MoBay gangster indicted for Florida killings

WESTERN BUREAU:

Duojon Griffiths, the 24-year-old man implicated in the 2021 murder of fellow Montego Bay resident 20-year-old Massania ‘Karla’ Malcolm and her one-year-old daughter Jordania, was indicted on murder and gun charges by a Florida grand jury on Wednesday.

Griffiths, who was on the run for three years after the March 2021 incident, was apprehended more than 1,000 miles away from the scene of the crime during a traffic stop in New Jersey two months ago. Griffiths, who had altered his appearance from clean-cut to flowing dreadlocks, was extradited to Florida to face justice.

The killings sent shock waves across Montego Bay, especially in Glendevon, where Malcolm and Griffiths both resided prior to moving to the United States.

Malcolm’s mother, Latoya ‘Budeisha’ Reid, who also resides in the United States, was a popular personality on the party circuit in Montego Bay before she migrated.

According to the local police, Griffiths, who reportedly entered the United States illegally, was linked to gangland activities here in Jamaica before moving to the United States. He is now facing charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, and three counts of shooting at, or into a building.

Before Malcolm was killed and her baby daughter left locked up in the car, in which the killing took place, to perish from heat and suffocation, Griffiths is said to have shot and seriously injured Malcolm’s boyfriend, the father of her child, at their home. Thinking the man was dead, he reported forced her to drive him away from the location to the parking lot, where she was killed.

ACT OF KINDNESS

According to a source close to Malcolm, as an act of kindness, she and her boyfriend had taken Griffiths, who had recently arrived from Jamaica and did not have a place to life, into their home, where he lived free of charge for several months. After noticing that Griffiths was showing no inclination to move out or contribute towards the household bills, he was asked to leave.

“Di man just deh deh a eat di people dem food and a use dem utilities and nah pay no bills so dem ask him to leave,” the source told The Gleaner. “It look like seh him friend dem tell him fi rob ‘Sinner’ (Malcolm’s boyfriend) and end up with him shooting ‘Sinner’ and ... ‘Karla’ and the baby.”

When Griffiths made his first court appearance in early April, he was denied bond. While Florida is one of the states that embraces the death penalty – lethal injection or the electric chair – it is unclear as to whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

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