Christmas Day will forever be a painful reminder for relatives of 29-year-old Darrington Ebanks of the tragedy they suffered when the West Bay father was shot dead in 2018.
In this month’s Cayman Compass Cold Case Files, in partnership with the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, we take a closer look at Ebanks’s murder and the investigation into the circumstances that culminated in his death.
This case is fairly recent compared to previous ones highlighted in this series, but the manager of the RCIPS Major Incident Room, Detective Constable Samantha Sillitoe, said the length of time a case remains unsolved is not the only factor when determining whether an investigation has gone cold.
“We categorise a case as being cold when it’s not fresh, it isn’t recent, and there’s possible inquiries and avenues we can take to reinvigorate the case, reactivate it,” she explained.
Argument ends in murder
Ebanks’ murder was committed three years ago, and police are seeking to close the case, she said. She believes there is evidence within the community that can help police deliver justice to those who loved him and grieve his death every day.
The crime happened in the early hours of 25 Dec. 2018, when many families were in their beds, and his sons, ages 6 and 13 at the time, were dreaming of celebrating Christmas.
Sillitoe said that, at approximately 1:15am, Ebanks was hanging out with his friends in the Boatswain Bay area of West Bay, a short distance from his home. The group of men were gathered between King Road and Fountain Road, when Ebanks and another man clashed.
“Unfortunately, it was an argument between him and another person, which just escalated, very unnecessary, very unfortunate, and it’s just left the family absolutely scarred over a simple dispute in the street,” she said.
Ebanks was shot during that argument and later died.
Sillitoe said police knew that a number of people were present at the scene when the incident happened and she believes what they saw could help crack the case, which has been codenamed ‘Operation Arcanite’.
“It’s a very close-knit community in West Bay. Most people around there all know each other, they’ve grown up together. When this incident happened… we know there were people there that saw it or saw some parts of it or they have information. There was no camera directly at the scene, so we are relying purely on eyewitnesses… [to] come forward,” she said.
Residents thought gunshots were firecrackers
Sillitoe said during the initial investigation back in 2018, witnesses reported hearing sounds but they did not think that on Christmas morning that could be gunfire.
“I think about his sons. He’s never going to see them go to school, get a job, get married. His children don’t have a dad to go fishing with, to go to the beach, to play ball. His family misses him.” Ilene Reid,
Darrington Ebanks’s mother
“Our inquiries revealed initially that a lot of people in the direct community thought it might’ve been firecrackers. Gunfire at 1:15 on Christmas morning?… A lot of people mistook it for firecrackers rather than what it actually was. So there’s another reason why maybe some people didn’t come forward initially when they heard it,” she said.
However, Sillitoe said, even though some time has passed since the murder, she believes those in the community can still provide the necessary information to help the Ebanks family get closure.
She added that it was important for witnesses or those with information to contact police, for the sake of the safety of the community. “Obviously, the police can only do so much, so we very much rely on people coming forward” to get justice and closure, she said, adding, “And it’s the right thing to do. … help us make your community a safer place.”
A broken family
“I lost a piece of me, sometimes I am lost, he’s my baby. I have never seen justice for him,” said Ebanks’s mother Ilene Reid, who added that losing her son is a pain she has never forgotten.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about my son,” she told the Compass in a written statement.
Reid, who lives in Jamaica, appealed to the community to come forward; if not for Ebanks, she said, then for his young children who must carry on without their father.
“It’s hard to move on, it’s very, very harsh. I think about his sons. He’s never going to see them go to school, get a job, get married. His children don’t have a dad to go fishing with, to go to the beach, to play ball. His family misses him,” she added.
Sillitoe is urging members of the community will come forward with whatever they might know about the crime and to help the Ebanks family.
“He was 29 years old, so he was still in his prime. He unfortunately leaves behind two young children, two sons who will now grow up without their father. He was a family man. He was a father, had his life ahead of him and he was literally just hanging out with his friends, doing nothing wrong, and this unfortunate incident happened, and just took his life away from him. It scarred his entire family going forward for the rest of their lives. Every Christmas will never be the same because that’s the day he died,” she added.
Anyone with information on Darrington Ebanks’s murder can call the Serious Crime Review Team at 649-2930
Police did arrest and charge a 21-year-old suspect, but he was released shortly before his trial was due to begin in June 2019 when prosecutor Greg Walcolm entered a ‘nolle prosequi’, indicating that the Crown did not intend to proceed.
Sillitoe said a lack of sufficient evidence led to the case ending the way it did, which is why “we are appealing again, more than three years later, for people to come forward and assist, so we can reactivate this again and get some closure for this family”.
Ebanks’s mother is joining the police in appealing to the public to help solve her son’s murder.
“I will never get my son to visit me with his children. People have to realise that’s wrong,” Reid said. “People with knowledge out there have to come forward for the children. What kind of conscience would they have if they don’t come forward?”
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