Man stabbed, bludgeoned at Campden Park

What started off as a normal night ‘liming on the block’ in Campden Park ended in Nicholas ‘Nicko’ Layne’s death.

Layne, an Edinboro resident, who is said to be 35, was cut in the throat and stomach, following which two concrete blocks were repeatedly dropped on his body.

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT yesterday, Layne’s girlfriend, Shelly Ann Parris, said she and Layne were sitting on a wall at the Campden Park main road around 11 p.m. on Sunday, November 13, when she noticed a brown skinned male approaching.{{more}}

According to Parris, the man was shirtless and wore a black backpack, from which he drew a knife. Upon this observation she signalled Layne, whom she says was a distance from her, to inform him of the suspicious behaviour.

“I say, Nick, watch the boy, something going on, something going on. So when me say something going on, the boy pull out the knife and start to run me down,” she recalled.

Parris, 22, said she ran to her home in Cocoa Village, Campden Park and peeped out the window, only to witness Layne’s throat and belly being cut, as well as over his eye.

Following this, the assailant stood above Layne’s body, making sure that he was dead.

“He asking, ‘E done dead? E done dead?’ So he sit down on the wall to see if the boy dead,” she related.

Paris said Layne was still alive and so the assailant went to a neighbour’s house and took two concrete blocks, which he then repeatedly dropped on Layne’s body to finish him off.

The mother of two said while she had never seen the man before, one of Layne’s close relatives accused her of being the reason he was killed. She however said she does not know if the two men had got into an altercation before.

Paris, who appeared to still be in shock about what had transpired, said Layne was the breadwinner of the home.

She said, “a Baptist woman bring a vision and drop ‘pon my foot and say Shelly Ann don’t go up the road, yo death deh behind ah yo,” however, Layne encouraged her to go.

Layne was a Labourer at Dipcon Engineering Services Ltd, the company responsible for the renovation of the Leeward highway.

His neighbours at Edinboro described him as a very helpful man that they never thought would be killed that way.

They described him as someone who would come to their assistance no matter how long or how hard his day had been.

Pamela Williams, 57, of Kingstown Park, Avis Israel, 74, and her son Ronald Israel, 47 both of Old Montrose were also murdered on that night.

Jorani Baptiste is currently in police custody assisting with investigations into the four murders. (AS)