Kidnapped couple murdered in front of police
Police usually show up just after a crime has been committed but on Sunday evening two constables actually witnessed a double murder. Around five thirty that day, cops were called out to an area near the Haulover Creek Bridge and on a lonely feeder road, authorities found the decaying body of a murdered man. Six hours later, two officers were left at the scene to preserve its integrity. But out of the darkness a maroon van drove onto the same road, a man and woman were pulled outside and before the police realized what was happening, the couple was shot at point blank range. Officers rushed to help but without a vehicle, all they could do was radio for assistance. Both victims would later be pronounced dead on arrival.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Police have identified the bodies as thirty-two year old Dorian Michael and twenty-four year old Keiva Leslie. Leslie and Michael were both shot in the back of their heads after being kidnapped and taken in Michael’s maroon van to this feeder road off the Northern Highway just north of the Haulover Bridge.
Supt. Chester Williams, Head, Crimes Investigation Branch
“These persons in the van did not go all the way to the location where the police officers were and the incident occurred so quickly that by the time the police were able to respond the van had already sped off and the persons were already shot. So basically it was not that the police did not want to do anything or stood watch while the incident occurred. They saw the van coming into the road and they stop about a good distance from them where the persons came out of the van, they shot the people and they drove off. So there was no time for the police to have done anything.”
Police suspect Michael and Leslie were both in the van when they were hijacked. Head of Crimes Investigation Branch Superintendent Chester Williams believes the vehicle was used in a hold up at the Esso gas station on Freetown Road where a tank of gas and three hundred and fifty dollars were stolen.
Supt. Chester Williams
“We have just a while ago recovered the van and the scenes of crimes personal are going through it as we speak to see if we get fingerprint or other thing that may lead us to who the person or persons are who are responsible for this particular action.
Keiva Leslie is the common law wife of Tourism Police Ryan Timmons and the mother of two young children. Today her mother Sharn Lemoth says she is at a loss as to what could have happened to her daughter.
Sharn Lemoth, Mother of murder victim
“We no know nothing. All I know this morning her common-law husband Ryan Timmons and the police come dah my house and tell me how she dead. I noh know. All I know she work dah ready Call and she gone dah work and I noh know weh happen between nine o’clock after Ready Call over and the time when police find her. And all I wah mek everybody know, my daughter dah noh wah bad person, my daughter have pride. And I noh want them feel like my daughter mi gone through no alley fi gone hook up with nobody. Inna my mind I fell like my daughter somebody kidnap her and hurt her.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“She left home on her bicycle?”
Sharn Lemoth
“She noh live here with me. she have her own home where she live with her husband and her two kids but she usually ride her bicycle fi go dah work dah Ready Call. Well my daughter usually ride Freetown Road, then go over BelChina, then I noh know where she go after that but she tell me she that dah weh she ride fi go home every day. I noh know the young man. I noh know him none at all, first time I hear his name. I noh know weh connection he have with my daughter, I noh know.”
Supt. Chester Williams
“At this time we have no specific information as to where these people were held up and the van was taken control of. We have no information of that.”
The abandoned vehicle was later recovered near Partridge Street. Up to news time tonight, no arrests had been made in connection to the double murder.
