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Shot deacon
And following the discovery of the bodies, 87-year-old deacon of the Buxton Seventh Day Adventist Church, James Lucas, was shot as he was preparing to open the church.
It is understood that the incident took place at around 7 am. As Lucas was about to open the front door he heard gunshots and turned around. Before he could see from where the shots were coming, the old man was hit and fell to the ground and was taken to the hospital by army ranks where he is in a stable condition.
Contrary to reports in Stabroek News yesterday the man is in no way related to Cubic Leroy Levi, whose home at the corner of Friend-ship Middle Walk and the Embankment Road was burnt by unknown persons on Friday. Levi, his mother-in-law Edris Chester and the remaining members of the family were forced out of the village last year after gunmen shot at them and torched two of the Chester's houses at Brusche Dam, Friendship.
Stabroek News understands that Lucas is related to the man who is accused of shooting Kwesi Williams dead in Buxton on Friday morning.
According to reports, on Friday, the man, who recently had to flee the village, shot Williams and escaped into a home at the corner of Ogle Street and Friendship Middle Walk.
The house was later burnt by residents but not before army ranks found arms, ammo, communication equipment and Molotov cocktails in the house. It is understood that Lucas was living in the house which was torched by residents on Friday.
The violence, which seems to be among persons operating from the `Gulf' in Buxton and displaced residents among others, heightened after the brutal slaying of Buxton Gas Station owner, Brian Hamilton last month.
Following Hamilton's murder, which was said to be committed by persons operating inside Buxton, bullet-riddled bodies of residents of Buxton and other areas were dumped in and around the city.
The battle escalated on Friday with the torching of two homes in Buxton and the shooting to death of Williams and continued on Saturday.
Discovery of bodies
Up to late yesterday afternoon, two of the bodies found on Saturday at around 9 am by army ranks at the back of the Eastville Housing Scheme in the adjoining village of Annandale had not been identified.
The badly mutilated bodies were retrieved by the army ranks who went into the canefields with the army helicopter. It is understood that one of the dead men had what appeared to be burns and severe chop wounds about his body.
The Brown's home
Friday evening the confusion continued, this time the gunmen turned on the relatives of Mash Day prison escapee, Shawn Brown, torching their Pike Street, Kitty home. Brown is said to be the mastermind and leader of one of the gangs. Up to press time yesterday his relatives, some 11 of them, including his mother and father were still destitute. One of Brown's sisters, Veronica asserted that "we have to be strong, we can't afford to let up because these men will totally destroy us."
The young woman recalled that around 10 pm on Friday night she was a few corners away from their two-storey wooden house when a carload of heavily armed men arrived at their gate.
The woman said four men emerged from the car one carrying a five- gallon drum with gasoline and the other three were armed with rifles and handguns.
She said the men moved into the yard, pushed the door opened and accosted her mother, Cheryl Brown. Veronica related that her mother was wearing a gold necklace at the time and one of the men demanded that she hand over same to him.
"When he collected the necklace, another one asked her wheh de jewellery deh, but when he said that, another one said, we ain't come for that, we come to burn de house."
Veronica told this newspaper that after that, the man carrying the gasoline proceeded to douse a large section of the house with gasoline and then lit it. At the time the men were about to set the house on fire, Veronica said her father Charles along with his two grandchildren were in the house.
"So mummy said y'all wait, the children in the house."
She said the men allowed her to remove the children from the house after which they scratched a match and the house was set alight.
Veronica recalled that the men made it clear to them that their intention was not to kill.
The young woman said they lost millions of dollars in the fire, adding that three TV sets, refrigerators and washing machines among other expensive electrical home appliances were destroyed. She added that, her parents also had money stashed in the house along with gold jewellery and these also went up in the flames. Her mother was the custodian of a penny bank and monies she kept for members of the penny bank were burnt up. Veronica said she had been receiving several death threats from unknown men and her mother too has complained about similar threats.
The Brown family had been living in the area for over 30 years. Veronica said apart from their house two other neighbours suffered from the fire which quickly spread scorching the other houses.
She commended the effort of the Guyana Fire Service, saying that they responded promptly, but could hardly do anything, because of the amount of gasoline the men used to burn the house.
Asked why they were being targeted, Veronica insisted that, "my brother, everybody know he problem with them, but we don't have no dealings with Shawn. We are not involved in anything".
