(Jamaica Gleaner) Maya Robinson was forced on Sunday to send away her traumatised seven-year-old son from their Margaret Street home in east Kingston after he walked in to find his grandfather, 64-year-old Keith Robinson, dead in bed.
The retiree was reportedly sleeping inside his room when gunmen aimed their firearms through a window, opening fire on him. It happened around 4 a.m., according to the police.
When the police arrived, the elder Robinson was found in his underpants with multiple gunshot wounds to the face and other parts of his body. He was pronounced dead at the Kingston Public Hospital.
Robinson’s spouse, Melita Witter, and daughter Maya are now homeless after the house was firebombed by criminals who later returned.
ONGOING WAR
Maya said that she was asleep when she heard explosions, but thought the sounds were from an ongoing street war between Margaret and Wellington streets.
“It never sound loud enough for me to say it was inna di house. When we wake up, me and mi mother a try fix something, suh she sent my son to mi father to borrow him hacksaw blade.
“When mi son go in deh, him buck up pon him inna di blood-up bed.”
In shock, the boy ran to his mother, explaining that he believed his grandad had been stabbed multiple times until he died.
“Mi ask him where it happen, if a pon di main road or what, and him seh a inna him bed. Me run go up a fi him room and buck up inna mi nephew and ask him if a kill him kill himself and same time him seh, ‘Jesus Christ, a di shot dem weh fire earlier’.”
Witter struggled on Monday afternoon to express her grief. She shared that the tragedy has brought her nothing but stress.
“Mi just a gwaan hold the faith. Mi pressure high, high.”
Counsellors from the chaplaincy unit assigned to the Kingston Eastern Police Division, have been offering emotional and other kinds of support to the family.