Hacker
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE PEACE and quiet of the quaint district of Stuie, Bethel Town, Westmoreland, was shattered on Monday evening, when armed thugs shot and killed the proprietor of the Texaco Service Station, four hours after they held up and robbed its attendants and customers.
Cosmo Hacker, 43-year-old businessman of Coral Gardens, St. James, was shot and killed by two gunmen at his service station.
Reports from Constable Odean Dennis are that about 2:30 p.m. four men travelling in a white Toyota motor car went to the service station and robbed attendants and customers of an undetermined sum of money and jewellery. The Whithorn Police were alerted and team of policemen intercepted the vehicle along the Caledonia main road.
It is alleged that a shoot-out ensued and the men ran into bushes leaving the car behind. One of them was later found suffering from gunshot wounds with a home-made firearm and a 9mm cartridge in his possession. He was taken to the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. He has not been identified.
Sometime after 3:00 p.m., residents in Stuie held a man they reportedly found hiding in bushes and proceeded to beat and chop him. He was handed over to the police, who took him to hospital, where he was treated and released into the custody of the police.
Mr. Hacker was at his business place at about 6:45 p.m. talking to his employees when a white Toyota Corolla station wagon drove up. Two armed men exited the vehicle and opened fire hitting the proprietor. He was pronounced dead at hospital.
When Western Focus visited the family home in Stuie on Tuesday, members of the Hacker family and close friends were in shock, trying make sense of the murder. Mr. Hacker's sister, Val, explained that Cosmo's death is the third in a series of killings the family has had to cope with in the last six years. In July this year, her brother Osmond, who operated a Jamaican take-out restaurant in New York, was gunned down in his home.
"Just last week we received word that there is a breakthrough in the investigations and a warrant was posted for the person police believed to be responsible," Val Hacker explained.
"We are still grieving for Osmond and now to deal with this," she said.
Swift action by the police led to the recovery of two illegal firearms and the fatal shooting of one of the alleged suspects. A second man was chopped by residents and handed over to the police, while the Montego Bay police detained a third, believed to be an accomplice on Tuesday.
The Westmoreland police are investigating.