Later, two taxis operated by the Comfort Zone Taxi Service were burnt by heavily armed men who were probably working in concert with the group that attacked the Browns' home.
Torching of cars
A reliable source told Stabroek News yesterday that the reason why the two cars, which were contracted to Comfort Zone Taxi Service, were torched Friday night and early Saturday morning is because the owners, two females, were somehow related to one of the February 23 escapees.
Since Saturday's incident the women have not been seen and according to an informed source they have both left the country.
Meanwhile, speaking to this newspaper on telephone yesterday, proprietress of Comfort Zone, Simone Carew said, "it is clear that we are not the targets, those men had every opportunity to shoot at us, but they did not do us anything."
Carew said it is also evident that robbery was not the motive and the drivers were not the targets.
Carew confirmed that it was not the first time one of the cars came under attack. She recalled earlier in the year one of the cars was hijacked and the driver was robbed of a substantial amount of cash.
On Friday at about 11:30 pm the first car HA 7955 was hijacked and later set alight. Carew told Stabroek News that shortly before this she had visited the Brown family at Pike Street, Kitty to sympathise with them on the torching of their house.
"So when I came home back someone called to tell us that one of our cars was hijacked and burnt."
The woman who would sometimes do the dispatcher job said she was not working at the time, but upon receiving the news she quickly alerted her husband, Dillon and they both set about investigating the matter.
Simone remembered that a few minutes before, the driver was sent to pick up someone at Craig Street, Campbellville. She said according to information when the driver arrived at the pick up point he blew the car's horn, indicating to the customer that he had arrived. Stabroek News understands that the customer acknowledged the taxi's presence, but before anyone came out of the house the hijackers pulled up. The driver was ordered out of the car, but not before he was gun-butted about his body.
Three of the hijackers jumped into the car while the driver of their vehicle remained in his and followed them to the place where they later set the car ablaze. The driver made a report to the Alberttown Police Station
However, while still trying to come to grips with the first incident just over an hour later, Simone said she was sitting in the dispatcher's booth when all of a sudden she saw a white car pull up in front of them.
"I was afraid so I went upstairs, leaving my husband and another driver in the booth."
She said about two minutes after she went upstairs she heard gunshots ring out in front of her business and when she looked outside she saw a dark-coloured car in the area. Stabroek News understands that both Dillon and the dispatcher took cover in the booth, but while they were hiding the four heavily-armed gunmen, who were also wearing bulletproof vests with police markings on the front emerged from the cars and set alight car number two PHH 5159. Carew said they had all heard an explosion and upon checking they saw the car in flames and two men entering one of the cars and speeding away. Stabroek News was told that the men was using a dark grey Corolla AE192.
Carew told this newspaper that, she would now have to review the way in which her taxi service operates, adding that she does not know much about her drivers' personal lives. According to the woman, the owners of the cars were the ones who hired the drivers. She said once someone with a car goes to her business for a job she scarcely turns that person down, once that person can produce all the necessary documents to verify ownership of the car among other things. She said with the recent attacks her taxi service has suffered, she would definitely have to do more screening of drivers and contractors.
On Friday last, shooting had erupted in Buxton which saw Williams being shot dead, while Samantha Pollard, 23, of Buxton Public Road and Compton Dorsette also of the Friendship/Buxton area were injured.
Two homes were also torched, the one where Lucas was said to be living and where the illegal items were found and Levi's.
Levi fled the village last October and had left a man to live in the home. The man was on his farm at the time of the torching.
A police vehicle was also shot at on the same morning as it was passing through the village. The police ranks were forced to return fire.
Following the death of Hamilton, the bullet-riddled body of a man clad in a jersey marked `AK-47 Bad boy' was discovered on the morning of March 23 and is still not identified.
Then on March 27 the body of Mark McKenzie of Friendship was fished out of a Bel Air trench by police. On that fateful night residents of Bel Air had stated they heard rapid gunfire and saw two cars speeding away. They had also noticed McKenzie, bound and gagged, jumping into the trench. He was shot several times.
Shortly after this incident, on March 30, the bullet-riddled bodies of two men were discovered, one behind the Botanical Gardens and the other in the Eastville Housing Scheme at Annandale. They were later identified as Winston Burrowes of West Ruimveldt and Shelton Bacchus of Buxton Sideline Dam.