MOM HIDES BABY FROM GUNMEN
By Cecily Asson Wednesday, May 4 2016
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A QUICK-THINKING 17-yearold girl grabbed her sleeping seven-month-old baby daughter from their bed, ran to and clutching the sleeping babe to her chest, hid behind a wardrobe just as gunmen burst into a Marabella house and riddled the baby’s father with bullets on Monday night. Police yesterday took the teenaged mom and her baby into protective custody as the killers remain at large.
The teen’s common-law husband Selwyn John, 35, a fisherman subsequently bled to death in the living room of their Train Line, Bayshore West, Marabella house.
It is believed two gunmen walked up the shoreline, entered a yard and kicked down the front door of John’s house at 11.30 pm. As he got up from his bed and went to the living room, John was cut down in a hail of bullets.
Hearing the rapid gunfire, the young mother quickly grabbed her sleeping baby and ran behind a wardrobe. Police sources said it was only divine intervention that the baby continued to sleep despite the loud sounds of gunfire reverberating through the humble wooden house. If the baby was awakened by the gunshots, her cries could have led the gunmen to the wardrobe.
As luck would have it, when they finished shooting John, the killers exited the house and escaped into the night. The teen’s other child, a two-year-old son, was away spending the night at his grandmother’s home. John was a father of four, two with the 17-year-old and two other children, aged eight and nine with another woman. An autopsy done yesterday at the Forensic Science Centre in St James confirmed he died as a result of shock and haemorrhage consistent with multiple gunshot wounds. The victim’s father Kelvin Ramcharan, who lives two houses away, said he was awakened by the sound of gunshots.
“My son walked into a hail of bullets. He had no chance,†said the grieving 57-year-old man. “As he heard the door being kicked in and he come out the bedroom to investigate.
They didn’t ask him a thing and they just let go shots on him.†Ramcharan said minutes before the shooting, he shared a cup of coffee with his son.
“I heard about 12 shots and I came outside to see what happening.
At the same time, his madam was running towards me screaming.
I ran into the house and saw my son dead on the ground. Blood was just flowing from his body.
She had left the baby behind the wardrobe and I took up my granddaughter and took her by me,†Ramcharan said.
John’s death came less than 48 hours after his neighbour Dixon Richards, 22, a security guard who lived a stone’s throw away on the same street, was also shot and killed. On Sunday, around 1.10 am, Richards’ mother Helen Roach found his body outside the front door of their home.
Ramcharan said he knew his son was involved in drugs but did not know whether he was trafficking or using it. Admitting he did not have the best of relationships with his son, Ramcharan said this did not change the fact that John did not deserve such a death.
The victim’s sister-in-law Sharda John said the family is now living in fear of their lives. “Just Sunday morning they killed one of our neighbours and now they come for Selwyn. I am frightened too bad.
We need proper police patrols in the back here,†she said. Other family members said they were worried about John’s teenaged common- law wife and their children as they (the relatives) do not know where the young mother and the children are being kept at present.
Investigations are continuing.
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