Hours following the brutal murder of preschool teacher, mother and sister Mickiesha Gumbs, her brother Japheth Gumbs came with inches of losing his life.
On Sunday Gumbs, a practicing Rastafarian, told reporters, “After the whole scene go down… people was right up here until like say 9/10 O’ clock. After all that was said and done I was cooking at the same time me and my sister them was in the porch just talking about what transpired during the evening.
“One of my pardna telling me now, ‘Rasta yo pot ah bun.’ So I was there and my bedroom is round there so I when I go round to check my pot now I realize my curtain deh different. From the time I pulled the curtain so, a man just grab me by me head and just pull me ah me room. He strike the gun here so, a shotgun 12 gauge, right here so and then them hold up me head up so – them have me on the ground.
“My light was on so I get to see one person. The gunman is the only mask man, it was two persons, the other person just had on a woman t-shirt and a short skirt – a woman – and the head just deh-deh exposed. I recognized that one.
“So after now, I start to bawl out now because after they continue to hold my hair and start to beat me in my head a soldier now run come roun’ who was there in the porch at the same time when we was talking. The same soldier who tell me my pot go bun up. He run come and after like the gunman hear like somebody running coming then, he dis step back out the room and dis bark ah shot over the boy head, the same boy who coming an’ assist me; he leave and he run and the gunman dis come back in and like gimme like five more. Same time the gun man come out and buss the shot the other one deh in deh just holding me and beating me all the time.”
Asked about any possible motives that could have triggered this beating, Mickiesha’s brother replied, “I could see that cause from the whole thing. That had to be a relation to the same person who do the killing. What I see or who I see, yes it’s a family matter.”
The dreadlocked man, said to be in his mid 30’s, admitted to reporting the incident to the police who, according to him went to his house and conducted a search of the immediate vicinity. The search was futile as “nothing” turned up. He claims to have lodged a formal complaint with the police but remains fearful for his life. “They told me to come to the station this morning, I done go already. Yes, I fear for my life because come like I live outside and like ah me alone deh outside so them could do me anything anytime.”
Gumbs further admitted to being a one-time intercessor between his sister and her increasingly physically abusive boyfriend Vandyke ‘Dez’ King. “I confront him several times and I part him and tell him if he ever, ever, ever do my sister anything in this yard it would be something else between me and him.”
Gumbs was further asked to clarify, “you said you part them fighting before?”
“Yes,” he responded, “I do that already. I took her away from him already.”
King is alleged to have murdered the 26 years old woman in a fit of jealous rage. As for what he would like to see happening to the alleged woman killer, Japhet said, “we just want we justice. We just want a fair go down, I mean we done lose something so we just want we justice the best we could. It just can’t go so. It’s too hard. Too hot. That’s my baby sister.”
As to Gumbs’ preference for any eventual choice between a sentence condemning King to hang versus a custodial sentence, “I think he should go jail for a time. I mean if a man has to kill every day and go jail and come out back after 25 years, put it so, them go always kill. But if man start to hang man now, man ah go think different now. Cause thing ah go cut down, the percentage ahgo go right down back now once you start to hang. It must go down back, have to go down back. Them nah wah hang, man does kill and go ah jail for 25 years – that a lifetime but yo still ah go come out back and do the same thing again.
This death by stabbing brings the total malicious homicides committed here for 2020 up to 4 thus far.
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