Mother mourns only daughter killed in double murder in Olympic Gardens

When Maurine Haynes-Taylor sent her 21-year-old daughter to a nearby mall in Portmore, St Catherine on Tuesday, she expected her to return home with a few groceries, proof that her insurance had been paid and two patties.

Instead, hours later, she was racing to meet police officers in St Andrew, clinging to the hope that her child was alive.

By the end of the day, that hope had been shattered.

Brianna Taylor, a student of Portmore Community College, was shot and killed alongside 22-year-old inDrive operator Michael Angrin of Braeton, Portmore, in St Catherine. 

According to police reports, the two were gunned down by unknown assailant(s) while in a vehicle on Mall Road in Olympic Gardens, St Andrew at approximately 3:50 pm on Tuesday. A third person in the vehicle escaped unharmed. 

Detectives assigned to the Major Investigation Division (MID) are investigating the double murder.

Speaking through tears during an interview with The Gleaner on Wednesday at their Portmore home, Maurine recounted the ordinary moments that preceded the unimaginable tragedy.

“I sent her to the mall to get some stuff, pay my insurance and buy two patties for me,” she said.

The distraught mom recounted their last encounter.

 “I cooked some rice and stew fish and sat down to eat. The Argentina match finished and I said, ‘You’re not going to the mall again?’ she said, ‘Mommy, I’m getting ready, I’m getting ready’, and then she went.”

Those were the last words she would hear from her only daughter.

Maurine said Brianna never told her she intended to travel outside the area.

“No. She didn’t give me that indication. She was going to the mall,” she said. “I was so shocked when I got the call that she was at that place.”

THE CALL

The first indication that something was wrong came through relatives after Maurine’s son, who lives overseas, was contacted.

Soon after, a police officer telephoned her.

“When the officer called me and said they have my daughter, I asked, ‘My daughter is with you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I’m coming’.”

The officer told her to meet them at Tranquility funeral home.

“He just told me he had her with them and she was okay,” the mother of three recalled.

But when she arrived, the truth unfolded before her.

“That is when hell broke loose with me,” she said quietly. “I almost lost it.”

As investigators piece together what happened, Maurine is still trying to understand how her daughter came to be in the vehicle where she was killed.

She said the man in the vehicle was someone who had been around before.

“Sometimes they come here. I do a little business and my daughter would help me serve customers,” she said.

But something about him had always troubled her.

“There was this guy there. I wasn’t feeling him,” the mom said.

Maurine believes Brianna may have changed her plans after leaving home.

“Me send her to the mall… some phone conversation must have been going on, and she take her inDrive and went to him,” she said.

She remains haunted by one question.

“Why kill my daughter?” the shaken mom asked, struggling to understand why Brianna became a victim. “She wasn’t the one they wanted.”

Beyond the grief, Maurine is mourning the future that has been stolen.

Brianna had recently taken a break from her studies after working for about a year.

“She said her brain tired,” Maurine recalled. “I wanted her to finish, but she said she needed a break.”

The plan was for her to return to school in September.

Before then, she had already begun thinking about starting her own business.

“She started doing business in school,” her mother said. “Then she wanted to start a business getting products from China.”

THE LAST CHILD 

Maurine shared that Brianna was the youngest of her children and her only daughter.

“She’s the last one,” she said. “I love all my children so much, but I have one daughter.”

She smiled briefly as she remembered how excited the family had been when Brianna was born.

“Everybody rejoiced with me,” she said.

“Everybody rejoiced.”

At the small family business, Brianna had become a favourite among customers.

“They would come to the shop and ask, ‘Where is the pretty girl? She has to serve me’,” Marine recalled. 

“She would laugh with them and joke with them. Everybody loved her.”

The family affectionately called her ‘Teddy Bear’, a nickname that still echoes painfully through the home to which she would no longer return.

Maurine said her daughter had earned six Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects and was working towards completing her tertiary education.

Now, instead of preparing to return to classes in September, her family is preparing to bury her.

As the police continue their investigations, Maurine said she is left holding on to memories of the daughter she sent to the mall for what should have been an ordinary errand, never imagining it would be the last time she would see her alive.

Investigators told The Gleaner that it was a gruesome scene and the brazen attack had left many people with a bitter taste.

“Three persons were allegedly in the vehicle and the shooter reportedly put the gun through the window and opened fire… A third person who was unharmed drove the injured persons to the nearby police station… they were assisted to hospital where death was confirmed,” the senior cop told The Gleaner.

The police said a manhunt is on for the killer(s).

- Andre Williams

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