He Was A Top Gang Member: The Dark Truth Behind Aneka "Slickianna" Townsend Execution

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Kingston, Jamaica. A city where ambition and survival walk the same street. Where people build themselves from nothing and dare the world to look away. Out of this city came a woman who refused to be invisible. She wasn't a politician. She wasn't a musician. She was just a girl from Waterloo Road in Kingston 13 who got on social media, showed people who she was, and somehow touched the hearts of over 317,000 strangers on Instagram. They called her Slickiana. They called her Cayan. They called her Dumpling. Her real name was Anakah Townsend. And on the morning of October 21st, 2022, her partially decomposing body was pulled from the sea in Reading St. James by the Marine Police. She was 35 years old. She left behind a 15-year-old son, and she left behind a nation that was about to erupt in fury. Those who knew Anka remembered her as a woman who wore many hats.

[00:01:07]daughter, mother, sister, niece, social media influencer, fashionista, and above all, a celebrator of life. In her short time on this earth, she had traveled to many countries, bringing joy and happiness to all those she met. Her friend Kareem Weathers said it plainly.

[00:01:28]Outside of what everybody saw on social media, the life of the party, the fashionista, the strong person, Anka was somebody that lived in her truth. She was somebody that was very much open about her past and her life and her past struggles and how she was just grateful to be in the position that she was in.

[00:01:50]That was Slickiana. No pretense, no filter on who she really was. She initially joined Instagram in July of 2017 and later posted her very first Instagram photo on May 16th, 2020. From there, she grew a following that most people only dream about. Her content was lifestyle themed travel, fashion, personality. She had a charisma that came through the screen and grabbed you.

[00:02:19]It was also reported that she was formerly a stripper at Taboo Strip Club at its former New Kingston location. And Anakah never hid that part of her life.

[00:02:30]That was exactly what people loved about her. She was unapologetically herself from where she came from all the way to where she had reached. On Tuesday, October 18th, 2022, she celebrated her mother's birthday with family and friends and visited one of her aunts.

[00:02:49]she had not seen for years. The following day, she spoke to her mother for the last time, after which she traveled to Montego Bay on Thursday, October 20th. Nobody in that family knew that phone call would be the last time they ever heard her voice. On Thursday evening, October 20th, Townsen traveled from Kingston to Montego Bay, where she was picked up by a man named Rashan Patterson at approximately 7:30 p.m.

[00:03:19]During the course of the evening, they visited a restaurant in Hanover and a guest house in St. James. This was not a random encounter. Patterson and Townsend were known to each other. Fans and people close to the situation later revealed that the two had been communicating on social media and were seen together in videos from her last living moments. So, this was a man she trusted enough to travel to see. A man she felt comfortable enough to get in a car with, to eat dinner with, to spend the night with, and that trust, that comfort would cost her everything. The postmortem later confirmed that Townsen was killed sometime between 11:00 p.m.

[00:04:01]on Thursday, October 20th and 9:00 a.m.

[00:04:05]on Friday, October 21st. Somewhere in that darkness in a guest house in St. James, something went terribly wrong. At some point during the night, an argument developed between them, which resulted in Patterson strangling Towns End and disposing of her body. He put his hands around her throat and squeezed the life out of her. Then he took her body and threw it into the sea off the ridding coastline in St. James like she was nothing, like she had never laughed, never loved, never built something from scratch, never raised a son. Na Townsen was found face down in the ocean off the shores of Reading in St. James Parish, just west of Montego Bay on the morning of Friday, October the 21st. Reports are that about 9:30 a.m. persons went to the beach and discovered the partially decomposing body floating in the water.

[00:05:02]They summoned the police who sought assistance from the marine division to remove the body from the water. A towel covered in what appeared to have been blood and a wig were among items removed from the scene. Her body was also found with a shoelace tied around the neck.

[00:05:20]The internet was already ahead of the police. Within hours of the body being spotted, people were sharing a video online, pointing to the tattoos on her leg, the footwear, the feather design, comparing it all to her last Instagram post. Jamaica already knew who it was, even before any official confirmation.

[00:05:42]The St. James police confirmed that the 35year-old was positively identified by her mother, Joyce Smith. The same mother whose birthday Anakah had just helped celebrate two days before the trip to Montego Bay. Joyce Smith was now the one identifying her daughter's body from the sea. When the Sunday gleaner contacted her, all she could say was that she was a good person, but she had no more comments at that time. What else is there to say when words cannot hold that kind of grief? Now, let's talk about the man the police say is responsible.

