| Peace Icon Michael Lunan Murdered |
By Fabian Ledgister, Freelance Reporter
May 14, 2007
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| The countdown has begun for the 4th Annual Turks & Caicos Music and Cultural Festival set to take place Monday, July 30 through Monday, August 6. The excitement is beginning to build as this year’s festival brings some of the world’s biggest international superstars to perform in the Islands. |
The music industry is grieving the loss of one of its popular figures, Michael Lunan, 45, after he and another man were gunned down at a dance in Maverley, yesterday morning.
Lunan, worked at Solid Agency, the booking agency for artistes such as Bounty Killer and Wayne Marshall and |
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| the promoters of the popular annual event Fully Loaded. |
| Police report that about 4:30 a.m., residents heard explosions and called the police. Upon their arrival, two men were seen suffering from gunshot wounds along Stow Road in the community. They were taken to the Kingston Public Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. |
The other deceased man has been identified as 18-year-old Andrew Smith, otherwise called 'Pong' of Headley Avenue (Drews Land). |
| Eyewitnesses to the shooting, which occurred on a netball field, where a dance, Early Sundays, had been temporarily relocated, said that Lunan was the target of the attack, and that the teenage victim was caught in the crossfire. |
| "Right now it (murders) jus' gwaan an' a 20 different name wi a get, suh wi nah get di real truth fi now," said a community member. |
| A grieving family member of Lunan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, sobbed uncontrollably as she tried to speak with VibeOne Media team. |
| "Mikey deh right yah so yesterday a seh mi soon bring up di family, an' him split up 1,000 dolla buy di pikney dem cream an' sweetie. Nobody nuh keep more treat fi di pikney dan Mikey. Nobody nuh call up di peace ina Maverley more dan Mikey. A him mek top can come a bottom, an' bottom guh a top," grieved the family member. |
| "Wi nah seh a top side man do it, caa wi nuh know, an Mikey wouldn't waa di war weh him fight fi stop fi start again over him. Suh wi not blaming nobody," the relative added. |
| Lunan was featured recently in a STAR publication titled, 'Maverley unites through music', as a key figure in the violence prevention initiatives being conducted in the area, including the establishment of the Maverley Dispute Resolution Committee, of which he was a member. |
Another family member who said he answered a call Bounty Killer made to Lunan's phone after the incident relayed the conversation to VibeOne Media.
"Bounty call pon Lunan phone fi fin' out from Lunan who dead an' if him can forward ina di community. When mi tell him a Mikey dem kill, him seh a lie an' mi |
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| fi hang up di phone an' gi Mikey di phone when him call back. Jus like Killer, di whole a wi ina shock still. All now mi nuh sleep," the relative said. |
| Sharon Burke, head of Solid Agency where Lunan worked for seven years, was also in shock when VibeOne Media contacted her and she could only utter: "The thing I can tell you, is that we are all in shock." |
| Sharon Williams, also an employee at Solid Agency barely voiced, "It is so unbelievable. Mikey was the life of the place. Right now we are hearing all sorts of reasons why it happened. We'll miss Mikey a lot. If we don't see Mikey by 2 o'clock we have to be calling him because we haven't laughed all day. He'll be missed terribly at press launches." |
| Williams said before Lunan died, he was planning a peace concert called 'Life Over Death' in the Marverley area and it was slated to take place on May 23. "We are going to get involved and make sure that we do everything possible to make sure the concert happens," said Williams. |
| When VibeOne Media last spoke to Lunan, he spoke of an abandoned police post in Maverley that was to be refurbished into a youth centre for the kids of Maverley. |
| In the interview Lunan had stated, "We desire to use this building as a community development centre as all previous community centres have since been closed down in 1998. I could count seven youth clubs, like Say One, Movement Star, and Progressive. By 2000, none nuh exist, an' dem a wonder why di place a run suh." |
| The Duhaney Park police will be probing the circumstances surrounding the double murder. |
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