– mother of Cummings Lodge murder victim says
Justice may never come for Kamla Singh, whose daughter and grandson were among those killed at Cummings Lodge last month but she believes the police need to put some real effort into finding the gunmen.
“Just saying that they [her daughter and grandson] were in the wrong place at the wrong time is not good enough for me… I have no justice to get,” a grief-stricken Singh told Stabroek News recently.
The woman amidst tears said that Fiona Singh – her eldest daughter – and Neil Jupiter, her only grandchild, were everything in her life and to have them snatched from her in such a brutal manner was painful.
One month has passed since the two along with the child’s father Steve Jupiter called ‘Steve man’; Christopher Gordon and Sherwin Jerome called ‘Dice head’ were riddled with bullets and according to Singh she is yet to hear from the police.
She said that had the killings occurred in a foreign country, the police would have been so thorough in their investigations that they would have known what had led to them by now.
“In this country though, money run things. She was killed and that’s it!” she said before asking why the gunmen did not spare Fiona and the child. “Why man? Why, they couldn’t throw them out of the vehicle or something? If they wanted the three of them I would have been contented if they [Fiona and the child] were spared,” she added.
When asked what she wanted from the Guyana Police Force, Singh replied while fighting back tears, “I want them to work harder. He was just three years seven months and she was just 23…”
Recalling the events of that tragic day, she said that Fiona left their Albouystown home around 6 pm and later when contacted said that she was at a friend’s home but did not disclose where.
Singh said that her daughter probably did not want her to know that she was at her cousin’s home in Cummings Lodge, since they were to visit her together. Fiona had also been there the day before.
Some time later, she recalled, her husband received a call from Fiona saying that “her baby daddy get shoot up and dead. How Bigga [Gordon] get shoot and Neil get shoot in he foot.”
The woman said when she got the message she immediately went into a state of shock and became delirious.
She managed, however, to summon the strength to call Fiona’s cell phone. The cousin she was visiting, Singh recalled, answered the phone and informed her that she was taking her out of the car before heading to the hospital.
Singh only knew that her daughter was wounded when she turned up at the Georgetown Hospital. “She never even seh that she get one bullet,” she added.
She said at the hospital she was barred from seeing her child even though Fiona was calling for her. She said that the doctors had explained to her that she could not see her since she had to be taken for emergency surgery.
She said that at the time she did not know that her grandson was dead. Even-tually, she recalled, her cousin and husband got a chance to speak with the doctor who informed them that Fiona’s blood count was dropping and that she was in urgent need of blood.
Singh said she did not imagine that the injuries were life threatening.
Early the following morning she was informed of her daughter’s death. The post-mortem examination she said revealed that Neil died as a result of a severed blood vessel and Fiona sustained five bullet wounds.
Singh told Stabroek News that at no point did Fiona express fears for her safety. She added that she was always happy and full of life.
Drug killings?
Several sources have told Stabroek News that the Cummings Lodge executions fit the profile of a drug-related killing. Both Greene and Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had told Stabroek News that the incident may be drug related but so far they have not provided any concrete evidence of this.
Greene had told reporters that seven kilogrammes of cocaine that went missing may have led to the ambush. He had said that one of the slain men reportedly collected nine kilogrammes of cocaine sourced from Venezuela and was to hand it over to a “certain group.” However, only two kilogrammes were delivered and the man claimed that the rest had been seized by the police.
Greene had also said that the three men were known to be involved in criminal activities. Speaking about Jupiter, he had said that “We [the police] have heard his name in all sorts of criminal activities that would include persons who were paid to write other people off; transporting of drugs; protecting and strong arming for drug dealers and some other matters which you get once you do good intelligence.”
Gordon, he noted, was deported from the US in 2003 for narcotics while little was known of Jerome.
When contacted recently, a woman who identified herself at Jupiter’s big sister said the family will accept all that is being said by the police. She said that no matter what they said there would be some who would believe and others who wouldn’t. She said even if her family gave its side, she believes that the police will come up with something else to paint a bad picture of him.
The woman said that the best thing is for the family to remain silent as some day the police would put someone else in the spotlight.
She added that since the incident, her mother has become very ill. “We are his family and we know him,” she said.
This newspaper was unable to contact the relatives of the other two men.
Foreign hitmen?
Following the incident, there were suggestions that the hitmen were foreigners, especially since the killings were being linked to missing drugs out of Venezuela.
The Crime Chief when contacted said the force has no information that the perpetrators were foreigners or that foreigners are somehow involved.
He said there is information that the police are still working on but so far no suspects have been held.
The police had expressed interest in an ex-policeman and after his photograph appeared in a newspaper he turned up in the company of his lawyer. After spending a night in custody he was released. The policeman had been charged with a North West District double murder which police said was drug related. The charges against him were later discharged.
No one else has been linked to the killings.
Around 19:35 hrs on September 5, police received a report of a shooting at Second Field South East Cummings Lodge and on investigating found motor car PLL 2297 with several bullet holes and the bodies of Jupiter, Fiona Singh and their son, Gordon and Jerome, inside.
Initial reports were that Jupiter, who resided at Industry, East Coast Demerara went to pick up Singh and the toddler from a relative’s home in the area and as they were driving out persons opened fire on them.
An eyewitness had told Stabroek News that two cars had been parked on the roadway for several minutes.
Greene had told reporters, “We could only surmise that the child and the mother may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. These guys were following this vehicle with the intention of committing this ungodly act and they were seizing the opportunity to do it at a point that was convenient. No one was around, the streets were fairly dark and they choose to do it at that spot where they felt that they could have been successful.”
He said too that the bullets recovered did not match any firearms used at any other crime scene, which meant, “these are new firearms on the scene.”
Police recovered 22 empty casings, of 7.62 x 39 ammo , six 9 mm empty casings, five 9 mm warheads and one 7.62 x 39 warhead. The 9 mm shells, suggested that a 9 mm weapon was used, while the 7.62 x 39 suggested an AK-47 or M70 firearm.