[00:06:19]Rashan Patterson, otherwise called Shizzy, was 33 years old, from Harvey River in Hanover. He also went by the names Jason Thompson and Brown Man.

[00:06:32]Police sources confirmed that Patterson was aligned to the Bloods gang in St. James, a gang that also operated in Hanover. This was not a simple man. This was not someone with a clean background who made one terrible mistake. His history with law enforcement stretched back over a decade before Anukica ever got on that bus to Montego Bay.

[00:06:55]Patterson first appeared on the police's radar in 2010. On April 26th, 2010, he was arrested and charged for uttering forge documents. It is understood he used a fake check drawn in the name of Minot Services limited to cash nearly $20,000 but fled the scene leaving his driver's license behind. That was just the beginning. 3 years later the situation became far more sinister. On the night of February 9th, 2013, a couple was walking along Cargill Avenue in St. Andrew when they were accosted by men in a motor vehicle. The couple was held up at gunpoint. The male victim was placed in the trunk of the vehicle and was later fatally shot when he jumped from the moving vehicle in a bid to escape.

[00:07:47]The woman was taken to a location where she was raped and her throat was lashed.

[00:07:52]She was left for dead, but she survived and reported the matter to the Halfway Tree police. Following an investigation, Patterson was held in Halfway Tree Square in 2014 and charged with murder, attempted murder, abduction, and rape.

[00:08:10]That is the kind of man we are dealing with. Not a petty criminal, a man with a proven capacity for extreme violence against women. A man who had done this before, but the system let him go.

[00:08:24]Patterson was freed in the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Court after the judge upheld a no case submission by his attorney who argued that Patterson's constitutional rights were being breached. The case had been dragging on since 2013 and the prosecution was not ready. The primary witness could not be found. The case collapsed. Patterson walked out of that courtroom a free man.

[00:08:50]He was free, but he was not quiet. In January 2019, Patterson was listed as a person of interest in a fraudulent conversion case in Kingston and separately in 2018, he was alleged to have physically assaulted a female after a jealous rage. That assault charge would later come back into the picture.

[00:09:13]Then in May 2022, just 5 months before Anakah Townsen was killed, Patterson was placed on an immigration watch list. He was being tried for murder, attempted murder, and rape, and was scheduled to appear before the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Court on Tuesday, May 31st. He had absconded bail and had to be publicly called in by the police. He eventually turned himself in. Then a few months later, Anakah got on a bus and went to meet him. After her body was found and the island erupted with questions, the Jamaica Constabularary Force announced on Saturday, October 22nd, that Rashan Patterson was a person of interest in the case and asked him to turn himself into the Freeport Police Station by 5:00 p.m. That same day, he did not show. The deadline passed. Then another deadline came and went. He was hiding. Police sources later confirmed he had been staying at a guest house in Hanover, the very type of location he had taken Anakah to the night she died.

[00:10:23]The investigation moved fast and hard.

[00:10:25]The police collected an abundance of forensic, cyber forensic, and other technological evidence. The investigation benefited from the support of the Area 1 operational support team, the Communication Forensic and Cyber Crime Division, the National Intelligence Bureau, the Technical Services Division, the Specialized Operations Branch, the Jamaica Defense Force, as well as Jamaica Eye. They were not playing. On November 2nd, 2022, the police found him. Patterson was arrested during a high-level intelligenc.

[00:11:02]The same man who threw a woman's body into the sea was hiding in a guest house, thinking he could disappear. He could not. Now, here is where a second player enters the story. Rohan Rose, a 47-year-old security guard, otherwise called Early B, was arrested and charged on November 4th, 2022, 2 days after Patterson was arrested. According to the allegations, Patterson had told Rose that he killed Townsend, but Rose did not report it to the police. The prosecution later told the court that Patterson had also unsuccessfully tried to enlist Rose's help in covering up the crime. Whether Rose knew the full extent of what Patterson was capable of or not, what is clear is that at some point after Anakah's body hit that water, Patterson was talking to someone about what he had done. And that person stayed silent. It was only after Rose was arrested that he gave the police a statement regarding Patterson. And that statement was what led to Patterson being formally charged with Towns End's murder on November 11th, 2022. On November 11th, 2022, the St. James police formally charged 33-year-old Rashan Patterson with the murder of 35year-old social media influencer Anakah Townsend. The nation exhaled, but not fully because even charged, Patterson was still alive, still breathing, and the court process was going to take time. His first bail application on March 21st, 2023 was rejected. The prosecution pointed to correspondence that Patterson had reportedly made to Rohan Rose.

