C. Roy ReynoldsON SEPTEMBER 9, 1948 the beleaguered police thought they might have their man at last. It wasn't due to any direct action by them but by then they would welcome assistance from any source.
Rumour ran through the city that the dreaded Rhyging's body had been found in Hunt's Bay...Dead or alive it wouldn't have mattered and for a police force which had faced off with the fugitive before and come up short, dead would have been a more welcome state.
But, as The Gleaner of September 10 reported "Upon discovery of the body sub-inspector H.M. Wellington and CID fingerprint experts rushed to the scene took fingerprints and comparing them with those of the wanted man found that the dead man was not the two-gun killer for whom the police and volunteer vigilantes have been looking for since last week Tuesday. Thus while height and other physical features of the body matched the dreaded Rhyging James Baker of 170 Spanish Town Road had not found the body of Rhyging as was so fervently hoped for.
Whatever Ivanhoe "Rhyging" Martin might have been he also seemed to have been a man of letters, and he used the medium to give his alleged side of the story. On September 12 The Gleaner published the contents of a letter supposedly sent in by him. The letter was addressed to: The Gleaner Office, Kingston.
That letter contained a chilling warning for several people including Eric "Mosspan" Goldson who Martin alleged had betrayed him to the police; Detective Sgt. R.I. Scott Selvin Maxwell and a photographer named Brown who was alleged to have furnished the police with a picture of the fugitive.
The letter said: Sir, I have all kin' of statement in your paper. I just seek to let the public know what has taken place on 31,7,48. I went to the hotel. I reached there 9.20. At around 10 I saw a flashlight from the other room over the gablin. I called out: who is that and the answer was the sound of a gun. I called again. Another shot was fired, still no answer... I then know what has happened. I decided to make a dash. "I ran to the door with my pistol in my hand. I did not even have time to reach for my close. I looked outside. I heard the sound of another shot. I see the men mean to make the end of me tonight, but I intend to carry someone with me.. At that time I only had five shots with me. I can't say which hand but I took them out of my pocket and put them away. I put myself outside. I was hit in my right shoulder. That did not make much.
"I made my way for the airway. Reaching there I saw a lot of people. I just could not say if they were men or women (Editor's note: Some of the detectives present at the Carib Hotel had been dressed as women). One shot fired from the crowd struck the gun butt of my gun. I fired back.
The letter went on to give details of the escape."
The letter was judged to have been authentic, either written by Rhyging himself or by someone under his dictation since it included details that were not hitherto made public. But though police followed up this and many other spurious letters the situation settled into what The Gleaner of September 6 had called "a war of attrition." That war was to continue into the month of October. The fear might not have subsided but press coverage of the extraordinary police effort faded from the day to day news for the rest of September and into the first week of October 1948...
Then on October 8 The Gleaner carried the story of how the fugitive barely escaped the police at the Ferry River swamp. He had been tipped off, the story alleged by "tree top lookouts." The story said: "Ivanhoe "Rhyging" Martin, two-gun killer at large for six weeks now flashed back into the news yesterday morning when he barely squeezed through a police cordon which was closing in on him in the treacherous, swampy lands that abound the Ferry River on the road to Spanish Town."
"When the police reached his lair they found only his provisions and camping gear. He had fled. The desperado escaped in the nick of time, but all through the vigilance of one of his team of spies who was believed to have passed the word around while the police operation was in progress... A man named Clarke and a woman have been detained by the police..."
Next: What brought the police to the scene.
