Family members have positively identified the bodies of wanted men Rondell `Fineman’ Rawlins and Jermaine `Skinny’ Charles and post-mortem examinations are to be performed on Monday.
Charles and Rawlins were shot dead on Thursday by joint services ranks after they were cornered in an unfinished building in Kuru Kururu on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway after being pursued from Timehri. Another man Seon Grant was also killed in the confrontation. The joint services success in cornering Rawlins came after five long years of searching. During the period on the run he is alleged to have committed horrific slaughters including this year’s three massacres that claimed 31 lives.
Though under the spotlight, too, for multiple murders, Skinny attracted more attention after he escaped from lawful custody on June 25, following a court appearance at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court.
The mothers of both men have spoken on their deaths and even as both have come to accept it, they are hopeful that this indeed settles the crime situation in the country.
Rawlins’ mother, Margaret Rawlins, also lost her daughter, Marcyn King, in February this year at the hands of unknown gunmen. Rawlins said she learnt of the death of her son from a radio newscast yesterday. The woman said she recognized her son’s body right away and knew for sure that it was definitely him. She identified the body at the Georgetown Hospital Mortuary. She is hopeful that his death will bring an end to the crime situation in the country as she recounted that he had been blamed for every crime in the country.
The mother of Charles who prefers that her name not be mentioned told Stabroek News yesterday that from the time her son escaped from the Sparendaam lock-ups she prepared her mind to accept his death.
The woman told this newspaper that her sister identified her son’s body yesterday and there was no doubt that it was him. She said she was preparing for work on Thursday when she received a call relating that Seon Grant, who she had known from the East Bank area, had been killed. However a telephone call from a friend who kept questioning her about what she was doing seemed suspicious. “She ask me how I deh and I seh man I preparing for work and she say man Jermaine get kill and they didn’t want give me the message but I tell them I know they would have killed him and I accept his death,” the woman said.
The woman told this newspaper calmly that she had come to accept that her son would have never been brought in alive, and insisted that there was so much that he hid from her,
“I accept his death because I make my child but I didn’t make his mind. If I could have done more to change his attitude I would have. People know I tried to stop this from happening, but he meant that he wanted to go his own way,” she said.
The single-parent mother of four said her eldest child would have turned 23 next Thursday and never wanted to see her cry. When she visited him at the prison and tears came to her eyes he would try to end the visit immediately.
The woman said Charles never confided in her and added that strangers would come and say things to her that she never knew about her son.
“I know that people will talk and I cannot stop that but God knows that I tried my best and I never encouraged him with nonsense and nothing in my house was given to me by him, because I work hard for what I want,” she insisted.
The woman said she has not shed a single tear since learning of her son’s death and this was also the general mood of all of her relatives. However she said she could not bear to see his body and for this reason she sent her sister to identify the remains.
She had spoken with this newspaper several days after her son escaped from the lock-ups at Sparendaam and had denied that her son had ever made contact with her. She also denied police allegations that she and another of her children were involved in soliciting a firearm to aid the man’s escape.
The woman had told Stabroek News that from an early age Charles chose to follow a certain pattern of life and had left her home and lived with several friends before she started hearing of his involvement in high- profile criminal activities.
Charles has been charged along with Dwight Da Silva, Quincy Evans, Terrence John, Delwayne Carrington and a boy for a number of other murders.
He was charged along with Da Silva for the murder of Barbot Paul, the Kaneville, East Bank Demerara businessman who died outside his home on August 6. Charles was also accused of killing Devon Charles of Agricola on June 23, Guilford Henry on June 26, 2005 and 12-year-old Kevin Browne on March 18, 2006. He shared the murder charge for Browne with Dego France. Charles was also charged with Da Silva and Evans for being part of a group of men who allegedly murdered five Kaieteur News pressmen – Chetram Persaud, Eion Wegman, Richard Stewart, Mark Maikoo and Shazeem Mohamed in August 2006.
It is also alleged that they killed Wordsworth Grey on August 8. The 15-year-old boy, who was 13 years then, was also charged for that murder. Charles was then charged for the murders of Minister Satyadeow Sawh, Rajpat Sawh, Phulmattie Persaud and Curtis Robinson on April 22 at La Bonne Intention East Coast Demerara.
Rawlins was also linked to several raids on East Coast villages. But it was in February 2006 that Rawlins gained further notoriety. Police had said that he was part of the 15-member gang that brought terror to Agricola on February 26, 2006 killing eight people and attempting to blow up a gas station.
Reports at the time indicated that over a dozen gunmen under his command, reportedly dropped off in cars, blocked off a section of the road at Mc Doom and at Eccles and carried out a one-hour assault on residents of Agricola and Eccles.
Some of the men walked to Two Brothers Gas station where they launched an attack aimed at burning it down. They then unleashed a volley of shots at three MMC security guards whose vehicle was having air put into its tyres at the time. The three men, Sheldon Smartt, Cedric Dummett and Loris Semple died on the spot.
Rawlins was said to have unleashed the massacres this year after a female friend, Tenisha Morgan went missing.
