He once told us that there wasn’t a gun made that could kill him but apparently there was one and notorious city badman Herman ‘Yagga’ Morris was slain last night. It happened in the Bailar area at around 11 and 7NEWS was there. But we start our story not at the scene – but two years ago when the man called Yagga gave one of the most remarkable interviews from his hospital bed.
[February 15th, 2006]
Herman ‘Yagga’ Morris, Deceased
“Gun no design to kill me, they have to grab me and stab me up, if they no stab me up, they can’t kill me, you get the sense because no gun design to kill me. I get shot up with all kinds guns already.”
That was Herman Glenford Morris better known as Yagga in an interview 7NEWS conducted on February fifteenth, 2006 after he had been shot in the head. Well two years later we were back and this time Yagga did not live to tell the tale. No, he was not stabbed to death but done in by what he had claimed would never kill him - a regular handgun, a nine-millimeter pistol.
When 7NEWS arrived on the scene after eleven Thursday night, a crowd had already gathered at the entrance to Lakeview Alley just off Logwood Street in the Bailar area. It was chaotic as emotions ran high and the Police and BDF soldiers were trying to calm the situation. One of Belize City’s most notorious individuals had been executed. According to the victim’s common law wife Nikita Smith they were attending the wake of another murder victim Raymond Thompson when Yagga left her company to pick up their young children but he never returned.
Nikita Smith, Common law wife of murder victim
“Well last night when we were at the wake for the young man Quincy, a young came to tell me that my mom said to tell me that my baby woke up and he was crying but the young man didn’t meet me. I met Yagga and Yagga told me. So when he told me that, I asked him if he wanted a plate of food and he told me yes. So I told him to go ahead and get my babies and then I will bring the food. But I didn’t see where he went, I didn’t see which way he went when he went into the house for the food.
Then when I was walking on Vernon Street into Mayflower, my mom asked me if I didn’t hear the shots and I told them I didn’t hear any shots. They said it sounded like it was right through the alley, right by my cousin gate. Then a young lady came out and asked if we heard the shots through there and my mom said yes and that is when the police came. I can’t say how many shots because I don’t know. I didn’t hear any shots, not even one of the shots I heard last night.”
Yagga was shot two times once to the left side of his neck and in the center of his forehead. Yagga was riding his black and chrome bicycle through the alley when he was hit. The area was dark and at first no one knew what had happened or who was shot.
Nikita Smith,
“I even went through the alley myself. I went up and I didn’t even recognize it was him same way because when the police came and they went through the alley, the police never know about the shooting or nothing. The policeman’s foot just touched the bicycle and that is how he knew somebody was on the ground and that is when he ran back to the front and he went and asked please for a light because somebody looked like they got shot and they were through the alley right there.”
In 2006 Yagga admitted that he had a very troubled and dark life that gained him the reputation of being a notorious criminal that had been shot at least fifteen times.
[February 15th, 2006]
Herman ‘Yagga’ Morris, Deceased
“I gone through a lot of things in my past, it is not just this. This is not the first shot I get.”
Since that interview the family claims that Yagga stayed out of trouble and settled down. Smith says because everything appeared okay and there were no more attempts on his life she believe they had overcome the worse and now were proceeding with their new lease on life.
Nikita Smith,
“From 2006 since he got shot in his head and he came out and everything got better, Yagga didn’t have more problems with anyone. The enemies who I knew he had, they are friends now because anywhere the young men see him they talk to him with no problem or nothing like one time when they used to see one another and would bust shot after each other. It is not like that again because from he came out of hospital he doesn’t go anywhere, he stays home. We moved from Antelope Street and we came way here back here to Penn Road and he doesn’t give any trouble. So far Yagga and nobody have nothing, nobody and Yagga has nothing.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
But obviously somebody wanted him dead.
Nikita Smith,
“Lot of people, lot of people. I won’t say no, lots of people wanted him dead.”
At this time Belize City police do not know who did the killing but smith says from what she has been told Yagga was already on his way out of the alley but someone called him back.
Nikita Smith,
“Well the way how I see it, I won’t say they came from behind. He was already riding through the alley because it is nowhere far from my mom house and the person called him and he turned back and the same he turned back, it is like just at the back here so. I don’t know, I didn’t really see him good because when we did bring him out, when I went to see him, the police didn’t want me to see him.”
At the scene police recovered two expended nine-millimeter shells and one slug was retrieved.
Police have no suspects at this time. But investigators have noted that Morris was killed close to his mother-in-law’s home – in a neighborhood known to be hostile to outsiders. They also suspect that it may be related to last Saturday’s killing of Raymond Mark Thompson who also had ties in the Bailar area.
