We are making progress in Gabriel King probe – Ellis

WESTERN BUREAU:

SENIOR SUPERINTENDENT of Police Vernon Ellis, of the St James Police Division, is reassuring the public that investigations into the shocking murder of nine-year-old Gabriel King are progressing steadily, despite the apparent lack of new information on the case.

While addressing Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC), Ellis said that the information which is revealed to the public has to be delivered in a way that will not compromise the police’s investigations.

“When you are doing sensitive investigations, the information cannot run parallel to the investigation, because at times if you are doing that, you are going to interfere with the investigation. So, when we are at sensitive points and we need the assistance of the public, we come out and put things inside of the public domain and we request that type of support,” Ellis told councillors and other attendees at the meeting.

“I must say to you that this matter is one of those that has been given the highest level of attention. We are making inroads, maybe not at the pace that the public would love, because if we were making inroads at that pace, somebody would be in cuffs now,” he reasoned.

“However, all the lines of enquiry and reviews are being conducted in a systematic way,” Ellis added.

He was responding to questions from Government Senator Charles Sinclair, the StJMC’s councillor for the Montego Bay North East division, who voiced concern about the lack of regular updates in the case of young King’s brutal murder.

“Persons in St James and outside of St James have expressed to me about the lack of information or reports in relation to the death of the nine-year-old, who was a challenged child. There is a lack of information to the public as to the state of the investigation, and there are comments coming in that the police are having difficulty getting information from some institutions,” Sinclair lamented.

Deputy Commissioner of Police in Charge of Crime Fitz Bailey had previously revealed that investigators were faced with challenges in relation to the case, following King’s abduction and murder on January 13.

King, who was developmentally challenged, was abducted from his mother along the Tucker main road in St James, after she was reportedly carjacked by assailants who dragged her from her motor car and took the vehicle with the child still in the back seat.

King was later found with his throat slashed at the rear of the vehicle, which was found abandoned off the Fairfield main road in Montego Bay.

In the meantime, Ellis urged the public to refrain from making assumptions or drawing conclusions about the case, even as he urged residents to provide whatever information they may have to help the authorities to make a breakthrough.

“I do not want to start a trial in the public domain. All we ask is that persons respectfully allow us to carry out this investigation,” said Ellis.

“This is not a normal crime. When persons start killing our kids, this is something serious that we have to take a look at,” he said.