Murder #63

Murder #63 As of Friday May 29th 2015,

MURDERS are up five per cent compared to the same time last year, an analysis into the country’s homicide figures for the first five months of 2015 has revealed.

#The Tribune’s analysis into last year’s police crime statistics found that at the end of May 2014, the country recorded 60 murders. This year’s count stands at 63, the most recent a fatal shooting in Yellow Elder Gardens on Friday night.

#According to police, the latest murder happened shortly after 9pm when the victim was walking in a park off Graham Drive, in Yellow Elder Gardens. A man armed with a handgun approached and shot him multiple times before fleeing. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not been released.

#He was one of five people murdered in separate incidents last week.

Murder #62

Murder stands at #62 As of May 28th 2015

A MAN died in hospital Thursday night shortly after he was shot in the Pinewood Gardens subdivision.

#According to reports, just after 6:00pm, the victim was repairing his vehicle in front of his home located at Chestnut Street, Pinewood Gardens, when a dark coloured truck pulled up. One of the truck’s occupants discharged several shots at the victim, hitting him multiple times about the body. The truck then sped off. The victim was rushed to hospital in critical condition, where he later succumbed to his injuries.

#Police confirmed that the victim was being electronically monitored and was released on bail late last year for an indictable offence.

#The Tribune understands he is Merit Forbes. According to well-placed sources, he was charged with murder in 2011.

#His death brought the country murder count to #62

Murder #61

Murder stands at 61 as of Tuesday May 27th 2015

LEVITA Thurston said she will never forget the blank look in her daughter’s eyes as she lay dead and cold in her arms after being shot in the head in front of their home.

#Georgette Rahming, 21, became the country’s 61st murder victim this year – and the third in three days in the capital – after she was shot late on Tuesday night off Baillou Hill Road.

#According to police, shortly after 11pm, Ms Rahming was standing on the porch of her home on Palmetto Avenue, when she became involved in an argument with a man who shot her in the face and fled the scene.

#However, Mrs Thurston told The Tribune that her daughter was sitting outside using her cell phone when “someone snuck into the yard and shot her”.

#Outside her home yesterday, the distraught mother said her daughter was threatened on Sunday but decided not to report the incident to police “out of fear for her life.” It is a decision Mrs Thurston said she would regret forever.

#“She died in my hands,” Mrs Thurston said, fighting back tears. “She came running to me in the house. She was sitting in a chair outside. They came in the yard when people were inside and she was sitting on her phone – she didn’t see it coming. I heard the shots, she ran inside and she dropped.

#“No one knows how it feels to have a child leave like that, to die in your arms. I lay on the side of my child like I was breast feeding her all over again and she was gushing blood out her mouth and her nose. She took her last breath and she was gone.

#“She look at me and screamed, I can still see her looking at me. She screamed ‘mommy’ over and over. I won’t hear it again, I will not hear her call me mommy again. All we have is just pictures. Just pictures. They don’t know when they kill people they leave the family distraught, it is us who hurt. They don’t know what they did to me.”

#Mrs Thurston admitted that her daughter had a troubled past, but said she recently “got her act together” and changed “her bad ways”. She said her daughter recently revealed she had been a victim of sexual abuse, something the family thinks led her down a bad path when she was younger.

#Mrs Thurston said despite it all, her daughter was a “happy person” who enjoyed living her life to the fullest. “We nicknamed her ‘Giggly’ because she was always a happy person. We found out that she was molested and that explained why she was getting into problems,” Mrs Thurston said.

#“Recently she said to me, ‘Mommy you know I love you so much, that is why I change, you don’t see I don’t get lock up no more mommy, because I love you, I love you so much.’ I will never forget that.

Murder #60

Murder stands at #60 as of Tuesday May 26th 2015,

A MAN was shot and killed early yesterday morning on his way to work during an armed robbery off Soldier Road.

#The murder occurred around 7am and took the country’s murder count to 60 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

#Officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit (CDU) Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle said the victim was picking up co-workers when he was approached by two men armed with handguns, who demanded cash.

