Police appeal for witnesses in killing of retired prison officer

Shortly before 8:30PM, Monday 25 April, police and emergency services were dispatched by the 9-1-1 Communications Centre to a report of a shooting incident at a commercial premises at 190 School Road, George Town. On arrival at the address, the police located a 62 year old male lying unresponsive on the floor with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to his head. He has since been named as Harry Elliott, a retired prison officer who is married, with grownup children and who is a resident of George Town South Emergency services attended the location and the man was transported to the Cayman Islands Hospital where he was pronounced deceased by the doctor on duty.
Police Commissioner Derek Byrne appealed to the public for help in finding out anything about the killing, so that these dangerous criminals might get caught as quickly as possible. “The appeal we are making tonight is to the community. The premises on 190 School Road is in a very densely populated area, and there were a lot of people around, but we don’t have a lot of witness cooperation from the community and we are anxious to get as much feedback as possible. From CCTV footage we can see Mr. Elliott entering the premises at 8.02 PM, and at 8.08 PM we can see two males running from the scene on Eastern Avenue School Road towards McField Square, so there is a six minute period from the time of entry to the suspects leaving the scene. We believe there were a large number of people in and around that particular area at that time, and so we are making an appeal to members of the community to speak to us and to provide any information you can to assist us in our investigation, no matter how insignificant it might appear, please report it to our incident room number 649-2930” There is also a confidential tip line, at 949-7777, or information can be submitted through Cayman Crime Stoppers.

“There is a large amount of CCTV evidence involved,” Commissioner Byrne said. “The preliminary indications are it was a robbery that went wrong. We have a group of six persons, loosely associated, operating in smaller groups and committing the robberies.

We see a common feature, a thread coming through in that stolen cars are used, they are abandoned in close proximity to the robbery and then the suspects leave in a different vehicle. We have a number of strands of various investigations that are ongoing at the moment, and that’s where we stand in relation to the robberies. Ten of them have involved firearms since the start of the year,” Commissioner Byrne commented. None of the businesses located at the premises reported that any money was stolen from them, and Mr. Elliott was not robbed, either.