Execution at Buxton playground
Kaieteur News
August 3, 2004
Eyewitnesses to the brutal gunning down of taxi driver, William Adams, at the Buxton/Friendship playground on Monday night, yesterday recounted how one of the assailants stood over the wounded man with a shotgun, while urging his accomplices to finish him off.
The eyewitnesses said that Adams was slain shortly after he was warned that a gunman called 'Bullet' and his associates were looking for him.
Adams, 31, of Lot 7, Princes Street, Wortmanville, was shot dead at around 20:50 hrs by three shotgun-toting men who sneaked up behind him while he was speaking with a group of friends.
One of the shotgun blasts hit him in the back and the other in the neck. Police said that two 12-gauge shells were found at the scene.
Relatives confirmed yesterday that the taxi driver had narrowly escaped execution seven months ago, when gunmen ran amok and killed Buxton residents, Trevor Jarvis, Michael Dublin and Mark Kato.
Dublin was Adam's father-in-law, while Kato was his driver and best friend.
The gunmen, who had accused Adams and his associates of being police informants, had also riddled Adams's car with bullets. Adams had lived in Buxton at the time, but was forced to move out of fear for his safety.
Monday night's execution occurred during Emancipation Day activities organised by overseas-based Buxtonians, who are attempting to return the once-proud community to its former glory.
According to an eyewitness, Adams was with a group of friends at the football ground. "He was told that a guy named 'Bullet' was looking for him and another friend say: 'Don't worry with dem boys, they can't do you nothing. They li'l and stupid,' " a source told Kaieteur News.
But minutes later, while Adams was speaking with his friends near a tent on the outskirts of the playfield, persons close to them heard a gunshot.
"I heard a shot and I saw him holding onto the tent pole and going down slow," one of the eyewitnesses said. "Then I saw a tall man with a 'pump-rifle' standing over Adams and saying, 'kill the man, kill the man, don't waste time.'"
"Then I heard a second shot and I ran." Adams was killed instantly. But his body remained on the playground for several hours until heavily armed police ranks arrived. A hearse eventually removed the body at around midnight.
Friends said that the dead man was stripped of a large quantity of jewellery that he was wearing at the time. His cellular phone was also stolen.
However, police recovered US $50 and $1,500 in local currency from the dead man's back pocket.
Yesterday, fear, grief and outrage were evident on the faces of Adams's relatives and close friends who gathered at his Princes Street home, yesterday. His mother, Jean Adams, sat slumped in a chair, groaning and calling her son's name. Mrs. Adams recalled that her son had escaped being executed on November 17, when gunmen killed his father-in-law, 56-year-old, Michael Dublin; his best friend, Mark Kato, 33, and Trevor Jarvis, 40, who was the brother of a policewoman.
Dublin was gunned down outside his business place on Church of God Road, reportedly by a wanted fugitive, who subsequently ran away.
The gunmen then went to the home of Mark Cato, about 400 metres away, kicked open the door to his house, and shot him in the presence of his reputed wife and three-year-old
son.Jarvis was shot in the kitchen of his home some several minutes later.
During the two-hour attack, the gunmen also torched a house and riddled Adams's car.
"They shoot up his car and they try to shoot him but he escape," she said.
Mrs. Adams confirmed that the gunmen had targeted her son and his father-in-law because they thought that he was providing police with information about their activities. She recalled that prior to the attempt on his life in November, some of the gunmen had cornered her son and levelled such an accusation against him.
"He gave them his cellular phone to check if it had any police (phone) numbers in it.
"They checked the phone and it did not have any police numbers, but they still continued to threaten him."
Adams is survived by an 11-year-old son.