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KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Jamaica and West Indies cricket fraternity was Friday plunged into mourning after West Indies Under-19s manager, Gibbs Williams, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the parking lot of a medical facility in Portmore.
The 55-year-old was a member of the management team of the regional squad which toured Sri Lanka last month, and also managed the Jamaica side which swept both titles in the Cricket West Indies Under-19 Championship last July in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Media reports here said Williams was returning to his car around midday after attending the Portmore Hospital Complex in the parish of St Catherine on Jamaica’s southeastern coast, when he was shot multiple times.
He was subsequently rushed to the nearby Spanish Town Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
St Catherine police authorities said they had “ruled out robbery as a motive” and were following “strong leads”.
Williams’s murder triggered an outpouring of tributes, led by cricket’s regional governing body CWI which lamented the “sudden and tragic passing” of the GC Foster College of Physical Education & Sport vice principal.
“I share the sorrow of the entire cricket fraternity in the West Indies on the sudden and tragic passing of our men’s Under-19 team manager, Mr. Gibbs Williams,” said CWI president, Dr Kishore Shallow.
“My first interaction with Gibbs was around 2002 when he was the fitness trainer for the first-ever UWI team in the Red Stripe Bowl West Indies One Day tournament.
“Along his path, he would have positively impacted many young people across the Caribbean.”
