You are not really safe in your house – slain sailor’s sister

A telephone call late at night usually quickens the recipient’s heartbeat.That was the case for Murphina “Nita” Joseph and Susan Briggs-Boyea, who, in the early hours of Saturday morning, received calls that a loved-one had been shot.{{more}}

One week after police and other officials met here to discuss the control of illegal firearms, another Vincentian family reels from the effects of one.

Joseph and Briggs-Boyea are preparing to bury their brother Elmore Mapp, who was killed early Saturday morning, while sleeping on the basement floor of the home he shared with Glaston Hunte in Gomea.

Briggs-Boyea, principal of the Argyle Primary school, told SEARCHLIGHT by telephone from her Victoria Village residence that she received the heartbreaking news after 1 a.m. on Saturday morning from her mother Doris, that her brother was dead.

“You know by the time you hear the phone ring at that time of the night, my heart done start to skip a beat; so it was my mother, who lives upstairs, on the line and then she said ‘Susan, sad news,’ and then she said Elmore got shot and he died,” she said.

Mapp, 46, was the last of three children, and only son born to Doris Mapp.

At an early age, he moved from Victoria Village to Gomea, where he lived with the family of Joseph, his half sister.

Joseph, speaking with SEARCHLIGHT at her home in Gomea, said like Briggs-Boyea, a call brought her the message of gloom.

“I was right here on the chair sitting; so like I doze, and when I doze I hear the telephone ring; so when I jump up I say I wonder who could call me this hour of the night.

“So, when I answer the phone is one of my niece Shelly-Ann; she say ‘Mammy Nita sorry to wake you this hour the night. Elmore get shot and he ain’t talking.

“So I ask she way and she say by she daddy (Hunte).”

Both ladies said that from their own homes, and accompanied by family members, they made their way to the crime scene.

By the time they arrived and joined the crowd that had gathered, police officers were already into their investigations, and they had to wait until the police left the area, to get an idea of what had taken place.

“My impression when they say he was shot was that there was some altercation, because Elmore is a good person, but when he drink and have an argument that is Elmore; but the next day he is friends with you. So, my first thought was that there was some altercation, so somebody shot him that way,” said Briggs-Boyea.

“But when I went there I was really surprised that it happened that way it happened.

“I would have understand that he got in an altercation, not prefer, but to be just laying in your bedroom in your bed, you know, you really not safe in your own house.”

Joseph said that the last time she saw Mapp alive was last Sunday, when he visited her and had a brief conversation.

She said that she did not expect the next time she was going to see him would be at a funeral home.

Joseph said that her adopted brother had a good relationship with everyone, and that she, along with others in the village, was going to miss him.

“He was okay with everybody… I don’t even know what to say, but I just keeping the faith….”

Meanwhile, Briggs-Boyea, who said that Mapp’s funeral is expected to take place early next week, is hoping his death would bring to an end a string of tragedies that have been affecting the family.

“In 2011 I lost my niece to cancer. Last year her husband died. So, it’s just been like year after year. I can’t take on any more deaths.

“We are trying to cope with it. It’s a senseless murder for a little bit of money, but only God knows best,” Briggs-Boyea said. (JJ)