Should DPP Be On St Lucia ‘Most Wanted’ List?

Mary Williams, mother of Kimberly De Leon, who was fatally shot at her residence last October, has more than once publicly accused the authorities of being negligent in their duties regarding the investigation of her daughter’s homicide. Williams has suggested a clear conflict of interest and that what could have been solved a long time ago is being deliberately delayed.  “I’m sick and I’m tired of their attitude,” Williams said of the police on Wednesday. “Their approach is not good. It’s not that the police cannot work; favouritism is to blame. There’s a lot of ‘you scratch my back now and I’ll scratch yours down the line.’ So it’s a lot of crookedness going on in there, and in order for them to solve crime they have to be honest and straight. They have to do things the right way.”Last Friday, the police commissioner Severin Monchery told this reporter: “We have received all samples that went out. Everything has been tested. We have done the assessment of those results and it’s just a matter of putting the finishing touches to the file to have it submitted to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. As we speak, it may very well be completed. It is just for it to go to the DPP, who would go through the matter and direct us as to whatever action he thinks is necessary.”

Williams has pointed out that the commissioner’s latest update is hardly new. In January Monchery had said, with reference to samples from the scene of the crime: “Up to this morning I spoke to the Commissioner in St. Kitts. Those samples have been analysed and the results are waiting to be picked up. We are supposed to be collecting those results on Thursday. An officer is supposed to be going up there to return by the weekend. So by next week I should be in a position to give you an update as to the analyses done.” Five months later, the update remains the same.

Two weeks ago, Williams blasted the police over the airwaves for “turning me around like a top”. She claimed she was being passed around from one senior officer to another and getting no useful answers. This is what Monchery said last week in reply: “Since Kimberly’s mother came to Saint Lucia we’ve had a very good rapport. We’ve had a very good relationship. As a matter of fact I met with her on a number of occasions and I briefed her fortnightly. I proceeded on leave and while I was away I took a few calls from her. However, in the circumstances there were certain things I could not have briefed her on, so I referred her to then Acting Commissioner of Police Milton Desir. As to what transpired from there, I do not know.”

Williams confirmed to the STAR that she did speak to the vacationing commissioner while he was overseas. As for his “good relationship” assertion, Williams said: “Tell that man to shut up, just shut up.” She also claimed that in recent times her calls to the commissioner, the designated investigator, and other senior officers had all gone unanswered. “The question,” she said, “is: To whom do I turn next? Who will tell me what’s going on with my daughter’s homicide?”  

That man ought to be DPP Daarsrean Greene who, according to the commissioner, is by now in possession of the Kimberly De Leon case file.

Alas, Williams’ attempts to speak with him have so far been futile. “All they keep telling me is he’s not in office. When I ask to make an appointment to speak with him, they promise but never call back. Up to a day like today, nothing. But I will find a way to handle that.”

This reporter has, over the last several months, received from the DPP’s office the same runaround that Williams and several others in her position constantly complain about! Williams had been resident in the US until her daughter’s death. She vows to stay in Saint Lucia until Kimberly’s killer has been found and justice is served. –