A man who in 2017 said there was a “war” underway in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as he was reindicted on a murder charge over the killing of a baby was shot and killed in Villa Saturday night.
iWitness News was reliably informed that Martin James aka Jahson was gunned down in the suburban district.
He became the 37th homicide victim in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this year and the seventh person to be killed in the country in just over a week.
In November 20 17, James who along with Ricardo McFee aka Shrek was charged a second time with murder over the October 2016 death of a 10-month-old baby had told iWitness News that there was a war going on in SVG.
He had said that two people in Paul’s Avenue were his enemies but claimed that they are being protected although they deal in illegal drugs.
“People protecting they friend that they say is small businessmen,” James had shouted at iWitness News while under heavy police guard outside the court.
“Well, actually, all they doing is ordering people’s death and selling crack cocaine. The system is unable. They hand tied,” James had said even as he denied killing the baby.
He had said the people of whom he spoke, two of whom he mentioned by name, attacked his “best friend”, his co-accused, McFee.
The two men whom James had made the allegations gainst were both gunned down in sperate incidents in Kingstown over the last year.
Both James and McFee were freed of the murder charge in relation to the death of the baby.
James was gunned down two days after the body of Devon Holder aka Fresh Pick and Limb Man was found outside his Mahaut, Lowmans Hill home on Thursday.
He had what appeared to be chop wounds to the head, and videos circulated via social media suggested that a cell phone was found near the body.
Holder was the second adult male to be found dead in West Kingstown in as many days.
On Wednesday, the body of an adult male was found about a mile away in Gibson Corner on the concrete roof of a private property that is often used as a lookout over Kingstown.
The body, which was later identified as that of Javier Browne aka Baryo, of Chateaubelair, had a gunshot injury to the back.
iWitness News understands that police had been looking into any possible links between Browne’s death and an attempted robbery in Peruvian Vale Tuesday night in which a former police officer opened fire on his assailants, who fled the scene, leaving a loaded firearm behind.
On Monday, police recovered at Sion Hill Bay the body of 13-year-old Matthews Da Souza, of Fair Hall.
Da Souza used to be among a group of children who beg frequently in Kingstown.
Police said an autopsy conducted on Wednesday revealed that he died of drowning, due to or as a consequence of blunt trauma to the head.
An 11-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy who, like Matthew had a history of running away from home and being on the streets of Kingstown, appeared in court on Friday and were read a murder charge in connection with his death.
Also on Monday, Elijah Crease, a 34-year-old labourer, of Prospect, died at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, where he was taken after a stabbing incident involving another male in Calliaqua.
On Wednesday, Nolwyn Bennette aka Nolly B, a 45-year-old businessman and former NICE Radio announcer, was remanded in prison until Nov. 5, as he awaits a preliminary inquiry into a charge that he murdered Crease.
The killings began on the weekend in Petit Bordel, where two men were shot and killed in separate incidents.
Othnell Lavia, aka Curtell, a 37-year-old farmer, died after being shot in Petit Bordel sometime around 2 a.m. Sunday.
His death followed that of Stanran Stapleton aka Standpide, who was shot and killed in Petit Bordel Friday night, 20 years after his father was killed in the village.
SVG recorded 55 homicides in 2023, breaking the record of 42 set the previous year.
“People protecting they friend that they say is small businessmen,”
Does this sounds familiar or not ???
I hope this is the end of this streak of both arbitrary and premeditated homicides.
Violent crime is totally out of control. RG and the ULP need to go.
READ WELL ,
“People protecting they friend that they say is small businessmen,” James had shouted at iWitness News while under heavy police guard outside the court.
“Well, actually, all they doing is ordering people’s death and selling crack cocaine. The system is unable. They hand tied,” James had said even as he denied killing the baby.
The story has been told ( again ) ,the same one we knew for so long
crack cocaine ,do we produce this stuff in svg ? ( is it planted in the hills near Georgetown ? )
In order to understand what brought svg to this murderous point you have to go back about twenty years when venezualan boats were being chased out of barbados waters and then being pursued by svg coast guard only to be run aground in union island ,what was the cargo on board such a boat ( there were more than one ) and to whom was it assigned to ? , was it my cousin the one that use to work by B Bank ? maybe too many was distracted at the time to notice as around the same time we also had rape of people in uniform going on and other such things , so a boat that was run aground with no crew ever to be found was not too high in the news but the cargo must be expensive to run the boat aground and take the cargo with you because we dont produce it in this country or south st.lucia , were there so many on union island speaking spanish that no one notice and police could not find the new arrivals ?. in a country where a very high percentage of the people are unemployed who can import /pay for such expensive cargo that is not to be found in supermarkets ?, so in steps the newly created ” small business man ” and thus the stage was set for the blood bath svg now have .1 rapist ,1 big businessman ( mr.big ),and a number of “small business men” who need their try now pay later owed money
Dont forget to update the posters ,again
Seems we are poised to shatter last years homicide record, the way we are going, including the record for unsolved murders too.