Shortly after Jermaine Jerrick, 35, was identified as the bandit who was accidentally shot and killed by his accomplice during a robbery on Thursday evening, his wife, who is suspected to have aided in the gunman’s getaway, was arrested and she remains in police custody.
Jerrick, police say, was one of the two men, armed with a handgun and a knife, who held up Arif’s Service Station at Onder-neeming, West Coast Berbice, and robbed three pump attendants of $80,000.
A police statement issued yesterday said that during the attack, which occurred around 7.30pm on Thursday, the man with the gun discharged a round to scare the victims but instead struck his accomplice to his head. The shooter then stole a car from a customer and escaped.
Jerrick was subsequently pronounced dead on arrival at the Fort Wellington Hospital.
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum yesterday told Stabroek News that investigators are currently pursuing the suspect, who remains on the run. Blanhum also said that Jerrick’s wife remains in custody. He said information had surfaced that she allegedly facilitated the escape of the shooter after the attack.
The car in which the man escaped was recovered a few villages away from the crime scene around 10am yesterday. It has since been dusted for fingerprints by ranks of the Guyana Police Force’s Crime Scene Unit, in hopes of identifying the shooter.
Meanwhile, Jerrick’s mother, Patsy Campbell, when contacted by Stabroek News, said she received the news of her son’s death around 10.55pm on Thursday, after which she along with other relatives immediately left for Fort Wellington with the expectation of viewing his body. However, by the time they arrived at the hospital his body had already been taken to the mortuary.
According to Campbell, her son moved from her Bee Hive, East Coast Demerara home some three years ago to live with his wife at Number 30 Village, West Coast Berbice. She said he was the father of two young children and worked as a pork knocker.
Campbell also described Jerrick as a “ladies boy,” while noting that she did not believe that he was a party to the robbery. “He is a ladies boy, that’s what I know for sure about him. But when it comes to him being in a robbery, is like I can’t say anything but if I see who friends he was with at the time I would be able to say exactly,” she said.
She added that based on information she gathered, Jerrick was at the gas station at the time when two persons in a car drove up and started to fire shots and he was fatally wounded. “Is only [this] morning I open the paper to read and I see a different version of what transpired,” she said.
Questioned about Jerrick having any previous brushes with the law, Campbell said he did. “I did hear he went in some arm robbery and he did wound some police officer and went to jail but I ain’t know much to be honest,” she said, while noting that at the time she was in the interior.
Stabroek News was told that Jerrick was wanted by the police after he had allegedly escaped from custody while he was being held for inflicting bodily harm on a police officer and armed robbery.
Jerrick had been one of four men charged in 2010 over a series of robberies that were carried out on mining camps in the Aranka, Cuyuni area.
