Robbery went horribly wrong
(CNS): The crown’s key witness in the trial of Raziel Omar Jeffers, who is accused of murder in the shooting of Marcos Mauricio Duran on Thursday, 11 March 2010, gave evidence about what Jeffers, her lover at the time, had told her about the events during and after the death of Duran. Meagan Martinez told the court that when faced with three masked gunmen, the ‘numbers man’ had first tried to get back into the apartment he just left, but her Aunt Rickie, who lived there, wouldn’t let him in. So he turned and faced his attackers, but as he tried to wrestle with “Pinga” for one of the guns, it went off, shooting Pinga in the leg, Jeffers had told her. “Patchie”, another of the gunmen, had then shot the numbers man, she said.
But at the time Jeffers did not know what had happened. According to her evidence, he later told Martinez that he had been in her aunt’s apartment and was in the living room with her watching TV when Duran arrived on his rounds selling 'numers'.
Jeffers sent a messages to his “soldiers”, who were waiting under the stairs leading up to the second floor apartment, when Duran arrived and again when he left, so they knew when to rob him, Martinez said. When Jeffers left the apartment he saw the “poor numbers man” slumped over by the door, with blood from his head dripping down the staircase and he had to jump over it to get downstairs, the witness said. As he left he heard her aunt screaming.
Martinez was still at the hairdressers, where Jeffers had dropped her earlier that evening, and he called her there sounding panicky and told her to ask her cousin, the hairdresser, to drive her to where he was in Ebanks Road to pick him up, which they did. She said that later he told her that this made her an accessory so he now owned her, and if he went down, everyone went down, including her and her Aunt Rita.
Thursday night after the murder he tried to contact “the boys”, Martinez said, and told her it was urgent that he spoke to at least one of them to find out how everything got so messed up, how the plan had gone so horribly wrong. But he couldn’t get hold of them.
But the next day, she said, Jeffers learned what had happened and he told Martinez about it that Friday night. Jordan Manderson (Pinga), who had been shot, was taken by the others in what was supposed to be the getaway car driven by Craig Johnson to his father’s house. He and Johnson spent the day that Friday cleaning Pinga’s blood from the back seat of the car with H7 bleach, but they had washed the whole car so it didn’t look suspicious that only the inside was clean, Martinez said.
Jeffers told her to call her aunt and tell her that she had heard it was the “Logwood guys”, members of the rival West Bay gang, who were the robbers, Martinez told the court. But she hadn’t done so because her aunt was still really upset.
Martinez said she knew that by this he meant Robert Bush, Jose Sanchez, Andy Barnes and others. She said the boys that Jeffers had recruited to rob the numbers man – Jordan Manderson, Joshua Ebanks (Patchie), Austin Jackson, as well as the getaway driver, Craig Johnson – were part of the Birch Tree Hill gang.
She said she knew that the guns used in the shooting were Jeffers’ because he had told her that he had supplied the weapons. She had also seen him with one of them, “the .44” several times, including once at his mother’s house, and he had told her it was “his favourite toy”.
The court also heard from Aaron Hydes, who on the night of the shooting had gone to the house where his cousin, Pinga, lived. As he arrived he saw a white Honda Accord pull up outside the house. He recognized the car because it belonged to his sister and the driver, Craig Johnson, because he was the father of his sister’s children. Pinga was helped out by Johnson and another man, who then got back into the car and drove off. Pinga was clearly badly injured and Hydes said he could see the bone sticking out of his leg.
His father came out and Hydes said he overheard Pinga tell him that he had been shot by Andy Barnes. Pinga’s father called an ambulance but a lady pulled up in a car and took them both to the hospital, Hydes said.
Meagan Martinez will continue giving evidence in Grand Court Friday.
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Category: Crime
