“When a reach home a wan call yo.” [7:31p.m.] 15/10/10.
This was the last text message, prison officer and mother of two, Miriam Gillett, 32, would send to her common-law- husband, Andrew Williams, a couple minutes before she was murdered in what appears to have been an ambush attack on the Boom-Hattieville Road.
Apparently, on Friday, October 15, at around 8:00 p.m., Gillett became a passenger of a car that was driven by Kolbe Foundation prison officer, Ernest Savery, 35, who began working at Kolbe last December. Also accompanying Savery was prison officer Sylvino Cal.
Police say that when the three officers reached a bump in front of a cemetery on the Boom-Hattieville Road, they were ambushed. A barrage of bullets hit the vehicle, and Savery, the driver, lost control of the vehicle, causing it to run off the road and into a lamppost in some bushes.
Of the many shots fired, one bullet pierced Gillett’s head. When the police arrived, they observed the car, a gold Escort, bearing license plate D – 4507, off the road.
Also, they saw Gillett’s motionless body slouched inside the car. Also observed inside the car were blood stains. Police say Gillett died on the scene.
Gillett’s body was transported to the morgue; meanwhile, Savery and Cal were transported to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in a serious condition.
Today, a family is left to grieve the death of their beloved, whose murder, they believe, was uncalled for. According to the family, the only reason Gillett had become a passenger of that vehicle was that she was anxious to get home to her two children and common-law-husband, Andrew Williams. All she wanted was a straight passage home.
At around 7:31 p.m., minutes before the incident, Williams received a text message from Gillett saying, “When a reach home a wan call yo.” [7:31 p.m.] 15/10/10. Now, Williams, who was planning to propose to Gillett, says that message is the only thing he has to hold on to.
“She text me 7:31 and told me she was coming home to me. Like about 15 minutes I called back the phone and the police came to the phone. I knew something was wrong.
“She was rushing to come home to us and that is why she hitchhiked.
“I just ironed her uniform and cleaned her shoes that Friday morning, not knowing she would not come back home to me,” said Williams.
Gillett’s brother, Lincoln Miguel, is today also devastated at the news of his sister’s murder. Miguel, who had a very close relationship with Gillett, told Amandala this morning, “My sister, first of all, she was a loving person — a person who is always showing that she has a lot of ambition. I do not know why or what happened with this incident.
“I am going through a lot of pain and agony. Me and my sister were very close. Every time I come here, she always welcomes me.
“It was a thing that was very shocking to me. It was very, very shocking at the time I got the news from one of my family members that they had just shot my sister in a vehicle that was coming down from prison. We were not expecting to lose our sister! She does not trouble anyone – from work to home every day. Take care of her kids,” Miguel said.
According to some sources, the bus that takes the officers to and from work was not working that night, so Gillett hitched a ride. (But according to other sources, the bus was operating that night, and was actually in front of the car.)
Her family believes that Gillett was not the intended target, but that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gillett’s body now awaits a post-mortem at the KHMH.
Savery and Cal, we understand, are in a stable condition from the gunshots they had suffered.
Savery’s family does not wish to comment on the incident; neither would they provide us with Savery’s photograph. They confirmed, however, that Savery, a father of 9, is in a stable condition.