Gunfire shatters Pleasantville evening as labourer is killed

SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

A hail of gun­fire shat­tered the qui­et of Pleas­antville on Sat­ur­day evening, as a masked gun­man chased down and killed a 37-year-old labour­er be­fore flee­ing in a wait­ing get­away car.

The de­ceased has been iden­ti­fied as Mar­lon Williams of Ixo­ra Lane, Pleas­antville.

Ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary re­ports, around 5:30 p.m., Williams was lim­ing with a neigh­bour in the front yard of his home when a white Toy­ota Aqua pulled up.

A gun­man wear­ing a cam­ou­flage face mask and hood­ed jack­et ex­it­ed the right rear pas­sen­ger door and opened fire.

Williams ran to­wards the back of the house and along a track lead­ing in­to near­by bush­es, while his neigh­bour fled in­side the house. The gun­man pur­sued Williams, con­tin­u­ing to shoot at him as he ran through Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve and in­to Cedar Dri­ve.

Rel­a­tives said Williams fell and broke his leg while try­ing to es­cape. The gun­man even­tu­al­ly caught up with him and shot him in the head be­fore flee­ing the scene in the wait­ing ve­hi­cle.

Williams’ body was lat­er found in a shal­low drain in a bushy area off Cedar Dri­ve.

Of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Po­lice Sta­tion, the Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion Three, and oth­er South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to the scene.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.