RELATIVES of the four men slain in the Double Diamond Gaming Lounge on Monday pleaded yesterday with witnesses to come forward and tell the police what they saw.

Eyewitnesses told reporters Monday that the four – Dijon Powell, 20; Davian Kerr, 19; William Wilberforce, 28; and Lynchmore Forbes – were slain by a Jamaica Defence Force corporal. Four others, including the soldier, were injured in the incident which sent dozens of scared patrons at a birthday party scrambling to save their lives.

Relatives of the men begged persons who were at the club during the shooting to tell what they know after the police reported that witnesses were slow in coming forward.

“The people need to come forward or this man is going to walk free. Please don’t let those boys die in vain,” said a relative of Dijon Powell, who was one of the selectors at the party.

Another of Powell’s relatives was baffled as he questioned the motive for the killing of the four.

“Everybody who him kill him know them. The two brothers live on the same street as him in Pembroke Hall. The other two go to Double Diamond and play pool all the time. Dijon played at about six dance that him keep and we all go to his grandmother nine night a week ago. Him know who he wanted to kill but we can’t figure out why,” Kerry Miller, Powell’s elder cousin, told the Observer yesterday.

A man who claimed to be an eyewitness said the music selector smiled with the soldier before he was killed.

“Him say ‘Soljie a me. Me and you a nuh friend? Whe you a shoot mi fah’? But the soldier never business, him just shoot the little youth same way,” the man said.

The eyewitnesses claimed that the soldier had carefully calculated his actions as he was allegedly involved in an altercation with Wilberforce earlier and had waited patiently for a policeman who was in attendance at the party to leave.

Wilberforce and Forbes were the first two who were shot before the soldier unloaded his gun and shot the two selectors and injured Kerr’s brother who was yesterday listed as stable in hospital.

The eyewitnesses claimed, too, that the soldier shot himself before he handed himself over to the police.

Despite several claims that the soldier was taken from the police by JDF soldiers and whisked away from the Boulevard Shopping Centre, the police yesterday refuted the allegations.

“That is a false story. My information is that he was taken to the hospital by the police,” head of Serious and Organised Crime, Les Green told the Observer.

The soldier – a member of the coast guard – was said to be stable yesterday and was under police guard, Green said.

No charges have been laid against him.