{"id":2085,"date":"2019-01-23T18:53:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2019-01-23T18:53:04","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T18:53:04","slug":"murders-stain-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2085","title":{"rendered":"Murders stain the West"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barrington Flemming <\/strong>– Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bloody start to the New Year in Western Jamaica continues to challenge crime-fighters, who have been kept busy as again, gunmen struck, snuffing out the lives of four men in separate incidents across the region, beginning on Friday, pushing the murder tally past twenty. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victims have been identified as 62-year-old courier,\nLloyd Johnson of a Montego Bay, St. James address, Recardo Hewitt of Poincianna\nDrive, Pitfour, Granville, also in Montego Bay, 24-year-old Richard Hamilton,\notherwise called \u2018Romain\u2019 or \u2018Bad Indian\u2019, unemployed of Crabwood Lane,\nHopewell, Hanover, and 40-year- old chef, Kirk Campbell, otherwise called\n‘Dudu’ of Wakefield Trelawny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parish of St. James, which was labelled, the island\u2019s\nmurder capital prior to the imposition of the State of Public Emergency,\nrecorded two of the four murders, with the latest occurring on Monday.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports indicate that about 9:20 a.m., Johnson was\ntravelling in a white Nissan motorcar, owned by Randani Security Limited, along\nBarnett Street, when on reaching a section of the road, a motorcar drove up and\nmen aboard the vehicle opened gunfire, hitting him several times in the upper\nbody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commuters traversing the usually busy street were sent\nscampering for cover as the shots rang out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what is suspected to be a failed robbery attempt, the\nwounded Johnson reportedly drove the car a few metres, before colliding into\nanother vehicle, as the car came to rest at the intersection of Barnett Street\nand Lightbody Avenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was subsequently taken to the Cornwall Regional Hospital,\nwhere he was pronounced dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECARDO HEWITT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, mystery still shrouds the death of popular\nbusinessman, Recardo Hewitt, who operated ShopinJa, an online shopping platform\nbased at River Bay Road in Montego Bay, and who met his demise on Friday.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports are that at about 4p.m., several motorists and\nfishermen noticed Hewitt, who was sitting motionless in his silver Nissan\nWingroad motorcar, which was parked in the vicinity of the Fishermen\u2019s beach at\nSpring Gardens in St. James, and alerted the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmen, on their arrival, discovered that Hewitt, who\nwas still buckled in by his seatbelt, had multiple gunshot wounds to his upper\nbody, and was slumped around the steering wheel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hewitt was a known licensed firearm holder and the police\nsurmise that his attacker (s) stole the firearm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne female friend commenting on a social media platform\nsaid: \u201cHe was one of the only good human beings left and the evil ones took him\naway from us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018BAD INDIAN\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, later Friday evening, about 8:45p.m. in Hopewell,\nHanover, Hamilton was sitting on the verandah of his nextdoor neighbour and\ntalking with another man, when a white motorcar drove down the hill and\noccupants from the vehicle opened gunfire at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Hamilton and the man he was talking with ran, however\nhe fell at the side of the house, while his friend escaped unharmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police were summoned and upon their arrival Hamilton\u2019s\nbody was found at the side of the house lying in a pool of blood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lucea police who are investigating reveal that Hamilton\nwas out on bail for his alleged involvement in a shooting incident, which\nreportedly took place in Westmoreland in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018DUDU\u2019 THE CHEF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trelawny Police were also kept busy on Saturday night as\nCampbell, a chef, was tending to a pot of soup outside his business place about\n10p.m., when a lone man armed with a gun approached him and opened fire,\nhitting him in the head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A traumatized relative of Campbell said the pain of losing\nhim so tragically is too difficult to bear, and the family is struggling to\ncome to grips with his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor for the Wakefield Division, Jonathan Bartley, has\ncalled for a speedy resolution to the case, while appealing to the authorities\nto provide the police with the necessary resources, especially motor cars, to\naid them in the fight against crime. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barrington Flemming – Staff Reporter The bloody start to the New Year in Western Jamaica continues to challenge crime-fighters, who have been kept busy as again, gunmen struck, snuffing out the lives of four men in separate incidents across the region, beginning on Friday, pushing the murder tally past twenty. The victims have been identified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1080,472,19,233,30],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-gunshots","tag-hanover","tag-montego-bay","tag-murders","tag-western-jamaica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2087,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}