During the 1940s, when black Jamaicans were, for the most part, living in abject poverty and squalid conditions, and the colonial master ruled with an iron fist, gunmen were a rarity. But out of those social conditions rose the first and perhaps the most infamous of the long list of fugitives who have wreaked havoc on the country.

His name was Vincent ‘Ivanhoe’ Martin, popularly known as ‘Rhygin’, dubbed by the press as ‘The Two-Gun Killer’.

So popular was Rhygin’s exploits that the movie The Harder They Come was made about his life. The movie helped to launch reggae music internationally and has, to date, earned the most money at the box offices for a local production.

Rhygin was born in Linstead, St Catherine, but like many young persons at the time, moved to Kingston in search of a better life.

He was described as a short man who walked with a ‘bop’ and who wore heels to make him appear taller. He was said to have teeth missing, a brisk walk, looked over his shoulder every few steps and spoke fluently with an effeminate voice.

Rhygin would grow to become admired by the criminal underworld and was said to be an avid reader of detective novels.

He eventually settled in western Kingston and, as a teenager, had his fair share of run-ins with the law. In 1938, when he was just 14, Rhygin was sentenced in the Kingston Resident Magistrate’s Court to a dozen strokes from the tamarind switch for what was then described as a vicious attack.

Two years later, Rhygin was again on the wrong side of the law. This time he was found guilty of wounding and opted to pay a fine of 30 shillings instead of serving a 30-day sentence.

Three years later, in December of 1943, he was again charged and convicted for shop-breaking. Rhygin served a six-month jail sentence in the St Catherine District Prison for the offence.

After his release, Rhygin was off the police radar for three years.

He then began to make a name for himself in the criminal underworld where he earned the early monikers ‘Alan Ladd’ and ‘Captain Midnight’. Eventually, he formed a gang and became the leader.

But on February 6, 1946, Rhygin was again jailed for two counts of burglary and larceny and served another two years.

But his troubles were just beginning as he was also ordered to serve an additional six months for illegal possession of a firearm as well as another five years on a burglary charge, which saw him serving seven years in total.

But after two years of incarceration, Rhygin escaped from the maximum security General Penitentiary.

It was after his escape that he became the menace to society for which he is well remembered in the history of crime in Jamaica.

One retired police officer described Rhygin as the only true bad man this country has ever seen.

“I was but a little boy when he was creating mayhem, but he was very well liked by the common people who saw him as somewhat of a folk hero. Even police officers were afraid of the very mention of his name,” the retiree told the Sunday Observer.

Rhygin rose to national infamy after he attacked and killed a policeman and woman and injured two other cops during a shoot-out at the Carib Hotel at Regent Street in Hannah Town.

According to a report in the Jamaica Times in September 1948, Rhygin was holed up in the hotel room when police from the Criminal Investigation Department, acting on a tip, cordoned off the premises and closed in on the room where he was staying with a female companion.

Dressed only in his underpants, Rhygin is reported to have barged from the room and took on the officers. During the shoot-out, Detective Corporal Edgar Lewis was fatally shot and his colleague, Detective H E Earle, as well as an ex-sergeant Gallimore, were injured before the gunman managed to escape. The report also stated that Rhygin was shot and injured during the vicious gunbattle.

“According to a police statement issued yesterday morning, it is believed that the wanted man escaped from the hotel to a block of tenements bounded by Regent Street, Trinity Lane, Blount Street and Dumfries Street,” a newspaper report said.

“A call for sufficient police was made to form a cordon around the block, but before adequate numbers assembled for the purpose, a running gunbattle, reminiscent of Chicago gangster days, ensued and ex-sergeant Gallimore of the Jamaica Constabulary, who had been called out of his bed to aid regular police in the capture of the dangerous convict, was struck by a bullet and together with Constable Earle and Detective Corporal Lewis, who was then dying, was conveyed to the Kingston Public Hospital,” the report stated.

Even though the police maintained a cordon around the block of tenements until daylight, Rhygin managed to escape.

Detective Corporal Edgar Lewis’ funeral was well-attended and his killing drew the condemnation of head of state and national hero Alexander Bustamante, who was a pall bearer at the ceremony.

