No useful ballistic info likely – source
One week after an unidentified gunman killed Marcyn King, the sister of the country’s most wanted man, police are yet to conduct any ballistic test on two warheads recovered from her body.
And a senior source at the police forensic unit said that there is a slim chance of the warheads recovered matching any in the unit’s collection.
King, 36, was killed with a revolver. The spent shells of those weapons do not escape from the chamber after firing, only the warheads do, a police officer explained to this newspaper. The officer said unlike the automatic weapons where there would be spent shells, with revolvers only the warheads are usually expelled after firing. King was laid to rest on Saturday and at her funeral service, friends, relatives and workmates begged for calm.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday the source at the police forensic laboratory said that tests on two warheads recovered from the shooting would be done sometime this week. The source noted that no spent shell was retrieved at the scene and of the two warheads recovered one was slightly damaged. The source added that the warheads are both of .38 calibre.
“We have the warhead but very few .38 warheads have been retrieved from crime scenes and bodies so it wouldn’t be so easy to match,” the source who asked not to be named said. In the past police were able to match spent shells and publish ballistics findings in less than two days. Asked what was taking them so long, the source said that because the forensic unit did not have many warheads of the calibre found in King’s body they could not rapidly make a conclusion.
Stabroek News had been told that it is possible that the weapon which was used to end the woman’s life was relatively ‘clean’ in that it was never used in the commission of any crime here. It is known that some of the gunmen operating here are hired killers and very often whenever they have a contract the hirer would provide them with the weapons. In addition, a detective close to the investigation told Stabroek News that from all indications King’s killer/s might have been hired.
It is not the first time police have been unable to produce credible ballistics findings after certain major crimes. In 2006 when talk show host Ronald Waddell was gunned down police had recovered around 13 spent shells from ammunition used in AK-47 and M-70 rifles, but up to now there has been no published ballistics finding on those shells. Further, in November 2006 police had conducted a raid on a home connected to dead, Swiss House cambio boss, Farouk Razac in North Ruimveldt and recovered a quantity of arms and ammunition. Commissioner of Police (ag), Henry Greene later said investigators had not found any evidence to link the weapons to any crime scene. Rhonda Gomes in whose home the articles, which included an AK-47, a large amount of ammunition, cocaine, two firearms and four grenades were found, pleaded guilty to the five charges. She was sentenced to four years in prison.
The inconsistency in the production of results on shells, especially in cases where so-called phantoms have been involved, has led to concerns that the force has been selective in its work.
There has been widespread condemnation of the killing of King with the main opposition, People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) saying it is a dangerous development. According to the PNCR, in a statement last week, the murder should serve as a warning to the government that it needs to protect the lives of relatives of persons on the police’s wanted list. King’s brother, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins is wanted for a series of murders and robberies and he was blamed for the two recent massacres. The party said the King killing bore all the hallmarks of “a hired gun for a reprisal killing” adding that it was also concerned that such a killing could lead to reprisals. “The party therefore believes that the security forces should redouble their efforts to prevent possible tit for tat retaliation killings which can only fuel the socially corrosive cycle of violence and further threaten the social fabric of the society.” The PNCR said that for some time now it had been the party’s contention that contract killers, pointing to the existence of phantom organisations, are still around.
The government has also condemned the attack. King, a mother of three sons, was shot and killed on her way home from work last Monday night. A brown car drove up beside her and a man got out and fired two shots which hit her in the chest. One bullet perforated her lung and damaged her liver and the other lodged in her back, a post-mortem examination revealed.
