Second person from Ottley Hall killed in less than four days

An aura of bewilderment surrounds Curlina Hepburn, the mother of this country’s latest murder victim, Carlos Rickford Anthony Richardson, alias ‘Bap’.

Richardson, who would have celebrated his 37th birthday on July 24, was shot and killed in Ottley Hall on Tuesday morning around 6. 30 a.m. while he sat on a wall close to where he lived.{{more}}

“I don’t know what really going on. They just ambush the guy and shoot him from his back. He was by the road sitting and they just come and shot him in his back,” said Hepburn on Wednesday.

The distraught, angry and confused woman, who lives in Barrouallie, said that when she got the call on Tuesday morning, telling her that her son had been shot, she thought that it was a wound in his hand or in another area where he would recover, but that was not the case.

“It was around minutes to seven when I got a call saying he shot, so I thought he just get shot by he hand or something and I call back somebody and they say he dead, so I left and went mortuary to identify him,” revealed Hepburn, who said that she last saw her son in June last year, but they usually kept in contact.

She said that when Richardson was three years old, his sister, aged two, and his brother, five, she left them with her mother and went to Trinidad; but she returned here in 1999 and became “good friends” with her children.

“Even though I tell him anything, he never answer back or be rude or anything like that… he always respect, so I don’t really know what going on, police is not saying anything.

“I want justice for my son. I not happy about it,” said Richardson, who added that she believes in the death penalty.

“I am not happy about it; that is my second son and I know my son had loved me a lot. I don’t know why they had to kill him,” stressed the bereaved mother.

Richardson, a father of three, was a mason and would sometimes do landscaping to make ends meet. He will be buried next Sunday in Barrouallie.

Also expressing her hurt was Richardson’s aunt, Vercil Hepburn of Barrouallie.

“Bap was a good nephew. He was a good guy to me and I need justice for my nephew. He wasn’t a troublesome person and anytime he come Barrouallie he would come visit me and I need justice for my nephew.

“They ain’t need to kill him just like an animal. They kill him just like an animal, because the area that I go and visit just like when you kill a dog by the roadside, and I need justice… because I know Bap was not a troublesome person. I never hear he get in no criminal complaint, he never go prison, he never do anything wrong to me, so I need justice for my nephew,” said Vercil.

Strosbert Hepburn, Richardson’s uncle, also weighed in.

He said, “you can’t feel good when someone who is really good to you get shot in the manner you heard. But you know, what can be done to give satisfaction? You know he is dead and no matter what happened, even though someone is convicted, what can we do to be satisfied?”

Hepburn said that he believes that nobody will be brought to justice for killing Richardson and that judgement is left up to God.

“God knows who, so he will reward that person when the time comes. When these things happen, I would usually hear people say that this person was a bad person, but I cannot tell you of any time when this guy was rude to me.

“I went Ottley Hall for the first time Tuesday and from the area where he live, when guys saw we were his relatives, they offer their condolences and said that he did not deserve that kind of death. We did not hear he had a troublesome nature. There had to be something wrong, but what was it? You just don’t know, but… it happened at around 6:30, broad daylight and somebody must have saw something,” said Strosbert.

Richardson was the second person from Ottley Hall killed in less than four days. Lesroy ‘Magnum’ Sam, a 20-year-old Ottley Hall man, lost his life in a hail of bullets on Saturday April 23, around 2 a.m. He was gunned down while hanging out in Rose Place.