#“Police were called to a scene off Emmanuel Way where we were told that gunshots were discharged. When we arrived on the scene we learned that a gentleman pulled up in his white truck with some workers to collect some other workers,” Chief Supt Rolle said.

#“A silver Honda pulled up behind them and two men exited with handguns and demanded cash and jewellery. The suspects relieved him of his cash and jewellery and shot him several times before leaving the area in the Honda. The victim died on the scene.”

#The victim has been identified by police as 41-year old Trevor Smith of Catnip Close, Fox Hill.

Murder #58 and #59

Murder now stand at #58

OLICE have officially classified the deaths of Shemicka McKinney and her two daughters Alisa and Gabrielle McKinney as murder-suicide, according to Chief Supt Paul Rolle, officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit.

#Chief Supt Rolle said the autopsy results, as well as evidence from the crime scene, indicates Ms McKinney, 36, committed suicide and in the process murdered her two young children.

#Three months ago, on Sunday, March 22, the bodies of Ms McKinney and her two daughters, three-year-old Alisa and six-year-old Gabrielle, were pulled from the sea, shortly after eyewitnesses said they saw a car – a dark blue Toyota Avalon – speeding off the ramp and into the water.

#One eyewitness said the woman had driven to the edge of the ramp, stopped and turned the car around. She later returned and the car went into the water.

#Police said Alisa and Gabrielle’s deaths have been added to the country’s murder count, taking the number to 59 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.

#After their shocking deaths, family members described Ms McKinney as a depressed college graduate who was argumentative and out of work.

#Her grandmother, Alice Pinder McKinney, told The Tribune she was “angry, sad and confused” by the deaths of the two children.

#In an emotional interview that was interrupted with bursts of crying, she described her granddaughter as an intelligent, beautiful girl who “had a lot of problems” and “lost her way” after graduating from college in the United States. She said “Mika”, as she was affectionately called, loved her children “with all her heart.”

#Another relative told The Tribune that after an argument she put Ms McKinney out of her small apartment days before her death.

#The family previously said they assumed the troubled mother went to another relative seeking a place to stay.

#Police have in the past urged people to be on the lookout for warning signs of suicide, such as talking about it or having feelings of helplessness or worthlessness.

Murder stand at #57

Murder now stands at #57 as of Monday May 25th 2015,

THE partially decomposed body of a woman in her early 20s was found in a lake off Coral Harbour yesterday afternoon.

#This latest death takes the country’s homicide count to 59, according to The Tribune’s records.

#According to officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit, Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle, the victim was discovered in a body of water through a dirt road, about a mile off the Airport Road, by a man hunting birds.

#Police said the woman was found around 10.30am, submerged in shallow waters.

#“We have officers investigating the death of a female found in one of the lakes here in the Coral Harbour bushes, the area where BEC does a lot of their transmission lines,” he told reporters at the scene. “A local hunter made the discovery when he went to check the pond looking for birds, that is when he came across the body.

#“It appears that the victim was in the water for at least a day or two. The fish in the pond started to pick away at her face. She only sustained injuries to the upper body, primarily her face where there is apparent blunt force injury. It appears she was beaten with a blunt object. She was found fully clothed, wearing a blue jeans skirt, slippers and a floral (printed) shirt,” he added.

#Police have not officially identified the victim, but Chief Supt Rolle said a 24-year-old woman was reported missing by her family on Thursday. Police suspect this woman is the victim found yesterday.

#Up to press time, police had no motive or suspects in custody.

Murder #56

Murder Now stands at #56

A MAN has been shot dead while walking along Bias Street, off Baillou Hill Road, late on Thursday night  May 2015 night, police have reported.

#The Tribune understands the victim is 21-year-old Marco Newbold, aka Mo, who was on bail for armed robbery and scheduled to face trial in July.

#Police are seeking the public’s assistance in solving the murder, the 56th this year in The Bahamas according to The Tribune's records. Shortly before 11pm, the man was reportedly walking on Bias Street when a man with a firearm approached him and shot him multiple times about the body before fleeing on foot.

#The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigations are continuing.