Churchman killed in triple murder

When Devroy Peart reached home from his nine-to-five job at the University Hospital of the West Indies around 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, the father asked his two daughters who would wash the dishes before responding to an InDrive taxi charter.

He got ready and told them he would come home soon. But he didn’t.

Instead, his 18-year-old daughter, Shema*, woke up yesterday to a social media post depicting her father slumped over the steering wheel of his car with two female passengers sprawled dead at the front and rear doors. The women had bullet holes in their heads and a pool of blood beneath their chins.

Police said Peart and his passengers, identified as Tattiana Brown, 21, and Deanna Green, 22, appeared to have been trailed before being peppered with bullets by assailants on upper King Street in the vicinity of Heroes Circle.

Their killers were reportedly travelling in a white motorcar, but up to late yesterday, sleuths could not say the make nor vehicle registration.

Theirs was among three shooting incidents that kept investigators in the Corporate Area busy between Thursday night and yesterday afternoon.

The others resulted in the injury of a woman in Pembroke Hall about 9:00 p.m. on Thursday and the afternoon murder of a man on 100 Lane, off Red Hills Road, in St Andrew.

GRIEVING DAUGHTERS

At their home in Gregory Park, Portmore, St Catherine, Peart’s daughters had no more tears when the newspaper arrived after noon. Still grief-stricken, however, the two clung to each other and their Christian doctrines as they tried to accept their dad’s demise.

“Death is just a part of life. I am going to die, you are going to die. So it is just a part of life that we must accept. We can’t live without dying,” said Shema, her thirteen-year-old sister, Brianna*, also a Christian, nodding in agreement.

It wasn’t their first tragedy; having lost a younger brother years ago to illness, but now, without motive nor information on the killings, the two girls were alone and deeply fearful for their safety. Their dad was an astute Christian, a wonderful singer, and the leader of the youth choir at the Gregory Park Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“We were his little princesses; he always asked us if we didn’t have feet to walk where we were going because he took us everywhere. I was shocked this morning but I guess it has passed off,” continued Emma*, her younger sister peeking from behind. Their day was spent answering phone calls from worried relatives and their mother overseas, and church members who turned up to lend support.

On West Street in Kingston, where Tattiana Brown lived before moving to Swallowfield, things were not as calm. There, Tamara Brown, Tattiana’s relative, spent the morning nursing a headache from the gory scene she had witnessed the night before.

As she did, neighbours in the tenement yard listened to social media posts about the killings and speculated as to the motive of her death. Both women were reportedly on their way to get ready for a party when they were shot.

“She was a kind, jovial, and down-to-earth person. Her babyfather is not taking it too well. I don’t know where this is coming from, but it is hard,” said Tamara.

Green’s sister, ‘Poochie’, a resident of Law Street, said she and relatives visited a police station, collecting her sister’s personal items. Her cell phone was reportedly stolen from the crime scene. She too was in a quandary, questioning social media posts alleging that the women were connected to a missing gun in Swallowfield that led to their deaths.

“It is just pure moaning from this morning. Everybody is just sitting down crying. That is all we can do, and the blogger them are just saying a whole heap of things,” she said, describing her sister as an avid party girl and hustler. Both Green and Brown had been living at the Swallowfield premises for months.

As investigators were gathering clues to the triple murder, gunfire erupted on 100 Lane, sending residents scampering for cover. When it subsided, a man was found on his back, feet crisscrossed.

Police could not say his antecedents but onlookers claimed he was no saint. “These boys just giving themselves pure trouble. All they do is keep up their foolishness and mash up the place,” said one man, recalling the volley of gunshots that sent him scampering for cover.

In Pembroke Hall, residents were left in shock when a woman in her forties was ambushed at a shop inside her yard and shot by a lone gunman who escaped on foot. Investigators say they are following several leads, including domestic altercations between her and her husband that had reached their attention prior.

She was hit in the shoulder and was said to be in stable condition.

* Names have been changed to protect the identity of the persons interviewed.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com