Morning had broken in the usual quiet way in Cockpit a small rural community in Brown’s Town on Wednesday, September 28. But 20 odd bullets later the community had been changed forever. A man was dead, his girl friend shocked beyond belief, a woman who looked into the eyes of the killers was thanking God she was spared and the community was in shock.
Some of the shock was because of how it happened. Elder citizens had actually seen the gunmen after the shooting and waved to them. And the woman who asked for her chip from her phone was either very brave or too shocked to know how close to death she had come.
It started somewhere after 9 o’clock when Ricky whose birth name is Kyodie Daye took his children to school in Brown’s Town about two miles away and returned home. The gunmen had entered the community already from the Wilberforce end and were waiting. Daye was in his car. It’s not clear if he was going back out or had just come in when the gunmen pounced. He tried to flee, the car. There were three gunshots, two hit the car. He attempted to jump over a fence. He fell, the men were upon him. They fired into him at least 12 times. Some say it was 17 times. The girlfriend was frozen in her seat.
Guns in hand, the gunmen started walking away. Then in a kind of synchronized jog, guns in hand their sides, chatting and calling each other ‘Dawg” they left the scene. People who saw them said they wore knee pads, for kneeling and shooting. As the killers left, an elderly man, apparently unaware of what had just happened, waved to them. Down the road one of them fired in the air, people said just to establish authority and clear the way. At the small square or intersection of the dirt road to the house Daye rented and the main road, down from the Brown’s Town to Alexandria main road, the killer saw a young woman walking. She saw them. They demanded her phone. She was hesitant. They took it. She told them her baby was sick, she needed the phone. Could they give her back the chip, she asked. They obliged.
Then they went through bushes rather than taking the road. Some area residents said the men were lost. But they might have taken to the bushes for their own protection. In a matter of 20 plus bullets, Cockpit had changed.
People came back from work. Others came from their farm. People came from Brown’s Town. Police had come to the area including crime scene and intelligence unit members from St Ann’s Bay. Also there were teachers from the school attended by Daye’s two children. They too were shocked saying Daye was one of those parents who contributed to the school. He was one of the few male s who were always there, seeing how he could help.
The children hadn’t been told yet. The school was advised to put them in isolation for the time being until counsellors worked out how it was to be done.
Councillor Delroy Redway said nobody should take this as reflective of what Brown’s Town was about. The Brown’s Town councillor shook his head: “I want you to know this is not the nature of the area,” he said.
Daye’s father fainted on his way and then was brought back by a nephew. He sat in a car away from the crowd, trying to make sense of it.
A woman who is an importer and vendor spoke to the North Coast Times about Daye, saying he was “so quiet, couldn’t mash a fly” a bother to no one. But police had other information on Daye. They said he was the mastermind behind a long running ATM scam that had hit several people for hundreds of thousands of dollars in St Ann and St Mary, primarily.
Police also reported that Daye had been charged and was before the courts on related ATM scamming cases involving taking money from people’s account he and cronies had been able to enter through cloning of cards and other fraudulent means.
The Times could not get the details but it was reported that Daye was on bail on related ATM scamming charges and reporting to police in Runaway Bay as a condition of his bail.
Though police were on the scene early and kept everybody away there was no breakthrough in the case up to the weekend.
