Sittee River family says murder was preventable
Three men from Sittee River have been arrested for the murder of Efraim Rowley who was gunned down in a poolroom Friday night, but the Kelly family is still uneasy and believes the whole incident could have been avoided if police had been more responsive. Today News Five spoke with the father of a woman also injured in the incident who told us of the events preceding the shooting, the horror that night and how a number of people in the village knew what was about to take place. While it is rumored that the man arrested for the murder Kenrick MacPherson may have shot Rowley because of an alleged affair between Rowley and MacPherson’s wife Ava, in a telephone interview with News Five, Ava’s father sixty-four year old Issac Kelly, who owns the Prospect Poolroom, said he does not know if his daughter was shot because of any relationship she may have had with the deceased. He did say that Ava and her husband have been separated for about a month and that his daughter told him she was being abused by her husband and a protection order had been handed down.
Issac Kelly
“This harassment started long, long, long time but it got more intense this week cause the court had rule certain things, so he got even more violent cause the police were not very aggressive, if you understand what I mean.”
Q: “So a protection order was given against Kenrick?”
Issac Kelly
“Yes, by the courts but when Ava made a report to the police station she was always ignored. As a matter of fact I think it was about a month ago prior to this incident, Ava finally left home, left the house where Kenrick was because she couldn’t cope with the situation there. She said there was a lot of drug things happening and the type of sex that Kenrick wanted to have with her… She couldn’t cope with it and she left. She decided I can’t go with this thing anymore, enough is enough, several, several.”
Kelly believes the protection order may have angered MacPherson to the point that he chose to ignore it and continued harassing his wife. MacPherson was once again taken back to court on Monday, December fourteenth for disobeying the order and it was there, while in police custody, Kelly said that MacPherson escaped. Four days later, on the day of the shooting, MacPherson who was on the run, is reported to have called his father Duncan and asked to meet him at a specific location. But villagers are saying the call was intended to lure MacPherson away from the house while his son went inside and stole his gun and some cartridges. Kelly said later that night, around seven forty-five, he was told MacPherson had stolen the gun and intended to shoot somebody. Kelly said after reporting to the police what he had heard, he quickly went home and warned his family to be careful. According to her father, Ava then went to the poolroom to warn Rowley and other family members who were working there, but while she was inside, shots were fired and Rowley went down and Ava was injured. Although Ava’s father did not see the actual shooting he told News Five that he and his wife were sitting outside and a man they know as Everet Foster was acting suspiciously.
Issac Kelly
“We saw Everet Foster talking to David Foster that is outside the building, outside the pool building. Everet Foster had a billiards cube in his hand and the guys from inside, they call for him to come in, cause he was keeping back the game cause it was his turn to play. So when David gone in, Everet Foster went across the road and when he went across the road and when he cross the road, he whistled, whistled like a code or something.”
Q: “Like he was giving somebody a signal?”
Issac Kelly
“Yes. Then there was a responsive whistling from I would say seventy-five yards or so away, somebody else responded. Just about then we smell something burning like electricity or like some electrical wire burning, so we got up from where we were under the tree to investigate this smell. And we check the house, check behind the yard and found out that it was a garbage pile that was lit earlier the day that we were smelling.
On the way back to where we were sitting my wife turned to go use the bathroom in the house and I was proceeding to the street, then this explosion came. The explosion came from towards the billiards room, people started running out including Ava my daughter towards the building exactly where I was standing, and she came in that direction shouting, “I get shot, I get shot”. Then there was a second explosion, a gun sound and then everybody run inside and take cover.
Then I tried to call the police by phone, you know but I couldn’t get anywhere, so I decided then to get in my Trooper and go down into the village to get the village police. So I drive out of the yard then onto the main road, there was another shot, an explosion that one caught my vehicle just on the driver’s door besides me. Well, I didn’t know it had caught my vehicle then but I felt an impact, I felt the vehicle kind of wobble and I continued drive down into the village and when I got to the police station, people were already down there before. I was then in the light and I found out that the shot had caught my vehicle on the left driver’s door side just before the wind up glass.”
Kelly says because it now appears as if a lot of people knew that something would go down that night, he strongly believes the entire incident could have been avoided. Kelly adds if the family had known that their lives were being threatened, he would not have opened his business that night. According to police it was MacPherson’s father who turned his son in. Police tell News Five Kenrick MacPherson will be charged for the murder of Efraim Rowley and the attempted murder of Ava MacPherson. The police have also arrested John Brown and Everet Foster, whom they say were involved in the shooting.