[00:12:56]Statements that indicated Patterson had confessed to killing Town's End. The second bail application in October 2023 was also denied. The court ruling he was a flight risk who could reaffend. Then in July 2024, Patterson was granted bail on humanitarian grounds after the court was told that on his doctor's recommendation he needed to be admitted to hospital to be treated for hemophilia, a blood disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly. That bail decision sent shock waves through the public. A man charged with strangling a woman and throwing her body in the sea was being given bail because of a blood disorder. People were angry and the anger grew worse as the case dragged on through 2024 and into 2025. delayed again and again because of outstanding documents, missing DNA results, an incomplete postmortem report, absent investigating officers.

[00:13:58]Every delay felt like another blow to Anakah's memory. Meanwhile, wellplaced sources said Patterson had been attracting the attention of law enforcement officers in western Jamaica due to alleged criminal activities while out on bail. He had never truly stopped.

[00:14:16]Then on February 4th, 2025, Patterson was picked up in a targeted raid alongside a top tier Bloods gang member and taken to Montego Bay Police Station.

[00:14:28]They released him and then at approximately 5:40 a.m. on Tuesday, February 25th, 2025, police shot and killed Rashan Patterson during an alleged confrontation in Hanover. He was on bail at the time, awaiting his next court appearance scheduled for October 15th. Patterson was shot and killed inside his bedroom at his parents' Dundee Pen home. He was at home with his mother and son when the incident took place. The police say there was a confrontation. His family says otherwise. A close relative disputed the police's account directly. There was no confrontation. them wake him up out of his bed and shot him. The star team visited the home that same day and was shown the bedroom. The family had already taken off the bed sheets, but five gunshot holes in the walls told a somber tale. There were also two gunshot holes in a glass window and the veranda wall. Whatever the full truth of those final moments, Rashan Patterson, also known as Chisy, also known as Brown Man, also known as Jason Thompson, was dead.

[00:15:42]And when Anka's mother, Joyce Smith, heard the news, she did not stay home and cry. She along with close relatives and friends traveled to Dovecott Cemetery to celebrate the news by her daughter's graveside. The police texted me and told me what happened and it maybe cannot bring her back but at least I got justice. Smith said I was waiting for justice and now I finally got it. I never wanted him to get sentenced to eat taxpayers money and I was never sure he would get sentenced either. So I am sure now that I got my justice. A mother standing at her daughter's grave finding the only peace she could. Now, out on the streets, people have been talking.

[00:16:28]And because this story deserves honesty, those conversations need to be heard.

[00:16:34]There are those who have long questioned whether Patterson acted entirely alone.

[00:16:39]The way Anukica's body was disposed of, thrown into the sea in the dead of night, suggested to many that this was not a spontaneous act of rage, but something more deliberate and calculated. Others pointed to Patterson's gang connections and wondered whether Anakah had unknowingly walked into a situation much bigger than a man she met online. Some people close to the situation allegedly said that the argument that night may have been triggered by something Anka discovered.

[00:17:10]Information about Patterson that put her in danger the moment she found it. None of this has been confirmed officially, but the whispers have never fully gone away. What has been confirmed is that Patterson reportedly confessed to someone to Rohan Rose and Rose stayed quiet. Rose is charged with misprion of a felony and failing to report a crime to the authorities and is slated to stand trial in the St. James Circuit Court on January 27th, 2026. That trial will be the last living piece of this case. Aneka Slickiana Townsend was laid to rest at Dovecart Memorial Park in St. Catherine following a service at Webster Memorial United Church in St. Andrew.

[00:17:57]She would have turned 36 on December 6th, 2022, just days after her funeral.

[00:18:04]Her son was 15 when he lost her. The case ignited a national conversation about femicide in Jamaica, about the vulnerability of women who trust men they meet online and about a justice system that sometimes moves too slow to protect the living and too gently on those who take life. Anka did not deserve what happened to her. She built something real from nothing, lived openly and fearlessly, and was killed for it by a man with a long history of violence against women. A man the system had already failed to stop once before.

[00:18:37]Her name deserves to be remembered, not just as a case number, but as a life that mattered.