Grandmother gunned down at her home
With tears streaming down her face, Cecelia Martin fell to her knees at the very same spot where her mother Ann Marie Elby was killed last Friday in Gregory Park, Portmore, St Catherine.
Martin then lit two candles in the blood stains, symbolising that although her mother was gone, her memory would live on.
For Martin, 38, her mother was her backbone and best friend. She told THE STAR that she had no idea why anyone would want to hurt Elby.
“Mi madda and everybody get along, she is that kind of person. I don’t even know why but a one thing mi a tell dem seh, mi nah serve a dead God,” Martin said, unable to hold back her tears.
Police reports are that Elby, 54, also known as was ‘Mego’, was ambushed at her home about 10:19 p.m. shortly after she arrived. The police were summoned and Elby, who was a bartender, was found lying inside her yard with multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at hospital.
Martin told THE STAR that although she and her daughter were home when the shots were fired, she initially did not realise her mother was harmed. She thought Elby was at the shop purchasing a pack of ramen. However, after all her calls to her mother went unanswered, she started to worry. A short time later, a neighbour told her to look outside. A horrific sight greeted her.
“When mi guh out there mi see mi madda lay down pan di ground, dead, mi and di baby guh find har and mi start bawl out and people just come and look and some a dem just turn weh, dem just come and look and move off,” Martin said. She said that she has no idea how to cope with her mother’s loss but is doing her best to stay strong for her daughters.
However, her older daughter Amelia Bryan was inconsolable. After receiving prayer at the Ridgemount Jamaica Free Baptist Church with her mother by her side, a dazed Bryan walked back to the house where her grandmother was killed and cried “Mi grandmother, mi grandma yuh neva deserve dis.”
Member of Parliament for East Central St Catherine, Alando Terrelonge, who was visiting the grieving family, said that he was shocked by the murder.
“Mego was such a vibrant member of the community, I mean she raised her family with such care. She was a hard-working woman. She was the life of any party, she was the life of the community and it’s so unfortunate,” he said. Terrelonge said that he has called for a permanent police post to be placed at the intersection of Cottage Drive and Banga Gully and Dyke Road.
“It is impossible for the police to patrol the Gulf area because it is a labyrinth of just zinc and dirt track and choppy getaways. And what these criminals do, they wait for the police van to pass and then they come into the community wreak havoc and then they make their escape,”he said.
“Mego was such a vibrant member of the community, I mean she raised her family with such care. She was a hard-working woman. She was the life of any party, she was the life of the community and it’s so unfortunate.”