Cold case cop ‘knows’ killer but doesn’t have proof

(CNS): The man who gunned down Jason Christian in George Town over eleven years ago has never been charged. Although the police working the cold case believe they know who shot the teenager, they don’t have the evidence needed to prove it. As a result, while the RCIPS will keep this case open, the Coroners Court closed the file on Christian’s death on Thursday. After hearing from a pathologist, who explained that he died as a result of being shot straight through the head, and a detective, who spoke about the circumstances of his murder, the jury officially declared his death an unlawful killing.

Detective Sergeant Peter Dean, who heads up the Serious Crime Review team, told the inquest jury that they had collected a lot of information and intelligence on this murder that points to the killer but were unable to secure the evidence required to put him on trial. Even after another appeal to the public last year, more than a decade after Christian and a second man who survived were both shot, no new evidence that could put the killer in the dock has been secured.

Christian was just 18 years old when he was killed in September 2011 during a period of tit-for-tat violence between the Logwoods and Birch Tree Hill gangs in West Bay. Three young men were murdered within one week, all in West Bay. It began when Robert Mackford Bush was shot dead on 13 September 2011, followed by the murder of Andrew Baptist (24) two days later. Two days after that, Preston Ezekiel Rivers (18) was also gunned down.

In the last of the four West Bay-related killings Christian was murdered just off Crewe Road on 19 September 2011. Police believe that while Christian was affiliated with the Birch Tree Hill Gang, he was not the target and that the killer was aiming for his companion, Keith Montaque, that night.

Montaque, who is currently serving 15 years for gun-related crimes, is believed to be a member of the Birch Tree Hill Gang. That day, he had received a phone call asking him to go to an address on Cranbrook Drive and ask for “Bruce”. He and Christian travelled to the house by van, with Christian driving. They parked outside and Montaque knocked on the door, but the woman who answered said she had no idea who “Bruce” was.

Montague ran back to the van and told Christian, “Come on! Let’s go! It’s a set up!” As he did, the van came under attack. Despite being shot multiple times, Montaque survived after flagging down a passing police patrol car and being rushed to hospital.

DS Dean said that crime scene officers recovered ten spent shells of 40-calibre ammunition. When more police and EMS arrived at Cranbrook Drive, Christian was slumped in the driver’s seat with a gunshot wound to his head as well as grazes from other bullets. He was barely breathing when the paramedics attended to him and died at the scene from a wound that the pathologist told the jury was, if not instantly fatal, almost impossible to survive.

As he explained the case, DS Dean said that police officers had found the same type of bullets at the scene of Andrew Baptist’s murder and a .38 calibre revolver in the van, which was later linked to the murder of Preston Rivers as well as another murder in 2009. But having investigated and interviewed many people, no one was ever charged for Christian’s murder.

“I believe I know who killed Jason Christian but I do not have the evidence,” he said.

DS Dean said that the police believe that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person, and that he was not the intended target. Despite the arrival of a team of detectives at the time to help the RCIPS solve these cases, only the killing of Robert Mackford Bush was ever resolved.

Seaford Russell, a reporter with the Cayman Compass and the younger brother of Christian, was at the inquest and was given the opportunity to talk to the jury. He said that his brother might have been involved in some bad things, “but he was not a part of any gang”.

Coroner Angelyn Hernandez told to the jury that even though Christian was not the intended target, the killer still had an intention. Because the gunman had opened fire on the van, it was evident that he would do harm or kill anyone inside, she said, as she explained to the jury members their verdict options. They returned a unanimous verdict of unlawful killing.