By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Coconut Grove community was left in shock and disbelief in the aftermath of the murder of Mario Cartwright, a husband and father of three small children who was shot unexpectedly as he entered a corner store on Wednesday.

Cartwright, a security guard who routinely visited Manda’s Variety Store and Wholesale Snacks on First Street and Palm Tree Avenue, was well known in the community as a family man. 

To Albert Delhomme, the shop’s owner, Cartwright was more than just a customer, he was a friend.

Mr Delhomme was not in the shop when the shooting happened. However he was visibly shaken and cried in an interview with reporters yesterday because he said this “hit home”.

He told The Tribune he could have easily been the victim but possibly only missed death because he left the shop to drop his daughter home before two gunmen entered the small business.

The robbers held the cashier and packing boy up at the back of the shop and then raided the cash register of the day’s earnings of about $400, he said.

“Me, my wife (and) my daughter, we always here,” the shopkeeper said. “But that day I picked my daughter up from here and drop her home and on my way back here there was traffic.”

He said that’s how he knew something was wrong.

“It’s not nice you know. He has a family, three kids. I think the oldest one is 12 and the last one is three,” an emotional Mr Delhomme said. “It’s crazy.

“For me, it look like who ever was coming out was gonna get shot because it looked like they (the gunmen) were so young probably scary (or) probably know him. (He was a) good, good man. He is a guy you could ask him anything, he ain’t gonna tell you no. It’s always yes,” Mr Delhomme also said.

According to police, shortly before 6pm two men entered the shop and robbed the store. The shooting came as they fled when a male customer entered they building as they were leaving.

While Mr Delhomme said he has no concerns about safety, he said he would hope more police frequent in the area, this marking the third time his shop was robbed in nearly four years.

But 79-year-old Alisha Stanisleus, owner of a small shop in close proximity of Manda’s Variety Store, said she’s very disturbed about the incident.

Just seven month ago, the elderly woman was violently beaten by a man who tore her apron, which held money, off her body.

Her store is not large or fully stocked. Admittedly, Ms Stanisleus said it isn’t what it used to be. Now all she offers is soft drinks, a few bags of chips, bottled tomatoes and gallon jugs of water.

“I’m very disturbed about that. I don’t know what these young men are dealing with,” she said.

“But you know here in May I was going to lock my burglar bars outside there to come in here to lock up to go in my house, and just as I got inside here this fella come, because see I don’t have no cash register, my couple dollars because I have mostly dollar bills and thing, I does keep it in my pocket. When you have a cash register they figure you gat money in there.

“So just as I was about to walk out there, this guy he comes and says ‘gimme ya apron with ya money in it.’

“I can’t remember whether he pushed me out the door or if I walked on the step but just as I got out the door, that young man he pushed me off the step and then he grabbed me and then he start punching me up in my chest,” the elderly woman said. 

“I put my hand over my face and I began to scream and unto this day I don’t know what he looked like. A lady heard me screaming and she called the police.”

She questioned whether crime was truly down as police and government officials have continually said. 

This was the same question asked by Renaldo Farrington, Cartwright’s nephew.

He said: “They saying crime going down but at the end of the day if you out in the real world, ain’t nothing changing.”

Mr Farrington said he is shocked and in a state of disbelief because a wife is now without her husband and three children are now fatherless.

According to Chief Superintendent Solomon Cash, police have one suspect in custody who they are treating as a person of interest and are following significant leads in the case. 

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 919, the Central Detective Unit at 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS.