Twist in murder case
SASHA-GAYE Coffie, the pregnant woman who was brutally gunned down in her home in Portmore last month, would probably be alive today had she not feared participating in an identification parade after she was shot and injured by a gunman in March this year, the police said yesterday.
The police made the claim as they charged her husband, Shawn, and his co-accused Cheviena Allen, otherwise called ‘Shankie’, with conspiracy to murder and illegal possession of a firearm in relation to the March attack.
Yesterday, the police also said that the director of public prosecution has ruled that Mr Coffie be charged with conspiracy to commit murder and illegal possession of firearm in relation to Mrs Coffie’s murder on October 21.
He was pointed out in an identification parade over the weekend, the police said. “In the first incident she was on her way to work when she was attacked by a lone gunman, who robbed and shot her before making his escape,” Superintendent Dean Taylor from the Major Investigation Task Force told the Jamaica Observer.
“We know who did the shooting in the first case, but (she) decided not to participate in the investigation by attending an identification parade,” Taylor said, adding that had the police received Mrs Coffie’s support at that time, maybe her murder could have been prevented.
“Fear was one of the main factors why she did not want to participate in the investigation or attend an identification parade to point out her attacker,” said another investigator. Mrs Coffie, a 27-year-old legal clerk employed to the Administrator General’s Department, was seven months pregnant when she was murdered.