POLICE say they have information linking the elusive Joel Andem, Jamaica’s most wanted man, to the recent spate of gun murders in the Kintyre area of St Andrew that have shocked and frightened residents.

According to the police, Andem, who leads the ruthless Gideon Warriors gang, has direct or indirect involvement in the deaths of Carlton Turner, Deno Williams, Phillip Warren, Dave “Ice” Melbourne, Augustus Morrison, and Jermiane Fender, all of whom were shot dead over the past two weeks.

The killings, the police say, are a combination of “donmanship, politics and criminality”.

“It is just a matter of time before we catch up with him (Andem),” said the deputy superintendent of police for the St Andrew division, Dalton Wright.

He added that Andem, who police accuse of committing more than 20 murders and several rapes, has been spotted in Kintyre driving a pick-up truck and sometimes a jeep.

Wright, acknowledging that Kintyre residents are afraid to provide the police with information to pinpoint Andem, argued that “an outlaw cannot remain for long in the open if the people don’t want him to”.

“People can feel safe coming to us,” the superintendent pleaded, “and if they give us information, we will protect them.”

Andem, also known as ‘Lean Head’ and ‘Bald Head,’ came to prominence one year ago when police offered $100,000 for information leading to his capture.

There was speculation earlier this year that Andem had fled to the United Kingdom, but top police officials insist he’s been in Jamaica all along. Kintyre is known to be a favourite haunt of his.

A few weeks after the bounty was put on Andem’s head, he and his gang captured nationwide attention when Television Jamaica aired a videotape showing them in their camp. The hide-out is suspected to be somewhere in the hills of east rural St Andrew.

Last December, alleged Gideon Warriors members Alrick “Tata” Simpson, 32, and Kevin “Ninja” Hunter, 21, were killed in a gunfight with a licensed firearm holder when they tried to extort money from a builder at a construction site on Braemar Avenue in New Kingston.

A source close to the criminal underworld told the Sunday Observer that Andem attended the funeral of the slain gang members.

“Joel dress up like one a di grave-digger man dem and take up shovel and throw mortar pan the man dem grave,” the source said. “Whole heap a police did deh deh a watch out fi him but him slip them neatly.”

To date, police have arrested at least five members of the feared gang, but Andem has continued to outsmart them.

Among the murders that Andem has been implicated in are those of District Constable James Thomas, 56; gas station owner Sylvia Edwards and her brother-in-law, Everett Edwards; and PNP activist Pearl Brascoe.