‘Putty Wet’: Gun-for-hire - Police say man killed in St Catherine last week was a paid killer

Police sources are claiming that the fatal shooting of Alton 'Putty Wet' Maxwell last Sunday put paid to one of Jamaica's most dangerous guns-for-hire.

According to the police, Maxwell's barbarity led to him murdering seven-months' pregnant Sasha Gay Coffie at her West Cumberland, St Catherine, home in October 2013 - seven months after she was attacked and shot in the same community.

Coffie's husband, schoolteacher Sean Coffie, was charged for murder, along with Maxwell and another man, Shevena Allen, in what police investigators theorise was a murder-for-insurance plot.

Coffie and Allen were also charged for soliciting and illegal possession of firearm in relation to the March attack on his wife.

When she was first attacked and shot, Coffie was on her way to board a bus to work. She escaped death by running on to a nearby school compound.

However, when Maxwell stormed in on Coffie and family members seven months later, she stood no chance. She was shot once in the head and twice in the stomach, ensuring her unborn child would never see the light of day.

 

PLEADED GUILTY

 

With the police closing in on him, Maxwell turned himself in and pleaded guilty to murdering the 27-year-old woman, who was employed to the Administrator General's Department.

He turned witness against her husband and Allen, both of whom, he claimed, had solicited his services for the hit against the former legal clerk.

Both cases are still before the court and should proceed despite Maxwell's death. The matters were stalled due to him twice escaping custody after pleading guilty to Coffie's murder.

First, he was among seven men who had escaped from the Portmore Police lock-up in March this year. After being recaptured in Westmoreland with an illegal firearm, Maxwell was among eight men who broke out of the Savanna-la-Mar lock-up in June.

 

KILLED LAST SUNDAY

 

His death last Sunday morning, during a shooting incident involving a team from the St Catherine South police in Caymanas Gardens, has paved the way for the cases against his two co-accused to resume under Section 31D of the Evidence Act.

Reports are that a team from the St Catherine South Operations Division went to premises in Caymanas Gardens in search of Maxwell.

Police sources said the wanted man, when confronted by the police, pointed an Intratec Tec-9 sub-machine gun in the direction of the cops.

Maxwell was fatally shot during the alleged confrontation. He was pronounced dead at hospital.

Superintendent Terrence Sancko, operations officer, St Catherine South, described Watson as "a major violence producer".

"He was a man who was in the court on charges of murder and shooting. He was convicted and awaiting sentencing when he escaped. He was held in Westmoreland with a firearm, a charge to which he pleaded guilty before escaping custody again.

"We had him down as a major violence producer based on the number of crimes attributed to him, him being a known gunman, having pleaded guilty to illegal possession of firearm. These are things that were things were all proven," added Sancko.