The 26-year-old draycart driver, better known as ‘Radio’, lived in Curtis Street, Albouystown with his relatives, who said they had no idea how he ended up in the house at Lot 18 George Street, Werk-en-Rust.
Reports are that some time around 4 pm yesterday, the man was found on the floor with a gunshot wound to his head and a pillow nearby. It is believed that the pillow was used as a silencer, since residents in the area did not hear a gunshot.
The dead man’s girlfriend, Wanday Lawrence, who lives not far away in Leopold Street, said she was out when she received the news that her partner had been murdered. Lawrence, who has one child with Beete and is expecting a second, said she last had contact with him yesterday around 10 am. According to her, when he left her he said he was going to visit friends.
Lawrence said that up to Friday night she was encouraging him to take their two-year-old son to live with him. She said that he told her no because “he got nuff enemy that want kill he,” the distraught woman told this newspaper. Lawrence did not elaborate on this statement.
Police sources told this newspaper yesterday that the deceased was the brother of wanted man ‘Cobra’ and they are investigating the angle that Beete’s death may have been a case of mistaken identity.
However, the dead man’s mother Donna Beete said that Jamal did not resemble his brother who is known by the alias ‘Cobra’. “He don’t look like he [Cobra]. ‘Radio’ does drive horse cart, everybody know ‘Radio’,” the woman said.
The stepfather of the deceased, who did not disclose his name, said that it may have been the case where someone was trying to exact revenge on ‘Cobra’ by killing someone close to him.
According to police sources, ‘Cobra’ is believed to be the head of a gang committing gun crimes in the country. Two men, Colin Jack and Fabian Levius, had revealed that the police assaulted them recently at the Aziza Akouza Resort on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway, after one of them was mistaken for ‘Cobra’. The men also detailed how they were wrongfully taken into police custody. The police subsequently apologized to the men for the incident.
Meanwhile, residents in the neighbourhood told this newspaper that as far as they knew the house where the dead man was found was unoccupied. However, the house appeared to be at least partially furnished. One resident said that at one time a church used to hold services at the house but that this was no longer the case. The house has huge ‘For Sale’ signs spray-painted on it, along with a cell phone contact number. Calls by this newspaper to the contact number went unanswered.
