Woman loses two sons in four days

It is often said that “No parent should have to bury their child”.

Sadly, Dearest Samuel is currently making funeral arrangements to bury two of her sons.{{more}}

David “Dave” Williams, 35, cart operator of Block 2000, succumbed to a wound to the left side of his abdomen on Monday, March 11, after being stabbed on March 9, in the vicinity of Tony’s Pizza on Grenville Street.

Dearest’s other son, 29-year-old Gary “Scare Dem” Williams, also of Block 2000, died in a hail of bullets on March 15, about 10 p.m., in the vicinity of the Moulton Mayers Architects Building on Higginson Street, approximately 300 yards from where his brother was stabbed four days earlier.

“Oh God, I don’t know how I feel. Ah can’t really hold up. I feel weak, because when I get the news with David, I was crying whole time,” Samuel recounted, in an interview with SEARCHLIGHT yesterday.

Dressed in black, the diabetic and hypertensive woman said when she got the news about Gary: “I fall down and I feeling really, really weak. But [it] is the grace of God way have me hold up.”

Describing her son David, Samuel said he was quiet and never troubled people.

However, she said he consumed alcohol.

“He used to drink he little rum and mek jokes with people and everything. He was quiet, quiet. I don’t know how this happen.”

“My daughter called me when I dey home and tell me ‘Mummy, Dave dey in the hospital in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit)’, so I say must be the rum; he ain’t weary drink rum…,” Samuel told SEARCHLIGHT.

David succumbed to his injuries and died two days later.

SEARCHLIGHT was reliably informed that sometime close to midnight, an argument took place between David and another man, following which David was stabbed.

It is alleged that after he sustained the stab wound, David staggered onto the street and was struck by a vehicle coming from the direction of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). It is alleged that the same vehicle then took him to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

According to Samuel, she last spoke to her son at Christmas.

“He meet me in town and give me a money and tell me he coming down fo’ me bake bread and ham… He come fo’ lunch de Christmas and after he finish lunch, he went back home. I wrap up some things in a foil paper and gave him to walk with…,” she said.

That was the last time Samuel would see David alive.

If that wasn’t already enough pain to endure, Samuel received another dreaded telephone call four days later.

Gary Williams had been shot and killed.

“Shelly (her daughter) call me and tell me she hear Gary get shoot up ah na. Me say ‘What? Na Monday me talk to Gary?’…

“I start cry and I come weak, weak. He never tell me nothing at all. He dor talk to me to tell me nothing, as if people trouble him or he get in trouble,” Samuel said.

She said she saw her son two days prior to his death.

“He hug me up in a shop down de road and he say ‘Mummy, take it easy. Don’t fight up yourself; yo’ know yo’ sick’, and that is the last thing I know Gary said to me,” Samuel said.

Not hiding things about her son, Samuel admitted that Gary frequently got into trouble.

“Gary, he used to make little trouble around town with people. Ah wouldn’t say no to that, but then otherwise than that, he was a loving person. Serious… I know he was a troublesome person around town. He used to handle things for people and take their phones and dem things dey…,” she said.

Sources told SEARCHLIGHT that a vehicle pulled up on Higginson Street, from which two men alighted and opened fire on Gary.

That was not the first time Gary had been shot. On January 1, 2012, at around

1 a.m., at Rose Place, Gary was shot several times about his body during an alleged drive-by shooting.

However, Samuel said that her son was desperately seeking to change his life.

“The last time he come from prison, he was trying to change and he told me he was reading his Bible and that he wanted to get closer to his two little children…

“Is only the grace of God have me here right now.”

Sister of the deceased Ingrid Lewis described her brothers as “loving men”, who would always hug and tell her how how much they loved her.

Their other sister, Shelly-ann, said following David’s death, she warned Gary to behave himself. “When I met up with him after Dave died, he was crying and crying… Gary had his way, I am not hiding that. But with his family, he used to always tell us he loved us…,” she said.

Lowmans Leeward resident Roderick Alexander has been charged with the murder of David Williams.

Alexander, 24, was brought before the Serious Offences Court on Friday, March 15 and was remanded to Her Majesty’s Prison. Attorney Israel Bruce represents him in the matter.

Police say investigations are continuing into the shooting death of Gary Williams.