Another execution-style slaying….Ricardo Rodrigues associate gunned down

Nov 01, 2012 News

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Fifteen days after they executed Ricardo Rodrigues, hit men turned their guns on his associate, Marlon Osborne aka Marlon Scott and ‘Trini’, riddling him with bullets in a brazen daylight onslaught.
Osborne succumbed to his injuries while being treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was rushed minutes after the attack which occurred near the junction of Peter Rose and Laluni Streets, Queenstown, yesterday.

It was just after 13:00 hours when the 32-year old Achievement Place, South Ruimveldt Gardens resident had just turned out of a yard in Laluni Street when he was confronted by the gunmen.
Eyewitnesses recalled seeing two men shooting at Osborne’s car as he frantically attempted to drive away.
But the slugs from what appeared to be AK-47 assault rifles, the preferred choice of local hit-men, penetrated the vehicle and pierced Osborne’s body.
The police in a statement on the matter said that their investigations revealed that Osborne was driving motor car PNN 9922 when shots were discharged from another vehicle which drove away. The vehicle that Osborne was using was said to have belonged to Ricardo Rodrigues.
The police said that they have arrested a man identified as Raymond Lammy. Osborne had just left his home before the gunmen confronted him.
The injured Osborne arrived at the hospital in a speeding National Parks Commission vehicle. He was immediately rushed into the Accident and Emergency Unit (A&E) for medical attention.
A woman recalled seeing rescuers pull the injured man from his car.
“He whole one side get shoot up, like de flesh falling off,” the woman said.
The Georgetown Public Hospital in a press release stated that Osborne sustained gunshot wounds to the right side of his abdomen, back and scrotal area.
“He succumbed while undergoing emergency surgery at the Main Operating Theatre. He was pronounced dead at 14:55 hours,” the hospital stated.
A young man, whose mother was on the bed next to the one on which they had placed Osborne in the A and E unit, was heard saying, “I peep he (Marlon) and I see all his guts outside…Gun is not a good thing. I don’t ever want to see a gun.”
From the Accident and Emergency Unit, the bleeding man was subsequently taken to the theatre for an operation but he succumbed on the operating table.
“He couldn’t have survived with those bullets. Those bullets were meant to kill him. We tried our best, but from the beginning we suspected he wouldn’t make it,” a medical practitioner said.
The dead man’s relatives who were at the hospital were reluctant to speak with the media, as they waited for what seemed an eternity for word on his condition.
They were eventually told that he had succumbed.
As news of Osborne’s death spread, dozens of people swarmed the hospital to confirm what they heard.
His reputed wife, Senobia Butcher, later told this newspaper that Osborne had visited a friend in Laluni Street and was reversing out of the driveway when he was attacked.
She said that she received a telephone call informing her about the incident but when she arrived at the scene, Osborne had already been taken to the hospital.
The shooting of her reputed husband was compounded by a burglary on the home they shared at South Ruimveldt, at almost the same time, yesterday.
The woman said that about 14:00 hours she received a telephone call informing her that three men had entered her house, which she had earlier secured.
From all indications, the men were aware that a spare key was in the house, for they used a piece of tree limb to get to it and used it open the door.
The men carted off jewellery, expensive wristwatches and other valuables.
“They made a mess of the house,” Butcher said.
However, freedom for two of the perpetrators was short lived, as they were captured a short while later and are assisting investigators.
“They say that a Rastaman from ‘C’ Field, Sophia, sent them,” Butcher told this newspaper.
She could not say if the two incidents are connected, but she hopes that they are.
“How did they know to break in at that time of the day when we would not be around? I hope it is linked (to the killing). At least we will know who did it (execution),” she said.
Butcher told this newspaper that Osborne had not expressed any fear for his life, since the death of his associate, Ricardo Rodrigues.
“He was affected by it, yes, because he did not know who did it, but he never expressed fear,” the woman said.
Osborne was only on released from police custody on Monday after being held for questioning into Rodrigues’ death.
He was no stranger to the police, having been arrested in 2004, along with two other men, with a quantity of arms and ammunition in Buxton, East Coast Demerara.
Meanwhile, several bullets from the assault shattered windows and penetrated walls of the nearby private school, Josel Educational Institute, two buildings away, traumatizing students and teachers.
The institution’s headmaster, Will Campbell, told Kaieteur News that they were having a staff meeting when the sound of gunshots shattered the relative silence of the area.
He explained that since they did not know where the shots were coming from, they quickly evacuated the children from the ground floor to the second flat where they were made to lie on the ground.
“We waited it out and when we felt that it was clear, we came downstairs. We had the children reassemble to ensure that everybody was okay…of course it sounded like an eternity, but I figure it was just few seconds,” Campbell explained.
At least two bullets were found in the school but the headmaster assured that no one in the school was seriously hurt.
“The children were screaming; a lot of them are traumatized. There were some flying debris that struck one of the students, but the skin hasn’t been broken,” Campbell said.
Investigators are still to come up with a motive for Osborne’s execution, although they are certain that it is connected with that of Ricardo Rodrigues.
Rodrigues had 15 bullets pumped into him as he sat outside the Pit Stop Restaurant and Bar inside the compound of the Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club on Albert Street.
Another man, Canadian Jean Le Blanc, who was also shot during that attack, died mysteriously a few days ago while recovering at the Georgetown Hospital.

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