“My gun is my best friend we are always together, always,” said another entry.

But he seemed weary of being portrayed as a murder.

“Who are they to sit and pass judgement on me are they themselves innocent. I am just a simple man with the desire to live.

“I am a man with many issues, some good some bad but I am a person, yes a man with emotions, feelings and fears and dreams a man who knows God,” said another diary entry.

When Cedric Murray migrated to the US in the early 1990s, the two gangs in operation in north west St James, where he lived at the time, were the Renegades, which was based in Norwood/Glendevon, his home district; and the Piranha, which was based in the neighbouring Bottom Pen.

Initially, both gangs were involved in cross-border incursions with knives, machetes, and stones as the weapons of choice.

Many of the early ‘gangsters’ ended up in prison after being convicted on wounding charges. Over time, the Renegades became the dominant gang.

However, pressure from the police, the fear of prison, and easy illegal drug money resulted in many of the pioneer gangsters running away to America.

A source – a former gangster – familiar with the Renegades believes that Murray, fresh out of St James High, mi

ght have migrated in that exodus.

With the early gangsters either in America or locked away in the local prison system, their replacements, who were mostly teenagers, renamed the gang the Stone Crushers, signalling the beginning of an era of unprecedented lawlessness in St James.

Bloody page

With guns – many coming directly from founding members in the United States – replacing the knives, machetes, and stones of their predecessors, the Stone Crusher gang opened up a bloody page in the criminal history of St James, starting in 2000.

The new gangsters unleashed a murderous onslaught, not only against their perennial enemies, the Piranha ga

ngsters, but against anyone who crossed their path.

“He (‘Doggie’) was in America when the Stone Crushers started,” the former gangster told The Sunday Gleaner.

“In one of the wars, his brother, who went by the name Prince, was killed.”

Murray was deported from the United States shortly after the gang was renamed Stone Crushers, and he quickly integrated himself in the criminal organisation.

The former gangster said at first, Doggie’s primary motivation was to avenge the death of his brother.

“He came back with blood in his eyes,” the former gangster said. “He was already a stepper (murderer) in America, no stranger to killing people.”

While rubbing shoulders with the likes of former Stone Crusher leaders Delano ‘Bigga Crime’ Williams, Michael ‘Lassie’ Forbes, Garfield ‘Don’ Sawyers, Richard ‘Blacks’ Lawn, and Rohan ‘Don’ Gordon, Doggie quickly developed a reputation as a killer.

ST JAMES murder count

It is believed that he figured prominently in taking the murder count in St James past the 100 mark for the first time in 2001.

Since then, the parish has consistently recorded more than 100 murders each year.

While gangsters such as Bigga Crime became notorious for beheading their victims, especially ‘Lotto Scammers’ who resisted their extortion demands, Murray specialised in contract killings.

“He wasn’t into the day-to-day gang war, and he wasn’t into the killing of women and children,” the former gangster said. “He was more into contract killing and extortion.”

While Murray reportedly spent most of his time travelling around the island as a contract killer, the other notorious Montego Bay gangsters such as Bigga Crime, Lassie, and Blacks primarily stayed in the parish where they attracted the attention of the cops and quickly topped the most-wanted list in St James.

“As soon as they became wanted, the police increased the pressure on them,” the former gangster said.

Doggie was also added to the police’s most-wanted list as the allegations mounted against him.

“I have to rise above my circumstances. I just can’t lay down. I am now in exiled while babylon a curfew every where,” Doggie wrote in the diary,

Within a three-year span, all of the top men, except for Doggie, were killed in alleged confrontations with the police.

“I have seen all my friends killed by the police in cold blood or shoot out. I make no excuse for my past. I am a real gangster hard-core … . Babylon has labelled me a threat to the society because they cant kill me and the people love me,” said a diary entry.

With the St James police hot on his trail, Doggie, along with other Stone Crusher gangsters including Eldon Calvert, a prominenet enforcer, found refuge in the west Kingston stronghold of Tivoli Gardens where they were welcomed with open arms by fellow gangsters.

In his diary, Doggie declared his love and respect for then west Kingston strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

“My don (Dudus) is free. I will always say Jim Brown (Coke’s father). I am loyal to the Coke family and my gun will always be ready,” Doggie wrote.

Intelligence-driven incursion

The Stone Crushers’ presence in Tivoli led to an intelligence-driven incursion into the west Kingston community by the security forces in January 2008.

Key inside sources told The Sunday Gleaner that the operation was primarily to capture Calvert. Top-ranking Tivoli leaders were negotiating Calvert’s release to the security forces in an effort to avoid a confrontation.

Calvert and Doggie made their escape almost simultaneously as other major figures in the west Kingston community were driving out minutes before the security forces stormed the house where they were reportedly staying.

