WHEN members of the murderous King Valley Gang turned their guns on each other and began wiping out family members of those within its ranks as a means of intimidation the entity began splintering, one gang member turned State informant testified in the Home Circuit Court yesterday.

Eight alleged members of that gang — Carlington Godfrey, alias Tommy; Lindell Powell, alias Lazarus; Rannaldo McKennis, otherwise know as Ratty; Derval Williams, also called Lukie; Hopeton Sankey, alias Bigga; Christon Grant, alias Ecoy; Copeland Sankey, also known as Tupac; and Sean Suckra, also called Elder — are charged in an indictment containing 11 counts and are accused of conspiring to commit murder, rape and robbery with aggravation from as early as 2013.

According to the 23-year-old individual who has been testifying via live video link from a remote location since Tuesday this week, he had been wrestling with the thought of turning himself in to the police following a vicious multiple murder in the parish in which he was named as a person of interest, but when several more of his own family members were killed later that same period he took the plunge.

“There was a killing in Westmoreland; seven persons were killed, including a child. My name was in the [media] as a person of interest [that] I should turn myself in. I was terrified. I called my uncle and auntie and talk to them about it; it take me a while to turn in myself… but I did,” he told the court.

When asked the deciding factor to rat on his fellow gang members he said, “They did want to have me killed because of a gun ‘Evil Boss’ [former crony] dead leff an give mi. Evil Boss was shot after my father and sister were killed.”

He added: “The two uncles who were killed, they were the ones who got me into (name of parish omitted) to stay with my other uncle who called the police and they came and took me….,” said the individual who cannot be identified by order of the court.

Earlier the prosecution led evidence that several of the eight men now on trial murdered family members of their cronies in a bid to keep them from squealing about other murders they had witnessed.

One of those incidents, the court heard, was related to the killing of an individual named ‘Ika’ whom the witness on Thursday told the court he had been threatened by. He alleged that in response to that threat he and several others of the gang went looking for Ika and in the course of that search raped and robbed Ika’s sister. When they eventually caught up with Ika, the witness claimed that he was not present but had been told of the brutal end he met.

“I got a call from Tommy. He told me that him, Lazarus, Ratty, Owen, Elder and Catman went up to bush [ganja farm] and them chop him (Ika) up and shoot him and stab him with a fork. Him seh Elder tek out him eyes dem and them light him a fire and Owen tek up back di spent shell dem. Tommy told me he was sorry I wasn’t there to witness everything,” the witness told the court.

He went on to allege that Tommy also told him that he had ordered a hit on Lazarus’s father to prevent him from using the information about his role in that murder to betray him. However, Powell’s lawyer Abina Morris objected to the evidence, arguing “there is nothing on the indictment that speaks to the evidence my friend is trying to elicit. It is not relevant, it is prejudicial to my client. I hear the witness talking about my client talking about a hit on somebody’s father; there is nothing in the indictment to support this”.

The prosecution, in responding, argued that the statement of the witness “would go to support the killing of Ika”.

“The witness is saying Tommy told him that the only person who could give the evidence on him in respect of count five is Lazarus (Lindell Powell). Tommy is saying the only person who could be a witness against him as it relates to the murder of Ika is Lazarus. Tommy sought to bring pressure on Lazarus because Lazarus is the person who could tell on him. He ordered the hit on Lazarus’s father in order to silence him,” a senior prosecutor explained.

Trial judge, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, in questioning the prosecution’s intent for and the relevance of what the witness shared, however, prevented the witness from going on to say further about that incident.

In the meantime, the witness yesterday told the court that the gang, from its meeting place at a shop in Kings Valley, would “hang out and talk about what we do on the road; it’s like a headquarters where we gather and plan our crimes that we do on the road or also talk about them when we finish”.

Earlier this week, when asked to outline the crimes committed by the gang, the witness listed shootings, robberies, scamming, rapes and ‘hitman work’.