KAREN Campbell was still giving praises to God on Friday, two days after her son-in-law, Omar Collymore, and three others were convicted for the 2018 murder of her daughter Simone Campbell-Collymore and taxi operator Winston Walters.

The others convicted with Collymore on Wednesday for the double murder were Michael Adams, Dwayne Pink and Shaquilla Edwards.

On Friday, Campbell told the Jamaica Observer that prior to the verdict being handed down she spent 45 minutes pouring her heart out to God, begging Him for victory and not to allow “any of the men to walk free after what they did”.

“When I prayed I said, ‘God, you have to come inna this. Mi need you like now’,” Campbell told the Observer.

“I asked the prosecutor for a little room where I could go and lock away in. She took me upstairs and she found a small courtroom and I just dialled heaven, and trust me man, God answered. I spent 45 minutes in the chamber, in the upper room of prayer, and dialled heaven and I see God answered my prayer,” added Campbell.

While Campbell expressed gratitude to the prosecution team, including the police, who helped to secure the men’s conviction, she was certain that it was God who answered the family’s prayers and used the prosecutors and cops to get justice for them.

She said that God would not have allowed the family to be destroyed as was expressed by Collymore during a counselling session in 2017 when the couple was experiencing serious marital problems.

During the trial, testimony was given that at that meeting Collymore said that he would live to see the Campbell family crumble.

“The family has not crumbled and the family could not have crumbled because we trust a big and mighty God, a mega God, so Omar’s words could not come to pass,” the mother said.

Karen Campbell and her husband Wayne Campbell. Karen and Wayne are the parents of Simone Campbell-Collymore..

“I won’t even say that I will live to see him crumble. We don’t want to see any of them crumble. The most we want to see is that they get salvation. You cannot use evil and fight evil. You have to use good and overcome evil. I am well pleased with what transpired throughout the whole case, especially with the judge, who was very thorough. He delivered his summation with accuracy and diligence. I want to also applaud the jurors, who listened keenly throughout the whole trial and the judgment that was handed down by them,” said Campbell.

“I would like to acknowledge and say a big thanks to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), especially DPP Paula Llewellyn and senior prosecutor Andrea Martin-Swaby. As my husband would say, ‘she was like a pit bull who was determined’. I see where she is definitely coming from Ms Paula Llewellyn’s umbrella.

“Also, we want to big up her assistant, Carolyn Wright. I want to big up the police [investigators],” added Campbell as she urged young women to be careful when deciding to tie the knot.

“We want young ladies out there to learn from this and run the man dem background. We didn’t know that we could have done all of that to ensure that when you are taking up a man you know what they are doing before you end up in a deep relationship and lose your life like this,” Campbell said, apparently alluding to an incident in Collymore’s past.

Campbell-Collymore and Walters were shot dead by two men travelling on motorcycles on January 2, 2018 on Stanley Terrace in Red Hills, St Andrew.

The two men who pulled the trigger that day were identified by the police as Wade Blackwood and a now deceased Corporate Area don who went by the name Jim.

Jim was killed during a confrontation with members of the security forces while Blackwood was captured by the police.

Pall-bearers take the casket with the body of Simone Campbell-Collymore from the church after the service of thanksgiving for her life in 2018.

He confessed to being one of the two shooters in the double murder and was given a 35-year sentence for each of the murders and eight years for the gun he used in the killings.

However, Blackwood got a reduction in his sentence to 20 years before being eligible for parole after agreeing to become a prosecution witness.

According to Blackwood, Collymore was the mastermind in the murder, Adams was the contractor while Pink and Edwards were co-conspirators and facilitators of the crime.

The four convicted men are scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.