Rhygin escaped, but was not satisfied that he had shot three cops killing one, and in a few hours sought out his acquaintance, Eric ‘Mosspan’ Goldson, who he thought had given the police information about his whereabouts.

Rhygin reportedly went to a premises at 257 Spanish Town Road where Lucilda Tibby Young and her two friends, Estella Brown and Iris Bailey were sleeping.

Young and Goldson were close friends. Rhygin is said to have entered the room, and on not finding Goldson, shot Young once in the chest and killed her. He also shot and injured the two other women, one of whom went under a bed to escape his wrath.

The following day, the authorities cancelled all vacation leave for regular cops and detectives and posted a £200 reward for his capture, dead or alive.

But Rhygin seemed to be snubbing his nose at the authorities and wrote a threatening letter to a police officer at the Half-Way-Tree Police Station, Detective Sergeant Scott.

“I have an arsenal of 29 shots and I am satisfied that I have made history for the criminal element in Jamaica. Don’t think that I am going to kill myself because this will only serve to spoil my great record. But I hope that Detective Scott will train his men some more. I am going to show the police force what is lacking and what I can do,” the letter, which was published in the Jamaica Times, stated.

Rhygin had just began to chart his trail of blood, and a few days after shot and killed 48-year-old higgler Jonathan Thomas in front of his scared wife as he walked along Waltham Park Road in Kingston just before dawn on Friday, September 3, 1948.

That same day, Rhygin went to an acquaintance’s home at 59 1/2 Spanish Town Road and called him out of his home.

When the man, identified by the Jamaica Times as Selvyn Maxwell, came out, Rhygin accosted him with the intention to take his life. Maxwell was lucky and escaped with his life after he overpowered the fugitive and disarmed him. Rhygin, however, managed to steal Maxwell’s car and escaped a police dragnet which was closing in on him.

Rhygin’s fame grew in the city’s slums and in a boastful moment he posed with his two revolvers for a photographer whom he knew. The picture eventually wound up in the hands of the press and was published. This seemed to anger the gunman and he wrote a letter to the Daily Gleaner threatening Detective Scott, Eric ‘Mosspan’ Goldson, Selvyn Maxwell and the photographer, who was only identified as ‘Mr Brown’.

The letter also gave an account of the hotel shooting incident from which the infamous fugitive managed to escape.

“I decided to make a dash. I ran to the door with my pistol in my hand. I did not even have time to reach for my close (clothes). I looked outside. I heard the sound of another shot. I see the men mean to make the end of me tonight, but I intend to carry someone with me. At that time I only had five shots with me….I put myself outside. I was hit in my right shoulder. That did not make much.

“One shot fired from this crowd hit the butt of my gun. I fired back. I think I saw every man except one man who was staggering,” the letter stated.

Six weeks had passed since Rhygin committed his first murder and by this time the police were hell bent on ridding the society of the dangerous criminal. Feeling the heat, Rhygin retreated to a hideout in the bushes at Ferry in St Catherine and laid low.

But members of the public, encouraged by the £200 reward for his capture, tipped off the cops who organised a raid on his hideout. A large contingent of police went into the marshland, but he reportedly escaped in the nick of time after one of his sentries, who was posted in a high tree, saw the cops and alerted him. When the police reached his lair, they found only supplies of food, a bunch of keys and a coat.

Meanwhile, Rhygin’s mother Francella Blackwin and her husband, Howard Blackwin were held dynamiting fish and were collared by the police and charged with accessory to murder.

With the walls of justice closing in on him, Rhygin organised with two fishermen from the Greenwich Town fishing beach to take him to Lime Cay a few days after.

However, the police were soon tipped off about his whereabouts and before he could settle in at his new lair, the cops swooped down on the Cay in the early morning hours of October 9, 1948.

Rhygin, however, had sworn never to be taken alive and fought the cops for over an hour before finally being cut down by the lawmen’s bullets.

He was shot five times in his head and several other times all over his body.

When news of Rhygin’s demise reached the streets, thousands of persons, police and civilians alike, lined the streets from the Kingston waterfront to a morgue in Kingston.

When his body, which was wrapped in a sack, arrived at the morgue, thousands more persons crammed the area to get a peek at the most infamous gunman who had caused the police to organise what was known at the time as the biggest manhunt ever.

Researched by Karyl Walker