By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

YEARS of threats and unresolved conflict culminated in the murder of a 23-year-old man found shot off Springfield Road yesterday, his mother says.

Wayne Marshall was found shot in bushes near Prince Charles Drive early Tuesday, marking the country’s 49th murder of the year.

Michelle Gedeonn, his mother, believes her son was pursued by people who had been holding a grudge against him since his teenage years. She recalled an incident months earlier in which he was attacked while walking to a shop.

“Couple months back, he said he was walking to the shop one day and they pull up on him and beat him dead bad but a bystander end up seeing him and carry him to the station and report it,” she said at the murder scene yesterday.

“Then after that they come after him but he said the police catch them in time; they had gun and everything in the car to eliminate him but he said they have a wybe with him from school time and they ain’t letting it go.”

Ms Gedeonn said the threats never stopped, even after her son was recently released from custody for an undisclosed reason.

She said she usually spoke to her son every morning, and when he didn’t return home Monday night, she immediately felt something was wrong.

“This morning, I get up I was suppose to call him. I does call him every morning. I sit down to catch myself to work. When I get up, that’s when my daughter call me, tell me my son ain’t come home from last night. My chest start to hurt. I had this pain I never had before and I know in myself I wouldn’t have seen my son no more.” 

Ms Gedeonn described her son as quiet and selfless, saying he never bothered anyone and would give her his last dollar, even if it meant walking from his home to Minnie Street.

“I love my child,” she said. “To see he dead like that, you don’t even shoot a dog like that or treat a dog like that, and that hurt me because I still don’t believe that’s my son right there.”

Charmaine, Marshall’s sister, said the family was alerted by a friend who had heard Wayne had been attacked while walking home.

She said after getting the message, she called their mother and told her he hadn’t slept at home and no one had seen him. As they tried to figure out what had happened, police confirmed a body had been found dead in the bushes. She said the loss was painful despite their ups and downs, because he was still her brother, and she loved him.

Police press liaison Chief Superintendent Sheria King said it was unclear how long the body had been in the bushes before it was found.