‘I didn’t get to hold my granddaughter’

WESTERN BUREAU:

Residents of Montego Bay were badly jolted on Thursday when news broke of the execution-style killing of a young woman from the city and her one-year-old daughter in Miami, Florida.

The killing of 20-year-old Carla-Shay Malcolm, the daughter of popular Montegonian Latoya Budeisha Reid, and her baby, identified only as Karlie, is believed to be linked to spill-over gangland activities in several volatile communities linked to the G-City and Waltham gangs, which operate from several communities in the St James capital.

Malcolm’s boyfriend, who is also the father of the child, and who is also from Montego Bay, was badly injured in the attack, which took place at their house. He is said to be battling for life in a Miami hospital.

Reid, who is also currently residing in Miami, appeared to know the identity of the killer of her daughter and granddaughter and spoke directly to him in a most revealing online video, in which she poured out her grief.

“Yuh kill me today when you kill me pickney and mi grandpickney … . Mi a tell yuh di honest truth, yuh kill me today when you kill Carla-Shay and Karlie … . Yuh kill me today when yuh did this to them!” wailed Reid, who called the name of the individual she is accusing of being the killer.

According her, the killer had thought all three victims of the attack had died and he would have gotten away with what he did. However, she suggested that her daughter’s boyfriend, who survived the attack, was able to relate what had transpired at the murder scene.

“You thought everybody was dead, but you got it wrong,” said Reid, as she called out the name of the alleged killer and his home address in Jamaica. “I don’t care anymore … . I just don’t care … . I am dead right now, … so you can be my next guest.”

Like Reid, her daughter’s father, Carlos Malcolm, who resides in Montego Bay, was in total distress when The Gleaner spoke to him on Friday.

“I am in pain. The pain is killing me. It is too much. Every time I look at my granddaughter picture, the tears just keep flowing down. I lose my mother and a lose two of my best friends and it never hurt me so much,” said Malcolm, who described his overall feelings as surreal. “Me have to just keep tell myself that dem dead for real.”

A WICKED ACT

According to Malcolm, what is particularly hurtful to him is the fact that, while he has seen and interacted with his granddaughter via video calls, he had never physically held her.

“Me never hold her inna me hand. Me only laugh and play with her on video calls and now she gone. Me not going to see her again … me nah go get fe touch her … a wicked thing that … a innocent little baby, no sah, no sah,” Malcolm remarked, as his voice trailed off and he went silent.

While details about the killings remain sketchy, based on information from persons familiar with all the parties who were caught up in the bloody incident, the accused man and the injured boyfriend are from two Montego Bay communities with a long history of feuding.

“It look like a di bad vibes from yard and him (the accused killer) mek him friend dem from yard influence him fi dweet. Personally, me feel it. A nuh so yu reward kindness. As a man in the street, me feel it. How a man fe kill a baby?” a man familiar with the feud told The Gleaner.

“Right now, me worried because innocent people might get caught up in this.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com