A 23-year-old man awaiting trial for murder and attempted murder was shot dead early Friday during an attempted burglary at a commercial cannabis facility, police said.
Joel Williams, an Ottley Hall resident with a history of firearm and violent crime charged, died at the scene, where police found him with multiple gunshot wounds at the CANNASVG farm.
The Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force said on Friday that officers went to the Georgetown property at about 12:10 a.m. on after receiving reports that two masked men carrying firearms broke into the facility.
When police arrived, they found Williams on the ground. A district medical officer pronounced him dead at the scene, and a post-mortem examination will determine the cause of death.
Police did not say who is suspected to have shot and killed Williams.
They, however, said a second unidentified suspect fled the scene and remains at large.
The fatal shooting ends a three-year timeline of serious criminal cases against Williams.
In January 2023, the Serious Offences Court convicted Williams, then 18, possession of a pistol and five rounds of ammunition without a licence, on Oct. 3, 2022, at New Montrose
During that sentencing, then-chief magistrate Rechanne Browne said her courtroom had become a gun court because of the high volume of firearm offences.
Later that year, authorities charged Williams alongside three other men following a robbery and kidnapping spree at the Campden Park Industrial Estate.
The charges from that incident included entering a premises as a trespasser with a firearm, assaulting a worker, and using force to carry away a security guard from a warehouse.
In February 2026, police charged Williams and fellow villager Kyle Providence with murder in connectioin with the death of Carl Quow, 24, of Chauncey, and attempted murder in connection with the shooting of Jolani Thompson, in Edinboro on Feb. 6, 2025.