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Ganja farmer brothers executed in St Elizabeth

Published:Saturday | November 7, 2020 | 12:15 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
Police investigators at the home where two brothers were shot dead in Good Hope, St Elizabeth, yesterday.
Police investigators at the home where two brothers were shot dead in Good Hope, St Elizabeth, yesterday.

Western Bureau:

Gunshots shattered the calm in the quiet rural district of Good Hope, St Elizabeth, about 1 a.m. yesterday, waking residents, who were gripped with fear as they waited until daybreak to investigate what had happened.

When they ventured out as morning broke, they discovered that two brothers had been killed execution-style in their wooden house.

The victims, who residents say were hard-working ganja farmers, have been identified as 40-year-old Junior ‘Bill’ Castello and 53-year-old Evan Robinson.

Residents found the bodies of the two men lying face down in the yard with bullet wounds to the back of their heads and summoned the police.

The men’s pockets had also been turned out, suggesting that they had been searched.

Community shocked

Yesterday, as they gathered along a dirt track leading to the men’s house, residents said the murders came as a shock to the generally peaceful community.

“A yah suh mi born and grow and dem yah things yah nuh happen inna Good Hope,” a farmer told The Gleaner. “Bill and Evan a like a mi family … . Dem do dem little farming and plant dem ganja, but wi nuh know of dem as people weh trouble people.”

He added: “Right yah now, Evan dead lef him goats dem, and mi feel especially sorry fi him because people a seh is Bill di gunman dem did cum fah, but Evan did deh a di yard at the same time.”

Residents say that the brothers, who shared the same mother, had been living at the old house for a number of years. They were reportedly involved in the cultivating of short-term crops and the rearing of goats before branching out into ganja farming.

They theorised that the murders could be linked to another killing in the area a few months ago.

“A little thing gwaan inna de area where a youth get kill about three months ago. Dem bury him Sunday,” a resident revealed to The Gleaner.

“We hear seh a him friend dem come execute di brothers dem because Bill was on the scene when dem friend get killed,” another farmer said.

The matter is being investigated by the St Elizabeth police.

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