summation that Chuck was able to replicate almost word for word.
Even when I was not attending FRATERNITY meetings, I spent so much time at the Virgill homestead that his late mother Winifred, whom I used to call Aunt Winnie, was like my surrogate mother, and I still refer to all of Chuck’s living sister – Marcia, Michaela, Margot and Michelle – as my sisters.
I also was best man at Chuck’s first wedding to former Miss Bahamas Maria Carter, the late sister of Sir Charles Carter, and I am the godfather to their son, Charles Wesley Virgill III., although I’ll admit that I have not been a very good godfather as he grew up and matured into the outstanding gentleman that he is today.
It is a very well know fact among persons of my generation in The Bahama that Chuck Virgill also was an exceptionally great basketball player from his years at St. John’s College High School and on whatever team he played with when the Bahamas Amateur Basketball Association (BABA) played its league games at the Priory Court on the grounds of St. Francis Roman Catholic Church, not far from where Chuck lived on West Hill Street.
Chuck also had a passion for politics, and he was one the army of young political activists who were strong supporters of the late political icon Cecil Wallace-Whitfield during the struggle for majority rule in The Bahamas. It was not by accident that Wallace-Whitfield became Chuck’s political mentor, given the fact family members of Wallace-Whitfield – his aunt Mary and cousin Paula Williams – also lived on West Street Hill very close to the Virgill Homestead.
Wallace-Whitfield was chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) leading up to the PLP’s historic victory in the January 10, 1967 general election, and Chuck was one of his young “generals” at the PLP’s campaign headquarters upstairs the Reinhard Hotel on Baillou Hill Road.
When Wallace-Whitfield left the PLP in 1970 and subsequently became one of the founding members of the Free National Movement (FNM), so did Chuck Virgill, and although the FNM did not become the government of The Bahamas until two decades later, in 1992, Chuck became a Minister in the FNM government, and at the time of his brutal murder in 1997, he was manager for the FNM’s campaign to return to office for a second term as the government of The Bahamas.
So, you can see why I get so depressed on Chuck’s birthday. If he had died of natural causes in bed, I would still experience some degree of sadness on the anniversary of his birthday, but the fact that he was brutally murdered is still extremely painful to come to grips with.
Chuck was assaulted outside his condominium on West Bay Street when he returned home from a campaign, presumably because his murderers thought he had in his possession money collected that night at the campaign rally. His badly battered body was found in a wellfield behind the Bahamas Electricity Corporation on Soldier Road on February 15, 1997.
What is even more painful for me is that although the four culprits who were convicted of his murder were sentenced to death, The Bahamas’ automatic death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by the London-based Privy Council in 2006 and their death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment. What’s more, one of them later was released from prison several years ago on a technicality, and another subsequently had his life sentence reduced.
I am a committed practicing Roman Catholic, and based on the dictates of my faith, I did not believe in the death penalty, but Chuck’s murder reversed my opinion in this regard, and I am now a dyed-in-the-wool proponent of administering and carrying out the death penalty for persons convicted of heinous murders, as was the case with Chuck’s death.
May the soul of my very dear friend and brother Charles “Chuck” Virgill continue to rest in peace.