Five civilians were killed and a member of the Jamaica Defence Force injured in the Sunday morning incursion.

Calvert, who remained at the top of the police’s most-wanted list, was eventually captured in an upscale apartment in the rustic community of Wood Grove in St James. He was wanted in connection with several counts of murders and shootings, and had a $1 million bounty placed on his head before he was held.

Doggie, without the company of Calvert, remained on the run and took refuge with like-minded thugs in the Corporate Area. He continued to frequent Tivoli Gardens, but his relationship with the west Kingston gangsters was somewhat strained as reports swirled that he had issued death threats to a St James JLP member of Parliament.

“The politician that say I threaten him … . I have never seen him face to face or ever spoken to him and I am no gang member or leader. I am being used to clean their slate,” said an entry in the reported Doggie diary.

Recruitment frenzy

Murray’s loyalty to the Coke family, coupled with his desire to regain the trust of gangsters on the ground in Tivoli Gardens, pushed him into a major recruitment frenzy. He convinced members of the Stone Crusher gang to travel to Kingston to help to defend Dudus against the security forces last May.

The recruited men and high-powered rifles owned by the Stone Crusher gang were taken to Tivoli Gardens.

“Invasion of Tivoli Garden by babylon the enemy, gun shots rang out from every corner of West Kingston and other places of KGN to protect the man Don of all Dons. Christopher Coke, AKA Dudus,” Doggie wrote of the May 24, 2010 incursion.

“The man they came after is still free and safe, my Don and friend always. It was a raging gun battle a day I won’t forget and such tragedy for Jamaica more than 75 people dies by babylon, man, baby and woman.

“I escape one of the last from where I was under crazy gun fire, but God grace, mercy brought me out untouched and my Don is free,” added Doggie.

Days later, another diary entry speaks to a close brush with the law.

“Dem come 4:00 a.m pure men but we escape. I have never made such an escape before.”

That was after the arrest of Coke, an incident which seemed to touch Doggie.

“I am deeply affected but he is still and always will be my Don. I now wonder what with both brothers in jail (‘Dudus’ and ‘Levity’) and TG (Tivoli Gardens) in a state of confusion what’s next with babylon, also can me a wanted man ever return … . But still TG will build back,” a June 22 diary entry said.

Suicide

Several of the men who accompanied Doggie to Tivoli are not accounted for, and he seemed resigned to die.

“My days is coming. If my friends do it it will be quick but if is babylon it will be a day of war … . Every day I regret how this all began, sometimes I just want to pull the trigger (and commit suicide),” another diary entry said.

But it appeared love for his woman and children, mentioned several times in the diary, was one of the factors which prevented the gangster from taking his life.

“Me and my son … is chilling. I just put him to sleep, he is six months old and he has never slept beside me one night since he was born, my life is very very intense but I must always find time for them, even a hour,” a diary entry said.

That entry was one of several in which Doggie spoke of his loneliness before and after the Tivoli incursion.

It seemed worse after some of his cronies were killed in the incursion, although he made no specific reference to those killed.

But a former Stone Crusher member is certain that many were among the victims of that almost weeklong gun battle.

“Those who went to war in Tivoli have not returned, and I suspect most of them were killed,” said the former gangster.

“There are many families here (St James) with missing relatives, but they are not talking about it.”

With Murray now dead, and the Stone Crusher gang with no clear leader for the first time since its formation, it appears that its members are in retreat.

It is widely believed that while there are many youngsters who would like to prolong the gang’s tradition, they simply lack the capacity – financial resources, influence, and weapons to make a stand.

“Now is the right time for the State to move in with some good social-intervention measure to get the youth involved in gainful activities,” said the former gangster.

“If the State moves fast, Doggie’s death could also be the Stone Crushers’ death.”

But from the grave comes a warning from Doggie’s diary:

“But if death should befall me just remember while you murder me go home and look at your kids and wonder how perfect are they in an imperfect world.

“Will your child one day become what I have been accused of. Run along Mr and Miss perfect because you are just a vampire you are worst than me,” wrote Doggie in one of his final entries in the diary.

‘I have seen all my friends killed by the police in cold blood or shoot out. I make no excuse for my past. I am a real gangster hard-core … Babylon has labelled me a threat to the society because they cant kill me and the people love me.’

‘I have to rise above my circumstances. I just can’t lay down. I am now in exiled while babylon a curfew every where.’

‘Invasion of Tivoli Garden by babylon the enemy, gun shots rang out from every corner of West Kingston and other places of KGN to protect the man Don of all Dons. Christopher Coke, AKA Dudus.’

‘I escape one of the last from where I was under crazy gun fire, but God grace, mercy brought me out untouched and my Don is free.’