Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Fol­low­ing two hits on his life, Mar­lon Lynch, the man wrong­ful­ly ac­cused of killing nine-year-old Cy­on Paul yes­ter­day went in­to hid­ing af­ter he sur­ren­dered to the San Fer­nan­do po­lice and was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased af­ter he was ques­tioned.

But in­sist­ing he was nev­er re­spon­si­ble for the child's mur­der, Lynch said he was fond of Cy­on and would nev­er have pulled the trig­ger which end­ed the lit­tle boy's life.

As ru­mours spread of his al­leged in­volve­ment in the mur­der, Lynch, 35, went to the San Fer­nan­do Homi­cide Bu­reau af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day and spoke to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

He left the po­lice sta­tion around 3.30 pm af­ter which he spoke to the T&T Guardian about the ter­ror he had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing since the ru­mour spread that he was re­spon­si­ble for the child's death.

Lynch re­vealed that two hits were made on his life over the past week. The first oc­curred on the night Cy­on died last Fri­day and the sec­ond on Sun­day night when he was al­most ran off the road by un­known gun­men who fired a vol­ley of gun­shots be­hind his Nis­san B14 car.

Lynch said the bul­let which killed Cy­on was prob­a­bly meant for him and his part­ner af­ter they had a dis­agree­ment with an­oth­er group of men some time ago.

Re­call­ing the events sur­round­ing Cy­on's mur­der, Lynch said he and his friends were lim­ing on the road­side near the Torque Turn bar at South­ern Main Road, La Ro­maine, last Fri­day night when "wild bul­lets" start­ed to fire.

"I don't know where it came from. Maybe some­one was hid­ing and start­ed to fire or maybe it came from some­one who was in a car. I don't know but when I heard the gun­shots I start­ed to run," Lynch said.

He said thats was prob­a­bly why peo­ple blamed him for the child's mur­der.

"Peo­ple are al­ways pass­ing and shoot­ing my part­ner's house, so maybe when the oth­er team heard we lim­ing there at the bar they set up their net­work and start to shoot at us. The lit­tle youth man get stick up in the al­ter­ca­tion. We heard three ex­plo­sions. I re­al­ly think those bul­lets could have been meant for us but I am not sure."

Say­ing he on­ly want­ed to clear his name, Lynch said he was re­lieved when he spoke with the po­lice yes­ter­day.

"I know they be­lieved me be­cause they spoke with oth­er peo­ple as well. They told me they will do more in­ves­ti­ga­tions and get back to me," Lynch added.

He said on Sun­day he went to a Reg­gae Sun­day lime in Cou­va when he was at­tacked.

"When I done lime and come down the road, they fol­lowed me down the high­way and I de­cide to take the fast road to drop off my friend.

"We end­ed up on the Tasker Road head­ing to Princes Town and then sud­den­ly a white To­toya Axio pulled out and block my car com­plete­ly. I see gun­men start to jump out and I graze way their car and they start­ed to shoot at my car. I drove straight to Princes Town sta­tion. That was around 2 am," Lynch said.

Say­ing he was go­ing in­to hid­ing in the wake of the at­tacks, Lynch said he hoped the po­lice could of­fer him some pro­tec­tion.

"I have to lay low. I work taxi and now I can­not go and work taxi be­cause of this. I want peo­ple to un­der­stand that it was not me who killed that lit­tle boy. I have three chil­dren and they are not with me. I know vig­i­lantes want to kill me," Lynch said.

Say­ing he was wor­ried about the safe­ty of his fam­i­ly, Lynch said: "They have nowhere to go. I want the po­lice to pro­tect us."

Re­mem­ber­ing Cy­on, whose fu­ner­al was yes­ter­day, Lynch de­scribed him as a "nice good man­nered lit­tle boy.

"To hear that this hap­pened to him was re­al­ly sad. He was in­no­cent. He got caught in the gun­fire. He was a favourite and every­body liked him. I was nev­er in­volved in that and I want po­lice to know this," he said.

Princes Town po­lice con­firmed yes­ter­day that they re­ceived a re­port of a shoot­ing along the M2 Ring Road.

Paul, a First Stan­dard pupil of the La Ro­maine RC School, lived with his moth­er, Safiya Williams, at By­ron Street, La Ro­maine. Around 9 pm last Fri­day, he was walk­ing to a hot­dog stall near his home, in the com­pa­ny of a 13-year-old cousin, when he was shot.