Murder at Lovers’ Lane
She may just be unlucky, but two men in Janet Vasquez’s life have ended up dead. Tonight police are trying to find out if there is any connection between the murders of her boyfriend Emil Franklin in January near English Caye and the killing of Raymond Williams on Thursday night. Franklin had been detained by police in connection with the disappearance of English Caye lighthouse keeper Charles Garbutt and his family. Days later Franklin and two companions were found floating in the water near their lobster boat. Each had been shot in the head. Janet Vasquez escaped the same fate by staying at the caye that day; last night she used her diving skills to hide from two men she says shot Williams in the chest. Coincidence or not, at the moment police are focusing their investigation on two young men from the affluent neighborhood near the municipal airstrip. Janelle Chanona reports on the shooting at “The Hangar”.
Janelle Chanona
“When residents heard gunshots just after ten last night, they didn’t think it was strange, apparently the sound of gunshots is common in this area, but when they heard a car speeding away, they knew something was different.”
What residents didn’t know was that Raymond Williams was dead in the passenger seat of his white convertible and that his female friend witnessed the murder and narrowly escaped death, she says, by jumping into the sea. Vasquez has told police that she and Williams had only been parked, with the top down, for a few minutes when a Ford pickup pulled up and two men got out and began firing shots at the car. Williams was shot once in the chest, while Vasquez, who was in the driver’s seat, was shot in her right hand. She claims that after the two assailants, who didn’t wear any masks, fired on the convertible, they moved off towards the truck. She says when she tried to start the car they came back towards her and she jumped out and dove into the water. While police will not comment on a possible motive for the alleged hit, Raymond Williams has served time in prison and had been released in March. His family says there have been several attempts on his life.
Q: “Eva since he went to jail, this was the fourth time he got shot?”
Evalee Williams
“The fourth time and this is the shot that send him.”
Q: “Why you think people study come after him?”
Evalee Williams
“Because they just no like him.”
Q: “He used to deal drugs?”
Evalee Williams
“Who my brother? That part will be left so. We will leave that part so. That was no, no drug play. That was just foul play.”
Although two suspects have been detained for questioning this is little comfort for the victim’s mother, Imojene Williams.
Imojene Williams
“All I want to make them do, stop with this thing that they do, just shoot up people children. I no think that fair.”
Janelle Chanona for News Five.
Police remain tightlipped about their investigation even though they called a press conference earlier today. In addition to eyewitness testimony, four expended nine-millimeter shells and one nine-millimeter slug have been recovered from the scene. Janet Vasquez is being questioned by police. Officer Cadet Leonard Linares is in charge of the investigation.
